Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Honestly, the first time it happened to Bruce (as his little cubs would later name him) was a fluke.

Bruce's species navigates between the lines of the human world and the world beyond, never really settling anywhere. They just wander and eat and sleep and repeat the same thing over and over again, they are... a kind of creature with no real purpose other than to exist.

He had been long asleep, had lain down at the roots of what had once been a tree sapling, deciding to take a nap that could last anywhere from a couple of days to whole decades. Time runs differently for creatures that have no fixed end.

When they sleep, creatures like him simply shrink, compress their whole body, all their mouths, all their eyes, their arms, their feathers and everything else, until they are able to go unnoticed.

What awakens him from his slumber is a steady thud of thumping against his shelter. In his dream, the sapling has grown into a mature tree, growing around him, until it forms a cocoon of wood that covers him on all sides. It doesn't bother him, it's dark, small and dry, quite comfortable.

Something is knocking at his shelter from outside. He lies still, but tenses, irritated by the rude and unexpected awakening, but doesn't move, maybe whatever that sound is will be over soon and he can go back to sleep.

For a while longer before the whole tree seems to shake, buckle and creak and his little shelter opens as the tree trunk hits the ground.

Finally he gets up, to see what all the fuss is about.

There is a human being next to the trunk, holding a shiny, sharp metal weapon, and in response, he decompresses.

His countless legs, eyes, ears and teeth become visible as he stretches out, while the human screams and lunges at him with the shiny thing, jabbing it into his body and causing him pain.

It-that-skin-stealer, which so far was just stretching its body harmlessly, gets angry. And it attacks the human's open mouth.

There's a bit of resistance as it pushes through its throat, but it only needs to dig a little further. There's a bit of a funny sound as bones grind and muscles tear, but soon blood, flesh and bones are gone and that's all that's left, standing on a human skin.

Is satisfied by a good meal, it will be many human years before he has to eat again.

That feels the familiar flush of images and sounds that were once skin and are now his. He quickly discards them, now that he has eaten he can take the opportunity to move to a new place.

He is about to discard this skin (after all, he has no use for it) when one of the remaining images catches his eye.

It is the image of a human hatchling, accompanied by what he knows is its sound of nonconformity. Humans call it "crying." 

That-skin-stealer doesn't abandon the skin, but scrolls through the images and sounds of the hatchling some more, and realizes that the skin it has eaten was the hatchling's guardian.

Oh.

Has eaten humans on many occasions. It's not it only food source, as it eats anything with a skin, but in general whether by chance of fate or something else, it has never eaten a human or animal or another thing that has a nest with young.

It seems that the skin was its only caretaker.

He thinks of what happens to baby birds whose parents leave the nest never to return and a twinge of discomfort makes him uneasy. If the caretaker of the human hatchling does not return by nightfall, the hatchling will get cold and hungry, and chirp to call its parents, but after a time when they do not return, it will die of cold and hunger and dry up until there is nothing left.

hmmm...

What should it do?

Look at the skin he has put on. knows he must look exactly the same as the human hatchling keeper. Surely he won't know the difference. After all, it's the way it's made to be.

How hard must it be to raise a human hatchling? At least until the hatchling  is able to feed itself.

He has the memories of skin and everything skin knew how to do, now it can do. That's how his form works, if he had eaten a fox, he would know how to dig dens, by eating a human, he knows how to read, talk and write and everything the skin he is wearing knew how to do.

Picks up the weapon he was attacked with earlier and swings it quickly and efficiently at the tree trunk. Newly acquired knowledge tells him that he needs firewood to start a fire in the human house, that that was the main reason the skin had come out in the first place.

Soon he has some firewood piled up.

Thinks one last time about tossing the pelt and just walking away, and quickly dismisses it. it'll take responsibility for the calf until it can take care of itself and then it'll leave. It shouldn't be too difficult.

The skin reminds the path to the human den. it puts the firewood in the area called the shed, and then goes to look for the hatchling.

Rummages through the skin's memories to find out where he left it.

'I'll go get firewood, child' says the skin's voice, sounding angry 'you will fill the jars with water from the well, got it?'

'y-yes' says the trembling, soft voice of a human hatchling, in the age range where they are considered small children.

'yes?' the voice of the skin it is now wearing, almost screams.

'I-I mean, y-yes Mr. Cobb.'

The voice of his skin snorts with annoyance.

'if by the time I have returned, the jars are not full I...' the skin does not finish its statement, but raises its hand and the small hatchling shrinks.

Then the skin turns around, picks up the axe and goes into the forest.

That-which-steals-skin frowns, sensing that something is not right about the skin's memories. He shakes his head and shrugs, advancing to where he has left the brood with the empty water jars.

He's made good progress with the duty he was given, thinks the thing-who-steals-skin, but he hasn't finished the job. The child is soaked from head to toe, struggling with a bucket of water spanning his arms, obviously heavy and not the right tool for such a small hatchling to carry, he drags the object the meters separating the well from the jar to the side of the house and climbs onto a small stool pulling hard on the bucket to try to throw it over the edge and fill the jar with water.

He doesn't apply enough force and loses almost half of the trip, which soaks him again and spills on the ground. He hears a noise from the hatchling, which his skin memories tell him is called "sobbing."

The thing-that-steals-skin senses that there is something wrong with the sight.

It thinks and thinks, but still can't quite place what is wrong. it will leave the thinking for later.

rushes over to the shivering hatchling to get another bucket of water from the well.

The hatchling sees him and jumps up, rushes to pull the rope that ties to the bucket, obviously overexerting himself.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Cobb!" explains the hatchling quickly "I won't be long to finish the job, I promise!"

The thing-that-steals-skin looks at the half-filled jar, and realizes that's what's wrong with the sight.

It's not a job for a hatchling.

Takes the bucket of water from the trembling hands of the hatchling, in three strides is close to the jar, and effortlessly puts the water where it should go. He goes back to the well, throws the bucket to the bottom, where it fills quickly and brings it back up, repeating the process until ten buckets of water later, the jar is perfectly full.

The human hatchling shrinks more tightly with each trip that skin-stealer makes to the well. It is soaking wet and shivering, making an effort to hide the "sobs".

That-which-steals-skin stands in front of the human hatchling and stares at it.

"s-sir, please, I'm sorry..."

"you're cold" it interrupts "you're shivering so much."

The hatchling is clearly not warm enough. That-which-steal-skin knows it's the cold season before winter, the time when the leaves fall... "autumn" say the memories of her human skin.

He's not the kind of hatchling that has fur or feathers to protect him, so he can't understand why he's so bare, only wearing a flimsy shirt that's completely soaked through, equally wet shorts, and no footwear.

"n-no sir, I'm fine... I'm a man, I can take it."

Definitely not a "man" he's barely a hatchling, not long ago he should have learned to walk.

"let's go inside, it's late."

The human child waits for that-skin-stealer to take the first steps into the house and then timidly follows him. Once they are inside, he orders the child.

"go change."

The little hatchling looks surprised for a moment and then nods goes to one of the rooms to hopefully do as he has been instructed.

It-that-steals-skin uses the wood it has accumulated to light the fireplace and then the kitchen fire. It lets its skin move on its own with muscle memory. The skin knows how to make food for the smaller brood so it simply lets  memory do the work. It peels potatoes and vegetables, pulls out some meat, bread and other things that the human hatchling will eat.

The human hatchling reappears shortly after with dry clothes and an inexplicably suspicious look on its face.

"sit by side the fire, you need warmth" she says and the child jumps again, but obeys, sitting on the small rug in front of the fireplace.

The pot of soup is on the stove and that-steals-skin sits waiting.

begins to scroll through the memories of the skin he is wearing, to look for the explanation for the behavior of the smaller hatchling. He can see the images of the skin taking care of the child after its progeny parents died, he can see it yelling at the hatchling not to cry, that it is "a man," he can see it hitting, screaming and neglecting the little chick who goes from an outgoing, vibrant chick to a shy, withdrawn hatchling, waiting all the while for a beating.

Just doesn't get it.

If the skin it's wearing didn't like the hatchling, why hurt it?, wouldn't it be better, to raise it properly, nurture it so it can grow fast and strong, so it can feed and care for itself faster and fly out of the nest more easily?

It seems a useless thing to make a chick unable to grow.

Soon the hatchling's food is ready. Again it seems surprised to receive such minimal care.

"t-thank you sir."

nods in response to the child, encouraging it to eat with a gesture.

The human hatchling empties the plate in a very short time. He seems to debate whether it's worth running his fingers over the dirty plate to get the tiniest scraps of food and it-that-skin-stealer simply offers another plate.

"b-but...I-I didn't earn it, sir."

He simply shrugs and offers the once again full plate to her.

"a-aren't you going to eat, sir?"

"I'm not hungry."

He won't be hungry for many years.

The human hatchling hesitates and looks at him with open suspicion, but that-which-steal-skin remains calm and collected. However, the hatchling does not refuse food and returns to feeding, though this time it is slower, without the rush of hunger.

New images of the skin come to its mind. Human hatchlings need food, shelter and interaction with other hatchlings of his species to grow healthy and gain the strength to fly from the nest. Right now, this little hatchling "Richard" remember the voice says, or "Dick" as the boy calls himself, has a home, but lacks objects of shelter and interaction with more human hatchlings. He hasn't been to "school" since the skin has had him in its care, that-skin-stealer knows he needs to get back there.

There's a twinge of thought that tells him this is more work than he imagined, but he quickly dismisses it.

He'll be fine.

Chapter Text

Dick doesn't like Grandpa Cobb. Dick doesn't like a lot of things after his parents were in an accident and died. He didn't like it when the police took him away from his home with the circus, and he doesn't like where he is living now.

Dick had thought, had hoped, that his grandfather would be kind to him. Like his parents, well, maybe not like them, because no one would ever replace them, but he hoped his dad's dad would be kind to him, because, where else did his dad learn to be kind and good?

He doesn't like his stupid rules. He doesn't like having to "earn" the right to anything, the right to eat, to sleep, to have new clothes (he still hasn't managed to earn the right to a winter coat, and he needs it badly), he doesn't like that he can't cry when he remembers his parents and the last time he saw them alive, and he especially doesn't like that he didn't let him keep his memories of them, the pictures and the gifts and his stuffed elephant.

He's angry, so angry.

But he's also scared. Scared of all the yelling, of all the violence, of the chores he's never done before that Grandpa Cobb refuses to teach him how to do so he has an excuse to beat him when he inevitably fails.

He doesn't like how familiar he has become with pain, with spanking, spanking and pinching...and god, how he hates the damn pinching.

Winter is coming and Dick hasn't been able to earn the coat he was obviously going to need to survive the cold in a freezing cabin far from town and with no heat other than the fireplace. there's technology, for god's sake, why do they live like it's the middle ages!!!?

The bucket he has to use to carry the water from the well to the tank is too big for his hands and the bucket slips every time, he is sure that he has spilled more water than he has managed to store and he is wet from head to toe, his hands and legs are shaking and he keeps chattering. When he feels his grandfather's hurried, heavy footsteps, he knows he's in for another beating.

He hurries to draw the last trip of water from the well as he apologizes.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Cobb!" explains the calf quickly "I don't have long to finish!"

He lifts his tearful gaze to his grandfather and feels himself freeze.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

There's something really wrong there.

His...grandfather?...stares at him, he's fine...he looks very similar but his eyes don't sparkle and his frown that always remains furrowed is relaxed into a sort of emotionless face.

Dick doesn't know what's going on, but there is something impossibly different about his grandfather. The older man's gaze remains fixed on him and he can't help but feel tiny.

"s-sir, please, I'm sorry..."

"you're cold" interrupts his... grandfather? "you're shivering so much."

"n-no sir, I'm fine... I'm a man, I can take it."

"let's go inside, it's late"

Dick waits for his... grandfather? to start walking inside the cabin. He looks around. how far could he get if he starts running now?

Unfortunately he knows that the nearest town is a couple of hours away and people know his... grandfather? people will return him here without hesitation.

When he stops looking around for somewhere to run he can see his... grandfather? looking at him from the door of the hut, beckoning him to come in. He knows his short, bare feet won't get him anywhere.

He enters submissively behind... grandfather.

His... grandpa?, sends him to change his clothes and orders him to sit in front of the fireplace to warm up while he cooks. This is too weird. Grandpa has never been so kind to Dick, not even at his parents' funeral when he wouldn't let him cry because that wasn't something "men" do.

Dick is a child and doesn't have all the words yet, he doesn't know how to express what is happening. He can only see that the one who left a few hours ago was Grandpa Cobb, and the one who came back was another Grandpa Cobb. The other Grandpa Cobb gives him food twice and asks him if he would like to go back to school next year.

Needless to say, Dick has a huge problem that night falling asleep, in addition to his usual problem of nightmares where he sees over and over again his parents die in the accident that killed them. This time the nightmare that accompanies him is in the form of his grandfather Cobb but his face is blurred and distorted, a bunch of black lines on the skin as when he scribbles on a drawing.

Dick's world goes round and round for the next few days.

The other Grandpa Cobb takes him to the nearest town and gets him clothes, shoes and a coat. Dick can't understand, he can't.

This other grandpa reminds him of his dad.

Well, not quite, his dad was cheerful and kind, always with a warm word meant for Dick, just like his mom always had a hug ready for him.

This grandfather... he wasn't so overtly affectionate. He was rather stiff, his movements a bit odd, as if he were a stiff-jointed puppet, like the one the circus ventriloquist always had. But he's gentle where the first grandpa was gruff and angry, stroking his head gently, helping him tie his shoelaces in the mornings, giving him food when he's hungry, taking him to the park to "interact with other human hatchlings" or whatever that means.

That's another thing... this grandpa uses suchoooo weird words.

He calls it "hatchling", he calls the school "institute for the education of human hatchlings" and in general... he's so bad at playing pretend grandpa that it's kind of funny sometimes.

As he stops being afraid of his new granddaddy and getting beaten and yelled at, he starts to relax a bit. His new grandpa doesn't make him do difficult jobs, and when Dick doesn't know something, it is explained to him calmly until he understands. He doesn't leave him alone in the cabin when he has to go get firewood in the woods, but allows Dick to follow him and explore, as long as he stays at an appropriate distance from his sight.

That's when he randomly starts crying.

Dick doesn't know what caused it. He wants to stop, he'll be eating raspberries from the bushes and suddenly he'll feel a lot of pain in his heart and start sobbing and then crying and won't stop until he's tired and puffy eyed.

the new grandpa looks so bewildered...he has tried to stop his crying by giving him food, wrapping him in blankets and finally running his hands gently and shakily over his back and hair, comforting him. he always asks if Dick is hurt, looking for some scratch or cut that would cause such pain.

Dick has tried to explain that his heart hurts, but only succeeded in being taken to the doctor, fearing illness. When what he means is that his heart hurts every time he thinks of his parents while trying to enjoy some quiet, fun time. There's that awful sinking feeling of sadness and loneliness that won't let him laugh quietly.

"Do you need me to take you back to the doctor?" asks his other grandpa with a worried look, in the air around him lingers that feeling and uneasiness since he arrived months ago, but it's not so scary anymore.

"NOOOOOOO!" cries the little boy in tears "I'm not sick, grandpa!" he sobs loudly "it hurts, but I have no wounds!"

It is the first time he has seen his other grandfather seem indecisive about what to do. he always seemed to have an answer when he showed some kind of discomfort. hungry?, he prepared food, cold? He would give him blankets and light the fireplace, but crying? he starts shaking restlessly not knowing what to do, looking for wounds that didn't exist and asking silly questions like "rate your pain from 1 to 10".

It would be funny if Dick wasn't so sad and angry.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

That-steals-skin looks at the little human hatchling crying in pain. What has he done wrong?, where is the hatchling hurt?, he can swear he has done his job as best he can, he has fed and given his hatchling all the attention that memories show is necessary for it to grow up healthy and happy.

But now his little hatchling insists he has pain in his chest, but insists it is not the fault of any illness or injury. so what is it? what could cause him such pain? has he had some encounter with a witch or spirit that cursed him to suffer? if so, that-steals-skin will get rid of whoever has caused pain to the brood he is responsible for and destroy the curse at its root.

He needs help from other human parents.

There is a neighbor, a few miles away. An old man retired from the military. William Cobb was never very close to him, but their relationship was cordial at best and they didn't hesitate to ask each other for help in the rare moments when they needed it. Alfred Pennyworth is his name. That-steals-skins look into the memories of the skin he wears that the man was a father and has a grown daughter who doesn't live with him, but visits from time to time.

He is a human father who already has experience in successfully raising human offspring and may have something useful to say about his own offspring's phantom ailments.

Once Dick feels better enough to go back to school, he heads all the way to his neighbor's cabin.

Mr. Pennyworth 'you may call me Alfred, Mr. Cobb' greets him cordially and invites him in for a cup of tea, as he ushers him inside his dwelling. His house is small, just enough for one person to live in comfortably.

"I have a couple of questions to ask you, if it's not too much trouble" that-steals-skin has started to get much better at interacting with other humans. Formal, straightforward conversations are much easier than idle chitchat

"go ahead" says the old man, taking a sip of his tea, appreciatively.

"it's about my grandson, the child I took in after... his parents passed away."

The skins's memories are sparse about the interaction between the skin and his previous offspring before Dick. He doesn't remember him much, apparently William Cobb's nest mate left home and took her brood with him and the skin never bothered to supervise its growth. He has no knowledge of proper chick rearing, so he's been pretty much useless in that regard for that-skin-stealer.

"he's been fine so far" he says, ignoring the memories of the fear and neglect of the skin he stole with the hatchling, before he... left "but lately he's been complaining of pain and crying at anything... I've taken him to the doctor, but he says he's not hurt. I'm...not quite sure what to do. I didn't raise my own son and I'm too old for this. I don't want to ruin him anymore."

The old man in front of him sets his cup gently down on the saucer on the table.

"I understand Mr. William" says Mr. Alfred calmly and patiently "that little Richard lost his parents in an unfortunate accident during one of his functions."

That-skin-stealer nods.

"And after a brief period in social services, he was placed in their care with only the clothes on his back."

He nods again.

"He's been better now. I've gotten everything he needs and I think he feels safer with me, but... I don't know how to deal with these crying spells and I'm afraid I'm making everything worse."

"you see, Mr. William...when my wife passed away, my daughter was quite young. Not as young as little Richard, but she was definitely still a child. she was saddened by the loss of her mother and no matter how much I comforted her, she mourned her for a long time. Which is natural and healthy. I think what's happening with Richard is the same thing, he's just mourning."

Mourning...the loss of his parents? mourning?

"I guess he hadn't felt safe enough to properly mourn the loss of his home" at that statement that-skin-stealer gets a deep look in his direction "and now that he can do it, all the pain of losing his parents is finally coming out."

"uh..." Says that-steals-skin. Sounds like a lot of complicated stuff he didn't have to worry about when it was just him, sleeping in the roots of a tree in the woods "what should I do to make it stop?"

"on the contrary Mr. William" Mr. Alfred goes back to filling the cups with hot tea "it is not advisable to stop him from mourning his deceased parents. Just give him comfort, allow him to remember them. He's crying because he knows they won't come back, but his heart still can't accept it."

"then... will he be hurt forever?"

Mr. Alfred's sharp gaze looks at him with curiosity, that which steals skins feels a mix between suspicion and empathy. He has no intention of harming this human, but if it presents a threat to him or his brood... well, he has to take care of it. Luckily, that's not what happens.

"it's likely to hurt for the rest of his life" nods the elderly human "but over time the pain lessens and doesn't encompass as much or cause him as much suffering. Although if it starts to become too much, it might be good for him to get psychological help...it would teach him how to deal with his grief in a healthy way. But for now, the best thing you can do is let him grieve and provide comfort."

"Comfort?"

Mr. Alfred's gaze deepens.

"hugs...some hot chocolate...a fluffy blanket...a stuffed animal or objects from Richard's parents for him to remember them fondly..."

Oh... oh!

that-skin-stealer finally get the point!

He's a chick who will keep calling his parents until he realizes on his own that they're not coming back and decides to move on. If he takes the advice of this experienced human parent, he should get some comfort objects that come from his former nest so that the chick can be comforted.

He is actually a bit relieved that his brood is not sick.

He thanks Mr. Alfred for his help.

"No problem Mr. William" replies the elderly human "I am available for any help you need. Feel free to come to me."

"oh... thank you"

He leaves the human's hut and heads towards his own. Dick comes home from school in good spirits and after eating a snack and resting for a while, he sits down at the small desk in the corner of the room to do his homework. He is a very smart boy and hardly asks for help, so that-skin-staler leaves him alone.

Once the boy finishes his homework he asks to watch some TV, something he readily agrees to, and they end the evening watching cartoons about a strange dog taking care of two elderly humans on a farm in the middle of nowhere.

Once night falls and he makes sure Dick is sound asleep, he closes the door to Cobb's room and quickly sheds the skin. He keeps it inside the closet (and locks the closet door, he doesn't want to risk the brood seeing his skin suit for any reason) and then goes out the window.

He melts easily into the shadows that have always been his home. It follows Dick's old scent trail, scents that could not be detected even by the best hunting dogs, because  are too old. But for that-which-steals-skin it is simple, to follow a scent that exists only in the past, heading for the former brood's nest.

It's far enough away from the hut that is its current home, but not far enough for that-that-which-steals-skin to give up. If he moves fast enough, he'll be back home before dawn, just in time to give his brood their morning meal.

He arrives at the circus camp without a sound. It's late enough that everyone is asleep, except for a few who act as security guards, scouring the RVs and tents for ragamuffins trespassing on the property without permission. He deftly dodges them, scavenging the place while following the scent of his calf.

In one of the tents he finds what he is looking for. There is a large trunk, which smells of his calf and two others. Probably his progeny parents. he quietly opens it and sees that its interior is full of objects and costumes and posters showing the little brood next to his two parents posing with colorful costumes and a huge smile.

He gently closes the lid, opens his mouth taking care to hide the rows and rows of teeth... and swallows the trunk in one bite.

Then, before anyone can notice, he disappears back into the darkness.

He slips through the same window he came out of. He turns around, about to open his mouth to spit out his precious cargo when he sees Dick, who was apparently tucked between the sheets of his bed forming a small bundle, jerk up from the noises he made as he entered the house and freeze with his eyes wide open.

Crap.

That-skin-stealer has never gotten smaller so fast. It shrinks its body to the size of a large dog, a ball of darkness with a pair of small spikes on the sides of its head and glowing white eyes. it hides anything that might be harmful to its young. He looks at the door, supposedly locked and sees that Dick probably forced it with a hook, after all, the locks are not particularly complicated. He looks at the cupboard and sighs in relief when he sees that it has not been opened.

Looks like he'll have to leave the brood sooner than he supposed.

"... g-grandpa?" says the brood in an unsure voice, wrapping the blankets around the bed as a flimsy shield against him.

That-skin-stealer shakes his head, nodding.

"a-are you the other Grandpa Cobb?"

Another one?

"uh...is that what you look like when you don't look like Grandpa?"

That-skin-stealer freezes. can he recognize it?, how??, he'd never before shed the skin he'd worn in the months he'd been caring for the little human hatchling.

"you look... small."

That-skin-stealer may be big... very big. But he's not going to show how big to the little hatchling. He doesn't want to scare it. he should already be screaming and running around like all humans do and sometimes other things that see it in its true image.

"Where... were you?" keeps talking his little human hatchling "I had a nightmare and I wanted to sleep next to you...but you were gone."

The hatchling begins to sob. he would like to put on his skin quickly to bring him comfort but he definitely can't put it on while he is watching. He doesn't want to give him nightmare material instead of comfort.

"I thought you left me" cries the pup "Where did you go?"

That-skin-stealer can't talk unless it's in a human form, so it can't answer... but it can show him.

He turns around so the hatchling can't see him open his mouth and quickly spits out the load he brought from the circus.

Then he pushes it in Dick's direction with his little paws.

The hatchling hesitates for a moment. But finally he crawls out of the cocoon of blankets and crawls until he recognizes the Trunk. Then he practically throws himself off the bed and hugs the thing.

"this is Mom and Dad's!" cries Dick, a mix of joy and sadness echoing in his voice "it's the trunk where we kept our stuff at the circus!"

That-skin-stealer nods.

Dick opens the lid and cries.

He starts pulling things out of the trunk as his crying increases in intensity. He cries at the posters, cries at the pictures, hugs and cries at the Flying Grayson costume and the old elephant-shaped stuffed animal.

Bruce doesn't move, following Mr. Alfred's advice about letting the brood cry and call the parents who won't be back.

What he doesn't expect is for the little calf to hug him instead of running away as it cries on his night-black fur.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"I was so afraid I'd forget my parents' faces!" cries the little boy "the other grandpa wouldn't let me keep the pictures or bring anything back from the circus...!"

Oh... wow, that sounded like a pointlessly cruel thing to do.

"At least...now I have enough to remember mom and dad."

That-skin-stealer purrs in consolation, seeking to soothe his pup's crying. The infant cuddles it for long minutes until its crying subsides. 

Dick puts all the memories back  delicately and reverently, setting aside the stuffed elephant to which he clings tightly.

Then it-skin-stealer carries the trunk up to the brood's room and leaves it at the foot of her bed.

"You won't take it away from me, will you?"

It-skin-stealer shakes his head.

"I like you a lot better than Grandpa Cobb" he finally says with a smile "even if you are a little scary."

It-steals-skin shrinks back.

"I'm so hungry after crying" states Dick "feed me".

It-steals-skin is surprised by the hatchling's confidence and lack of fear, but he's not going to complain. He points his head towards the kitchen, as a way of asking it to wait for him there. Dick obeys and that-fur-stealer quickly returns to the room, locks the door and quickly puts on the human skin.

Then he returns to the kitchen where Dick is sitting at his chosen stool, apparently waiting for breakfast.

"you looked like grandpa again!" he says in surprise "can you shape-shift?"

"a little" that-fur-stealer is unwilling to explain to the brood how he manages to look like his grandfather "you don't need to worry about that."

Fortunately, Dick doesn't press for answers. It-steals-skin offers him a nice bowl of cereal along with some fruit and orange juice and the boy focuses on eating, still not letting go of the stuffed elephant.

"why don't you eat?" he asks after a few bites.

"no... I need as much food as a... human" it feels weird to admit his inhumanity even if the human child already knows it "I won't be hungry for a long time."

The child looks fascinated... that-skin-stealer doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

He nods and continues eating sometimes sobbing a little but much less volatile.

"What's your name?" he blurts out after finishing his cereal and halfway through eating the banana that it-roba-pieles sliced up for him "if you're not Grandpa Cobb I should call you by your real name."

"uh... actually I don't have a name, I'm called whatever the person I am now is called... I think"

"no" denies the boy "you need a name "I can't keep calling you 'other Grandpa Cobb', you're much nicer than he is"

"if that's what you want..."

There's something about It-steals-skin that gets happy about being identified as a creature different from the skin it wears. Usually when he interacts with others, it's always through a stolen-skin disguise. Having a proper name attached to himself is... something new... different... but he doesn't think it's all bad.

"I'll think of something good" says the boy excitedly "something that fits you well".

"it's okay, take your time".

The following questions reflect a bit of that childish curiosity. It-skin-stealer manages to deflect the questions and answer with only a few clipped and censored responses. It doesn't need the child to think or have nightmares about its more...violent nature.

He must admit that the fact that his brood knows the truth (as much as possible) makes things easier for that-steal-skin. He doesn't have to fake some of the less pleasant aspects of William Cobb, and his brood has agreed to be his. Not Cobb's, his.

He's a little excited to have a calf of his own.

Now that the lie is gone, Dick comes to him much more easily. He still cries and wails and there are days when he is too sad, but now it's more good days and he has made friends with other human hatchlings at school, and plays and smiles freely.

He has also made a habit of nesting next to that-steal-skin in the evenings. Bring her blanket and her plush elephant and sleep next to him. Most of the time he will wait outside the room, until he sheds and hides Cobb's skin before lying down next to his darker, smaller form.

"What do you think Bruce?"

"Bruce?" asks that-skin-robber "Who?"

"you dummy" laughs Dick "your name."

"okay... why?"

"i don't know... when you're small and dark and purr sometimes your voice sounds like 'bbbbrrrrrsssssssssssss' or something... it just came to me"

"never mind...I like it...you picked it out for me."

"really?" says his hatchling, excitedly, leaning back against him as he snuggles into the arms of not Cobb anymore, but 'Bruce' "well... nice to meet you Bruce"

"likewise little human."

The little human hatchling quickly fell asleep. And now 'Bruce' savored his new name. His little human hatchling had given him a part of himself by naming him and it was fitting that he should give him something of his own in return, wasn't it?

lets out a small part of itself through William Cobb's skin, carefully, because once the skin is damaged, the skin cannot self-repair wounds (there is nothing living like blood and platelets) and rips a feather from his fur, and placed it between his little human pup's hair until it sank quickly into the boy's skull, causing no damage or disturbance to his sleep. A part of himself so that Dick would never be alone or helpless.

In time, he would receive some of his power. He couldn't wait to see what it would be.

Chapter Text

Time passes much more slowly for Bruce, now that he has decided to exist as a human for a while.

His previous existence was simpler, eating, sleeping, moving from time to time, it was hard to notice time spent on anything other than the growth of trees and human settlements.

Now, compressed most of the time in a human skin, he could notice the small changes that could happen in hours or days, as well as the slow but steady growth of his brood.

He began to grow taller, to make friends, he began to try to explore his environment on his own, to find a place in the world outside his nest. It was... natural, what all hatchlings of all species do. He was surprised to realize that the relief of suddenly being relieved of his strenuous care was nowhere to be found.

Every time his hatchling learned to do something on his own and stopped needing Bruce's help to perform a task, there was a combination of pride and sadness that he wasn't used to dealing with. His emotions were simple before. If he was happy, he was happy, if he was sad, he was sad. He had never had to deal with various combinations of conflicting feelings before.

Gradually he has settled into the human skin until (according to Dick) he is almost no different from a normal person. He can engage in short casual conversations (no matter how he tried, gossip and spontaneity can only fake them too falsely and cloyingly, according to Dick) and has learned not to reveal his inhumanity with his former limited and technical vocabulary. He had always thought his own nature was enough to inhabit a skin undetectably, but, as he discovered over the past 9 years, there was a hint of him that would always alert children and humans more sensitive to the unknown that he was not one of them.

That and... well, thinks Bruce looking in the mirror, he can't age. His skin is just that, a skin, a disguise, preserved by the magic of his species, but containing nothing living inside.

A problem that sooner or later he had to solve.

Dick had gone from being a small human hatchling to almost being an adult. Shortly after Bruce's nature was revealed, the boy had wanted to restart his acrobatic training, wanting to return to being a strolling performer like his deceased parents, in the same circus where his parents had had their fatal accident. Bruce had been worried that his brood would be stuck in the past, but, through conversations with his neighbor (at this point he assumes he is a human friend) he had understood that it was about honoring his parents' memory, without getting stuck in it. After all, Dick, had his parents not died, would have been an acrobat just the same.

That meant...long periods of time away from his nest.

Bruce wasn't entirely happy about that. But it was his brood's choice and it wasn't his right to deny him the opportunity to fly from the nest.

Speaking of flying...

It had been a relief and a joy when Dick finally developed his gift and it resulted in the child's ability to get off the ground without fear of falling. His offspring would never have to live in fear that a string would break and the sky would reject his flight.

Dick had obviously noticed, and had asked. And Bruce had answered his question truthfully. He had given him a gift in return for Dick having given him a name. The boy hadn't understood for a while, but he hadn't felt angry or refused his gift. He definitely enjoyed it at least under the protection of the darkness and the tall trees of the forest, where the other humans would not reject or envy his gift.

Even if the elderly circus owner, friends and companions of his late parents were waiting to welcome him with open arms, there was still some paperwork that needed to be sorted out before his inevitable journey to adulthood and his dream of being a circus performer materialized.

They had both agreed that moving to nearby Gotham was a pretty good solution to their upcoming obstacles. Gotham had an international airport that would allow Dick to visit much more often than the long commute to the rural area where they had both lived so far. In addition, neighbors and townspeople even if they couldn't tell what was going on with Bruce, had begun to notice his lack of aging and change. This would solve two obstacles in one move, get rid of the suspicions, and Bruce has a chance to continue caring for his brood a little longer.

While Dick takes his gym classes (even if his personal training leaves nothing to envy from the lessons learned from the other teachers) Bruce decides to take a trip to Gotham, with a detailed itinerary on some leasing options they were looking at together for the last couple of weeks or so. He's arranged appointments, though he knows his "social energy" (as Dick puts it) runs out exaggeratedly fast.

He will visit places, pick one good enough for him and Dick's occasional visits and finalize the paperwork, the farm will remain in the care of some townies until he decides whether to sell it to increase his brood's equity or leave it in case at some point he wishes to settle there and prosper.

He arrives in Gotham at dawn and starts visiting the different places to live, he doesn't need anything too big, because in general he plans to spend more time out of the skin than in it, chasing the circus a bit here and there, until Dick finds out and kicks him out because 'I need privacy, Bruce' and settles in Gotham until he gets a visit or Dick forgets to keep watch over a black shadow chasing the circus.

He doesn't have to worry too much about money. William Cobb wasn't a millionaire or anything, but he had a small business in his hometown from which Bruce made enough profit to raise Dick with dignity and now rent a small apartment in the city. With no need for food/drink (at least until Dick's visits) his own upkeep is low cost.

As long as he was relatively close to the airport, Bruce could live anywhere and blend in with humans, even if the numbers were more overwhelming than rural towns.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Dick had returned from his gymnastics classes, tidied up the house a bit, and had set about cooking some pork stew for himself. Even if Bruce didn't eat, he liked to sit at the dinner table keeping Dick company and asking him about his day.

He had improved tremendously over the years.

His body movements were fluid, his speech somewhat resembled that of a mature man with good manners, and he was able to mingle with people with almost no trouble at all.

Dick... loved Bruce. He could never replace his real father and mother (even if his memories of them were already dim, fuzzy and he had forgotten the sound of their laughter and cooing), but over time (and with the help of Mr. Alfred's sage advice) he learned to reconcile that he could have two father figures without one overriding the other. Bruce was not his tati, but he was his father.

Even if living with him sometimes got too overwhelming.

Bruce didn't know how to be a human or a father at first (although he did very well for a rookie) but now that he had gotten the hang of it, he simply became a helicopter parent.

Honestly, Dick's teenage rebellious stage was a bit of hell for both of them.

Dick was starting to need his own space and a place to start being an adult.

Haly's circus turned out to be the best option.

Dick loved the place where he had grown up, even if it was the place where he had lost his family. With the right psychological help, he was able to reconcile those feelings of fear and happiness and encouraged to have a letter writing approach to the circus. He was overjoyed to be welcomed with open arms, his parents' peers and friends elated to see him grow up and after some time of keeping in touch, he asked the circus director for the opportunity to travel with them and be an acrobat, like his parents.  

He wanted that legacy. He wanted to make them proud, wherever they were and be a bit of what he would have been if he hadn't lost them. Besides, traveling the world was something he had always loved about living with his parents. He was a nomad at heart.

He would admit that he would miss spending most of his time in the company of his non-human father and visiting Alfred. However, he would come to visit as often as he could, during breaks between tours and off-seasons. He hopes Bruce has done well renting some place in Gotham to make his visits easier.

Then night comes and Bruce doesn't show up.

Uh... Dick isn't worried, as such, because he knows Bruce can't be hurt easily, but he tends to be complimentary about meetings and had told Dick he'd be there before dinner.

By the time it's 11 p.m. and Bruce hasn't arrived, Dick starts calling him on his cell phone. He doesn't answer.

It's twelve o'clock and Dick is pacing back and forth thinking if maybe there is some creature powerful enough to harm his father, when there are keys jingling outside the front door of his cabin and Dick jumps up in concern.

But when the door opens. It's not William Cobb's face he sees. Before Dick can ask who the fuck this guy is and why he has the keys to his house, something in him "clicks."

"Bruce?"

The man is much taller than Cobb, however, younger and thinner. He has a not too abundant mustache as well as a bit of a stubble on his jaw. His forehead is marked by a deep frown and a bit of dark circles under his eyes. He has short, messy black hair and a pair of piercings in one of his ears.

"Dick...uh...I..."

"What the hell happened?" he says, confused and tense.

"I... uh... my previous look was damaged beyond repair and I had to take a new one before anyone saw me."

"crap."

Eventually... Dick had come to guess on his own that Bruce didn't really take the form of William Cobb, he... well, he disguised himself as Cobb.

"Explain" he said crisply pointing to the couch.

Bruce goes into a frantic explanation in which he explains that he was visiting the latest apartments and there was one that was located in a "dangerous area" of the city. He wasn't aware of how dangerous the area was until a guy (the same guy he had his form from now) had cornered him in an alley, yelled at him to hand over money and anything of value.

"I handed them over" says Bruce "it was nothing irreplaceable, there was no point to the conflict, but he still attacked me."

He told how the robber accused him of hiding other valuables from him that Bruce didn't actually have and then attacked him with his dagger. Bruce was not hurt as such, but his... disguise, received all the damage and there was no way to repair it, it had been ripped open in many places, his stomach, his arms and his face.

With the costume torn, Bruce had "burst through the seams" destroying the entire costume. Angry and scared of being discovered, he had attacked.

And now he was Willis Todd.

"And there's one other thing..." says the skin thief to his son, waving his hands nervously.

"What else could there be?"

"Willis Todd... mmm... he have a hatchling."

"shit."

Chapter Text

Jason munched on a stale granola bar he retrieved from a dumpster a couple of hours ago as he thought about his next action seriously. His old man was out of jail...again. Old Tony had given him the news a week ago as Jason picked up and sold some recycling cans he'd been collecting.

He wished he could just ignore the son of a bitch even after his death and just walk away, but he couldn't yet. Gotham social services was useless garbage, his father was useless garbage...but at least he knew him. He knew how to make Willis like him, at least for a little while.

Living on the street...it's hard. Jason can do it, he's been doing it for longer and longer periods of time since his mother died and his father goes from jail to jail for being a useless thug, unable to cover his tracks when he commits crimes. But as useless as Willis Todd is, he has word in the alley and a ugly apartment that Jerry will rent to him no questions asked whenever his old man needs it. A roof over his head sounds like a fucking marvel right now, and if nothing else, he can give his father enough profit for his protection (as worthless as said protection is).

It's fucking weird that he hasn't seen a hair of that fucking asshole since he got out of jail, he thought he'd be out there by now, stealing stuff and getting drunk into oblivion, but... nothing.

He pulled some money out of his stash and went to Maria's store to get a couple of beers and a pack of cigarettes as an offering for his father, it was better to come in from his good side. Jerry nodded to him as he entered the building and nodded indicating that yes, his father had arrived, and was probably waiting for Jason to show up.

Someday...someday Jason will leave this fucking shitty town and his father in the dust behind and never think of him again. The only thing he'll remember will be his mother, as broken as she was in the end, but at least she tried to do better for him, even if she failed in the end.

"hey old man" he greeted as he walked through the front door of the house, grabbing the spare key that he knew was always under the grimy carpet "I brought you some beers and some cigars, let me just stay in a corner"

And well...

look, Jason has lived through a lot of things he knows kids shouldn't have to live through, he's seen things that give normal people nightmares, corpses torn apart by violence and he's kept secrets that could endanger his life... but this... this is just a bowling ball that knocks all that shit down like it's nothing....

Jason knows he would never have made it through any of it if it weren't for the razor sharp survival instincts he's developed since he could walk, and the only thing he can hear his brain screaming in litany is "RUN!"

And that he does.

"Jaso-"

He throws the bag with the beer in it in the direction of the face of whatever the fuck that thing is, turns and runs.

He runs until his feet hurt and he can feel the breath leave his lungs faster than it enters, causing dots of shadow to flood his vision.

What the fuck?

What the fuck was that?

He fell to his knees in an alleyway and struggled to catch his breath, looking everywhere as if out of nowhere something was going to come out of the shadows and grab him by the feet.

He coughed as he caught his breath, gasping every so often.

He was just... at a loss for words.

He'd seen a lot of horrible, scary shit. But that, that's scary.

He looked like his old man.

He looked like Willis Todd. Every little detail Jason remembered about his old man was there, the earrings, the dark circles under his eyes, the stupid scar on his chin, but...his dad wasn't there. The first thing that came to his mind was the image of a stuffed animal that had been stripped of its cotton stuffing and stuffed with...something else.  Same shape, same color, different in everything else.

He'd better stay away from that.

He coughs as he huddles in a corner. His brain repeatedly chanting to him that it was probably a mistake, that he was overreacting, that simply too little sleep and hunger had played a trick with his brain and made him see what wasn't there. After all he only glanced at Willis before running off.

Shit, now he can't stop doubting.

One part of him refuses to believe that what he saw was real, and the other is pretty sure of what he felt and saw in that Willis Todd.

Goddamn it, shit.

Even with the doubt, he is unable to go back to his father's apartment that day. He chooses an alley with a well-placed dumpster that will hide his body from anyone passing by, hides well, where it's almost certain no one will see him, and as he sleeps, he dreams of stuffed animals with no stuffing and little black rabbits with white eyes.

Strangely, it doesn't feel like a nightmare.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Bruce stands transfixed as the beer bottles impact against his chest and burst as they hit the ground. He tries to call out to the pup in his father's voice hoping to calm it down, but what he gets is the most terrified look he's ever had the chance to see.

As if... he sees him.

Not his skin, Willis Todd's skin, but him, Bruce, skinless without his friendliest form, but his infinite true form, with all his teeth, eyes, mouths, wings and limbs completely black and ever-changing.

And then the hatchling runs.

Uh... What is he supposed to do now?

He can't just abandon it. Willis Todd was a more than poor caretaker, but his brood is now Bruce's responsibility. He expected the hatchling to come to him, as the memories of this new skin had instructed him to do. But he did not expect the reaction or the way it fled, as if running for its life.

Bruce would never... never, hurt a hatchling. He doesn't enjoy hurting living things, he only eats when necessary, and the only reason he attacked Willis Todd is because he was attacked first and stripped of his disguise, leaving him vulnerable to the sight of other humans, angry and desperate to get his human skin back, the only one that allowed him to speak and interact with his brood on equal terms.

Dick stayed in town finishing arranging the move so as not to raise suspicions about William Cobb's disappearance, fortunately not that he was a frequent visitor to the most populated part of town and only a few knew him closely.

Dick offered to stay and temporarily cancel his plans to go on tour with the circus, to help him a bit with adjusting to his new skin and the whole new brood thing. For a moment Bruce was so close to saying yes, to having the joy of keeping his brood a little longer while he takes responsibility for this unexpected new brood, but in the end he declined.

It's not right to interrupt his son like this. It is not Dick's responsibility to help him sort out this new skin and all that goes with it. Dick will take care of things in town and Bruce will sort this out.

He has to, for recklessly taking this skin. He was honestly more tempted to throw this disastrous skin away than he ever thought he would be with Cobb. The only thing that stopped him was the little pup, angry and wary of the fur's memories. This one was defiant, brave and learned to take care of himself almost as soon as he could walk, but he was still vulnerable to dangers Bruce didn't want to be touched.

His cell phone rings.

"hey B. what happened?" dick's voice is worried from the other side, Bruce hates to worry his brood, but they were both taken by surprise with this new development. "did you see the kid?"

"mmm"

"use your words B."

"yes, he... ran away"

"he ran away" says Dick dryly

"yes"

"what did you do?"

"nothing" Bruce sighs "he just saw me, turned around and ran away"

"tsssssss" hisses Dick "well... damn, I didn't think he'd react like that... look, I think it's best to let him calm down for a couple of days, don't chase him Bruce, from what you've told me, he's very different from me"

"..."

"Bruce, don't chase him."

"..."

"Bruce!"

"okay..."

They chat a bit more before he hangs up the call. And then... well...

Bruce obeyed Dick... in a sense. He didn't chase Jason as Willis Todd... he did it as Bruce.

In the night he shed his new skin, left it well hidden and slipped into the shadows of Gotham, slipping through dumpsters, alleyways and rooftops, following a scent caught only once in that brief encounter.

He found the little hatchling asleep behind some dumpsters, shielding himself from the elements with only him worn red sweatshirt. He plopped down beside him, making absolutely no noise, hoping to get a better look at his calf's face.

he had cleft cheeks, unable to retain the fat that makes human hatchlings so chubby in early childhood, his hair was curly and dirty and bony hands with long fingers. It seemed his sleep was fragile and he would wake at any sound, accustomed to protecting himself from the hostile elements, even if it meant only getting breaks for short, tense periods.

If Bruce made any noise, the little hatchling would most likely wake up, ready to fight for its life.

Hatchlings shouldn't have to be so ready to defend their own existence, that was the breeders job.

Even if he had the desire to simply take the hatchling and take it home, he knew without anyone telling him (Dick would be proud) that it would only get the hatchling to think it was going to get hurt and try to run away every time. Most kids just didn't like Bruce, they would stay away from him, but they wouldn't look at him with as much terror as Jason did.

But that didn't mean he couldn't take care of the brood.

He opened the fist where he held some food and items he knew the hatchling would appreciate and gently set them down next to the human child. He then climbed onto a small ledge on the building from where he could watch the hatchling sleep and take care that no predator would enter his space and attack him. Then, before the first rays of sunlight highlighted his dark form against the building, he scurried back the way he came and ran back to the ramshackle apartment where Willis Todd had his nest.

He was sure that, in time, he could make Jason want to get close to him.

An immortal creature had everything in his favor to play the long waiting game.

In the meantime, he would call Dick.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Look, Dick loves his monster dad with all his heart. But he will never, ever, EVER tell him that his first impulse when he saw him, disguised as William Cobb while Dick shivered and held a half-full bucket of water, was to run.

He hadn't had that in mind when he recommended Bruce make a first approach to the son of this man from whom he had taken his...form.

It shouldn't have been a surprise when, a child who by all accounts had survived danger by running fast and fast and learning to distinguish what might hurt him from what wouldn't, ran away from Bruce on a first impression.

He hoped Bruce wouldn't get hurt too badly.

In the meantime, their plans did not stop. They had to finalize the moving plans, but they would leave most of the furniture in the cabin for the new tenants. They had planned to take a lot of the stuff with them, but now that William Cobb was no more, it was impossible to finalize the leases, and Dick had had to call the realtors and landlords to cancel any deals Bruce had planned to make.

He had been relieved when Bruce told him that he could still pursue his plans to join Haly's circus even though his offer had been genuine. He wants to stay, but he knows that if he does he could end up calling the whole thing off permanently or at least for too long. And he wants that life. It's a crossroads where he can only come to a half-baked arrangement at best. He'll be there as support for Bruce and help him where he can, but he won't cancel the life he's planned for so long because of it.

He will, however, return home if it is an emergency.

He doesn't distrust Bruce's ability to care for this new child that dropped suddenly into their lives. Bruce is really good, he would never hurt him or this boy, Jason.

What he distrusts is the ability of this child Jason, to trust Bruce's better nature, even against that ever present little thorn of his inhuman aura.

If Jason gives him enough time, that feeling simply disappears.

Dick waits for Jason to give him a chance.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jason wakes up quickly, as usual, but a little more calmly than he expected. He always jumps up ready to punch and bite any asshole, but today, he strangely woke up with a peaceful feeling, like when he falls asleep next to someone who watched over his sleep.

He shrugs off the feeling and gets up, ready to find breakfast.

He stumbles over a backpack.

He looks both sides of the alley, but no one else is there. He crouches down, carefully, surprised that someone managed to leave the thing here without him waking up.

Then he opens the bag and takes a sharp breath.

There's food. easy-to-carry packaged food, some granola bars (the good kind, his brain screams at him) several bottles of water and a couple of 100-dollar bills rolled up in a small pocket. a black hat and red wool gloves like his sweatshirt.

He glances back and forth across the street, heart pounding, touching the backpack to check that it's real and not just a dream.

Shit, he's no stranger to selfless acts of kindness. There's a lady in the fifth who always gives him a churro when she sees him walk by and he can always count on Father Thomas's church to get a bowl of soup no questions asked and sometimes some guy on the street will give him a couple of bucks or a sandwich without Jason having to do anything for it. But it's always a surprise.

This, this is... very nice.

So nice that it even brings a smile to his face.

He whispers a "thank you" into the air, even if no one is there to hear it. And he slings his backpack up onto his back.

Whoever this guy is, he's a nice person. He almost doesn't feel scared that someone has managed to sneak up on him during his sleep.

Chapter Text

Jason had turned out to be a very elusive child, every night Bruce had had to track him to a new hiding place to watch over his sleep and make sure he could eat at least enough to survive. But he was a very suspicious child as well. Bruce couldn't leave him food and money every day or the boy would think (correctly) that he was being followed. So it was a matter of finding the right balance between enough kindness that Jason would be grateful and happy and not too much that he would start to feel suspicious of everyone.

In the meantime he decides to place himself in Willis' shoes properly. Actually... he's not very useful. He's not like Cobb, his skills are few and he looks like he's spent his whole life being a simple thug and a mugger. He can't cook (and that irritates Bruce, how will he make food for Dick and his new hatchling without the necessary skills?) for the moment he's content to work here and there on the docks unloading goods. Dick is finalizing the last details of the move and excusing Bruce from saying goodbye to his acquaintances with the excuse that he decided to stay in Gotham instead of wasting his time going back to the Village.

It makes him look like a jerk, but it's not like Cobb was ever anything more.

There's also the fact that Jason most likely only has limited happy memories of his interactions with Willis Todd. Bruce looks up and down through all the images and memories pertaining to his current skin and what he finds is not very encouraging. Raised in an abusive home, Willis Todd decided to continue the way he was raised when he started his own family. There are images of his late wife, a kind-faced but exhausted redhead named Catherine and Jason Todd in a much smaller figure, yelling at Willis Todd, trying to get in the way as the man drunkenly and angrily beat the woman red and blue on the kitchen floor.

he can clearly see the boy's burning hatred for his progenitor, growing stronger and stronger with each blow Catherine Todd receives.

It is a different hatred than the one Dick felt for Cobb. Dick had savored having loving breeders before suffering under Cobb's null care. Jason was a hatchling who had spent his entire short existence under the heavy yoke of a human being incapable of thinking of anyone but himself, with brief breaks here and there, moments of kindness that were the exception rather than the norm.

Bruce would think it would be better to leave Jason alone if it weren't for one thing.

Jason came back every time.

Ever since Willis began his periodic stays in prison and Catherine Todd died of an overdose, Jason has been living on the streets until his father is released from prison, at which point he will swallow his anger and return to seek out his father in exchange for the minimal protection his father offers him.

Jason is aware that living on the street for a boy his age is dangerous (even with his good survival instincts and pickpocketing skills) and the little sleeping nook in Willis Todd's musty apartment at least protects him from the elements and ill-intentioned people who might do him any harm (not now that Bruce is present, but the idea gets the point across). Even at the cost of enduring the mistreatment of unworthy skin.

he's such a skilled and good hatchling, destined to survive and grow how is it that Willis Todd could never see it?

Even now as Bruce slips into the darkness to take care of him,  sees the kindness of his youngest hatchling and almost can't believe it's real. He doesn't hesitate to share his food with other children, or the old homeless woman in an alley. He is a hatchling who grew up noble despite his unfortunate circumstances and Bruce feels the need to give that little chick a chance to continue to be kind without sacrificing little parts of himself each time.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jason avoided his old man's house for two full weeks. Thanks to the generosity of whoever had left him the supplies and money in that alley he managed to feed himself and have a stale little room to hide in for a whole week. He didn't have to think about Willis, or his strange nightmarish appearance, or anything but his own well-being.

That didn't stop him from trying to get a look at his old man to verify whether his brain had played a trick on him or that strange vision, that strange aura of danger, was true.

He hovered near Jerry's building for the last four days of the second week since meeting Willis.

"hey Jerry" greeted Jason to the old man who rented the dingy apartments to criminals no questions asked, he may not be a good person, but thanks to him he's had a roof over his head as long as he could afford it "have you seen my old man?"

"Willis huh, yeah, I've seen that scumbag all this week, where have you been holed up, I haven't seen you since you came by the other time"

"eh, over there" Jason plays it down as he shrugs his shoulders "... Have you noticed anything weird with the old man?"

"nothing major, just that he's paying rent on time every week" old Jerry snorts "maybe he's in one of those stages that all criminals have about wanting to 'get clean'"

The old man lets out a rude sneer and Jason can understand it. Hardened criminals like Willis Todd never give up the way they are, even if they had a season or two being "clean" it's easier to be a criminal than to strive to be a good person. With over twenty years managing that run-down building, Jerry must have seen hundreds of criminals fail to change their ways.

But if Jerry didn't notice anything wrong beyond that, maybe Jason is just paranoid. He went up to his father's apartment and went inside. According to Jerry, the man wouldn't show up until later in the evening, he'd have time before he saw the old man and snapped out of his doubt.

He was surprised when he entered the house.

It was still the same old, poorly kept shack, but it was clean. There were no Pizza boxes and beer bottles all over the corners, no cigarette butts on the floor, no used and dirty dishes in the sink. The couch was still the same gnarly, hideous moth's nest, but many of the stains had been removed and it had been covered with a folded sheet, which made it look a little less ugly.

Even the bathroom was clean!

Willis Todd had never deigned to lift a hand to make his house hygienic or tidy, according to the prick that was "women's work." His mother had tried, to make the apartment something resembling a home, there was a time when she had made little crocheted doilies and tended a couple of potted plants, but that all ended very quickly when she relapsed into drugs and spent it sitting on the couch staring blankly or puking her guts out in the bathroom and the plants died and all the decorations and ornaments were sold to get dope.

He went into old man's room and found the bed neatly made and no trace of cigarettes or beer. Then he went into his room, or at least the room he slept in when Willis let him stay and found a similar picture, instead of an old mattress in the corner was a wooden single bed, with a new mattress and a gray, clean sheet.

This shit had to be some kind of foul play. maybe he needed Jason for something? was he planning to be him pimp or something? God forbid, Jason would rather kill himself than let some filthy motherfucker touch him for money. He'd managed to stay away from prostitution so far and that wouldn't change.

He crawled back into the living room and straight to the cupboards. There was good food, canned goods and non-perishable food that didn't look like it came from the dollar store (although Jason loved the dollar store with all his being) and the fridge had real food, not pizza, not leftover Chinese food and again no alcohol. Eggs, milk, cheese, meat...damn, the kid's mouth watered.

Would Willis notice if Jason made himself a sandwich?

Fuck, it was worth it, even if he'd beat the shit out of him.

He rushes to get fresh bread out of the cupboard, cheese, lettuce, ham, tomato, and anything else that was within reach. His old man can go fuck himself, Jason is going to eat, and he's going to eat well and then miss out for another two weeks to avoid Willis' wrath for taking his shit.

Heh, never mind, assholes like him don't deserve nice things.

The sandwich was delicious, Jason ate even the crumbs and licked his fingers of sauce, drinking a glass of milk as well.

He was debating whether he could steal some of the canned goods when the door opened and all Jason's doubts about having had a hallucination brought on by hunger left his mind.

God, how stupid he was.

'You've read Hansel and Gretel before, Jason' he mentally chided himself 'YOU DON'T EAT THE FUCKING WITCH'S SWEETS'.

Now he's going to get eaten for be an idiot.

"Jason" Said Willis' voice, Willis' form, but definitely NOT the real Willis Todd.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, his feet tensed, ready to run, but with nowhere to run to when the body of something that looked like his father was through the door.

"D-don't come closer" he stammered, fumbling with his hand until he grabbed a kitchen knife and then held it out in front of him. It would be threatening if his hands weren't shaking "n-don't come closer, whoever you are."

The guy who looked like Willis Todd held up his hands trying to convey that his intentions weren't harmful, but Jason wasn't having any of it. His brain was screaming for him to get to safety, away from whatever this thing was.

"It's okay, Jason" conceded the thing with the Willis face "I'll step aside, so you can get out. I won't hurt you."

To Jason's surprise, it did as it promised, hands in the air, it slid to the side, slowly, without making any sudden movements until there was a direct path between Jason and the door.

He didn't waste the opportunity and ran like he had flames on his ass. Once he got to a place where he thought he was safe for the moment he realized he had left his backpack with the food and stuff he planned to steal from Willis.

"shit...shit!" Jason chides himself for his stupidity "you fucking asshole".

But when Jason thought about going back to the apartment of the thing that looked like his old man to retrieve his stuff, his brain projected a huge "NO" sign. He might have gotten away unscathed this time, but nothing assured him that, at the next opportunity, that thing...creature, would get rid of him.

Maybe he could try when the thing had gotten out?

No.

Jason was being stupid.

He wouldn't go back there ever again.

He'd get by, he always had. He'd been surviving before he got that backpack and the money, he'd keep doing it. At least he had some money that he hadn't kept in his backpack but in his pockets. It would be enough for him to eat something when the hunger returned. Speaking of hunger... it seemed that running on a full stomach wasn't such a good idea. His belly was starting to ache, but by god he wouldn't throw up.

As an afterthought, it occurred to Jason to visit the library.

There had to be something there that would tell him what that thing was. if his instincts were telling him to run instead of fight, it had to be too strong for Jason to have a chance of survival, so obviously it wouldn't try to attack him. But, maybe there's something out there that says what the heck it is and how to protect himself.

Or at least he wants to have some knowledge in the face of something so terrifying and impossible. Faint comfort in the form of information.

He doesn't find much in the end.

Some stories about witches eating children (the classic) but Jason knows that's not it, other stories talk about "nahuales" who are witches that take animal form, but that doesn't feel right either. While he doesn't manage to find anything that gets him close to whatever the hell took the form of Willis Todd, he was left with a horrible feeling of vulnerability, seeing so many damn stories about witches and creatures that like to eat children.

Is that what he's looking for?, does he want to eat Jason?, why didn't he do that when he had him in the apartment, gorging himself on food and completely helpless?, what does he want from him?

Jason Peter Todd didn't know he would get the answer that very night.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

He is curled up, this time in an abandoned apartment. His sleep is not deep, it's getting cold, and he can't stop thinking about the things he had stashed in his backpack and are now in the possession of the thing with his old man's face on it.  He curses his starving self and puts an arm under his head as a makeshift pillow as the cold makes him shiver and long for his coat that was inside the backpack.

He doesn't quite know why he opens his eyes. It is a safe hiding place, the hole through which he entered will not allow other wanderers to enter without making a lot of noise and warning him so he can hide. There is no noise, there is nothing to alarm him.

But when he opens his eyes a little, just a little, he sees a long, long, long... black shadow with white eyes, standing in the middle of the room, staring at him.

Honestly, Jason stands paralized in terror.

Drops of cold sweat begin to trickle down his bristling neck. But Jason doesn't move or scream, he remains still as a dead man, his breathing almost normal, he knows it's useless, but maybe if he pretends to be asleep?

The thing staring at him from the center of the room must be nearly six feet tall. There is something in the vague shape of a humanoid head with two straight black horns on the sides of its... head, two glowing white holes are looking at him, there is no pupil, there is nothing to indicate the direction they are looking in, but Jason knows from the bottom of his heart that their gazes are meeting.

His body is... a strange amalgam of shadows. He can see it moving, not as if it is breathing, but as if there are many hands and legs clasped together and trying to pull apart. There are jerky movements, a flash of hair, feathers and claws that is more of an illusion.

Then, something breaks out of the shadows.

It's a clawed hand reaching toward him, stretching and stretching in his direction.

Jason closes his eyes, too terrified to scream in the face of his own death. His body shakes so hard it hurts, his jaw is clenched so tight that if he doesn't stop, he could probably bust a tooth. Sweat wets his shirt and if he were a lesser man, he thinks he might have urinated.

He sees nothing but feels clawed fingers in his hair, once...twice...three times he runs his long, slender fingers through his greasy hair, stroking.

Then he feels something large, heavy and forceful being placed against him, against his hands that are clenching his stomach tightly.

Jason opens his eyes.

It's his backpack.

Much fuller than he remembers leaving it at Willis's apartment.

Oh.

He dares to look at the thing again, the thing that replaced his old man. It doesn't look aggressive, it looks a little reprimanded, aware of how damn scared he'd just made Jason. The long hand retracts, merging with that amalgam of shadows of vague humanoid form.

And when Jason dares to blink, it's gone.

The boy can feel the air around him grow lighter, whatever that thing is, it is no longer with him.

He lets out a gasp, unaware that his breathing stopped in that last minute of terror and sits up in a hurry. Sweat puddles in his armpits and his hair sticks to his forehead.

He looks at the fucking backpack and in front of it, there's a little yellow Post-it with Willis Todd's chicken scratch on it.

'I won't hurt you, I'm Bruce'

That shit isn't even funny, not after he almost swallows his tongue in fear, but Jason can't help the fucking laughter that floods him when he reads that stupid note.

He'd laugh harder if he knew that across town, an old man retired from the military and a young acrobat are berating said supernatural creature, until he shrinks to the size of a cat after learning what he just did.

Chapter Text

*intense look*

Here is all the image:

AAANDDDDD this is Bruce, after Dick and Alfred scolded him 😂😂😂😂

Chapter Text

Alfred Pennyworth is a man who throughout his life has experienced and seen a lot of things. He grew up in rural England, surrounded by close-knit people and hearing the old legends, even though he didn't really believe in them until he was an older man and encountered his share of oddities during his service in the military and even more during his acting career.

He learned over time that humans rarely notice their encounters with any creature of human appearance, but inhuman origin. It's like crossing eyes with a stranger on the street, ephemeral and easily forgotten unless their gaze is fixed on you. Which can be either very good, or exaggeratedly bad. Depending on who or what is interested in your existence.

Alfred was lucky enough not to attract the attention of any of those creatures, though he had his share of witnessing how other people got mixed up with the otherworldly stuff and had to get help to... well, survive.

Sometimes, during army training and sojourns in sparsely populated areas or forests, once or twice, one of Alfred's troop mates would disappear for a night, and then return, the same but different, with an otherworldly charm. In which case, the more discreet divisions of her majesty the queen's private army had to be called in for a chance to retrieve the person who had been changed.

After retiring from the army and beginning his long and fruitful career as an actor, he found in the theater the home of multiple figures, whose masterful acting and charm stemmed from his own nature. He heard voices that made the audience remain mesmerized for  hours and days, and after the show, they awakened from their lethargy feeling that no more than a couple of hours had passed. Actors and actresses who seemed to merge with the costumes they wore for the performances, whose mouths moved in imitation of the lines they were to interpret and whose voices seemed not to come from them, but to form in the air around them. He even went so far as to squeeze the hand of a fellow actress, and felt on receiving her greeting, how the lady's hand, of seemingly perfect skin, gave him the sensation of touching a cold rotting corpse, feeling of having maggots wriggling between his own fingers. for then to see the woman's sharp-toothed smile when he managed to contain any grimace or shudder so as not to snub her for fear of reprisals.

In short, Alfred Pennyworth has lived a long life with a good amount of adventures that make him a little more sensitive to the enormous amount of inhabitants of his world, losing long ago the ignorance that happily has most of humanity about being the owners of the earth.

Upon retiring and settling in that village, he only hoped for a peaceful old age, attending to the gentlest protections to avoid trouble, some herbal teas, special incenses, a couple of simple spells coming from some old colleagues, to ensure a quiet life for the rest of his years.

He had a relationship of respect and cordiality with his neighbors and tried not to meddle in their lives.

When William Cobb had returned from his sudden trip on the news of the death of his only son, accompanied by a small, sad figure, Alfred had made up his mind to show Richard "Dick" Grayson kindness, as he could sense in Cobb a great lack of it, along with the care and attention that Dick clearly needed after such a terrible experience.

Even with his best intentions, his encounters with the boy were limited by William Cobb's jealous vigilance. It would feel better if it were a watchfulness out of genuine care and not an annoying show of control over little Dick.

Still he had managed on several occasions to feed the little boy and give him some of his daughter's old clothes that best suited Dick, and to smuggle him some candy or give him good food when William Cobb had to make trips on legal business and left Dick in his care.

Thus almost a year passed until the day William Cobb appeared, with an identical appearance, but with an inescapable otherworldly air, and a clumsiness and stiffness in his movements that Alfred had never seen outside of the sick and elderly.

As if he never quite felt comfortable with humanity.

His first intentions had been to contact his old contacts to try to retrieve the William Cobb who had probably been cast into the fairy realms, fearing for Dick's safety if he remained in the care of a Fae, a creature known to be cruel when trying to be kind and to be even more cruel when angry.

Then he had seen Dick, the boy had obviously also noticed "William Cobb's" weirdness and seemed a bit wary, but otherwise, he wasn't being mistreated. In fact, he was wearing new clothes, looked like he was getting regular food, and he hadn't glimpsed bruises anywhere.

He decided to watch him conscientiously, unwilling to allow any evil against little Dick Grayson. But as the months passed, the boy had gone from being absurdly sad, anxious and shy, to blossoming like a springtime sapling under the care of a creature who was clearly just improvising.

Beginner's luck, they call it.

Alfred took his time to think about whether he should try to retrieve William Cobb from wherever he had been dumped, but in the end he compared Dick's current well-being with the deterioration that the return of his former caretaker would represent for the boy and simply thought 'to hell with that guy'.

The strange creature had approached him for help in raising Dick and Alfred was touched by how determined he seemed to be a good father figure. He helped him therefore, willing to give him the chance. After all, even if most of Alfred's experiences with the unknown had been frightening, he could not deny that he had on several occasions encountered creatures that, while not human, were benevolent, well-meaning, and brought happiness in their wake.

Over the years he had come to feel a genuine fondness for this strange, fatherly creature.

Oh, don't misunderstand him, he was definitely weird and creepy, awkward in humanity and clearly without a human moral compass, but he seemed genuinely immersed in his role of being Dick's father.

Dick had grown up and received all the help he needed for the traumatic loss of his parents, had received the support to pursue his artistic career as a gymnast and acrobat and return to the circus he had had to leave so many years ago, now grown up and ready to shine.

Then, before the move to Gotham began, William Cobb had disappeared.

Of course, his disappearance wasn't anything scandalous. In fact, he only noticed it because of the suddenness of the event and because poor Dick seemed like a headless chicken trying to complete the moving plans without the help of his father figure.

Even if it made him feel a little disappointed, there was also a very high possibility that the Fae had tired of "playing house" and had decided to return to those other worlds from which he might have come, leaving Dick stranded, but at least without doing him any harm or giving him some curse disguised as a blessing as a farewell.

He had finally decided to visit his pseudo-grandson and offer his help (as well as dissuade him from any quest he might want to initiate to try to find this creature, if he had decided to leave, it was best to leave it at that).

Dick had looked absurdly nervous during their initial conversation, sweating and stammering his answers with a shyness he hadn't shown since the early days when William Cobb had brought him home, with the death of his family still fresh in his mind.

It was clear he was hiding something, probably about his father figure, and it only took a little well-aimed pressure to get the poor boy to confess all that had him so nervous.

And boy.

Apparently he had been wrong all this time about what kind of a nature the creature he had been looking after Dick Grayson had.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Dick closed his eyes to await Alfred's judgment, now that he had confessed what he knew about his father figure. He had deflated like a balloon at the slightest pressure from his grandfather, now a suspect in the sudden disappearance of "William Cobb" and had blurted it all out. In his defense, neither Dick nor Bruce are some sort of criminal masterminds, and both had been taken by surprise by the sudden loss of Cobb's appearance and even more so at a time when the...disguise was so necessary in order for him to establish himself in Gotham as a legal citizen and for Dick to embark on his adult life.

He had spent the last few days packing the moving boxes and figuring out what they were going to do with their belongings now that leaving them with Bruce in the apartment they were supposed to be renting was no longer an option.

The most important things (specifically their parents' mementos) he would have to take with him. In talking to Bruce on the phone (he hadn't returned after his first day in Todd's skin, not wanting to raise suspicions if they saw such a suspicious man near Dick now that William Cobb was nowhere to be seen), he had learned that this new...form, this person named Willis Todd, had no credit score and no person with any brains would rent him an apartment on a good side of town. Bruce himself had told him that Willis Todd, his wife (when she was alive) and their young son Jason, lived in an apartment rented under the table by a shady guy who wouldn't ask questions as long as the rent was paid on time.

It was best not to leave his things in a place from which he could be quickly evicted and with it, lose precious memories of his first family.

Stressed by the suddenness of the change, Dick had done his best to adjust to the new things, at the same time, worrying about the welfare of this suddenly acquired new child, who looked like he could use Bruce's care and an older brother.

So when Alfred showed up at dusk, as Dick finished packing up his and Bruce's clothes and the rest of things, about to leave in the middle of the night like a criminal (he wanted to avoid questions until he had a better cover story on his caretaker's disappearance) he hadn't been able to contain his nervousness, because Alfred was obviously suspicious of him, and he didn't want the old man he considered his grandfather to think of Dick as having killed William Cobb to keep the inheritance for himself like some kind of soap opera villain.

Hey, Dick was fully aware of how it all looked from the outside.

That's why, when Alfred had pushed a little, he'd come clean. Honestly, he could use a little help, and he's not dumb enough not to know that Alfred was always suspicious of Bruce, i.e. "William Cobb" and basically was his teacher to be a functioning adult, a father and basically a human.

Dick will never forget the time he saw Bruce try to pretend to eat a slice of pie and fail miserably.

In front of Alfred.

Who just sighed in disappointment and offered him a tissue to clean up the mess.

There seemed to be a couple of misunderstandings between what Alfred thought Bruce was, and what Dick knew Bruce was.

And boy was it a surprise to the old man, to learn that it wasn't a shapeshifting Fae that was prowling around in Cobb's form, but a man-eating monster wearing Cobb's skin, stolen and maintained with his ancient magic.

"no, no" denies Dick, as he sips chamomile tea "Bruce never hurt me, nor threatened me, not once time."

"it was my own ignorance that made me dismiss a possibility like that" says Alfred as he pours his own chamomile tea, after the initial surprise, the old man had been worried about what Bruce might have done to him "if I had known that, instead of switching places with William Cobb, he... replaced him by making use of his skin, I would have done something immediately"

"in that case, I appreciate the misunderstanding" sighs Dick "Bruce has been nothing but nice to me, albeit a little weird and scary. Besides, I'm not even sure Bruce understands the concept of homicide."

At Alfred's raised eyebrow, Dick sighs and takes a leap of faith.

From the beginning Dick was always keenly aware that Bruce is not human, and while his demeanor and ability to go unnoticed has improved over the years, there are things he couldn't help but notice.

Like the fact that human morality really doesn't matter one bit to Bruce. From the way he talked about getting his new skin, Dick could pick up on the fact that Bruce isn't even aware of the fact that...well, he just killed a person. And it should be troubling that Dick didn't pick up on it at the beginning either, or that his feelings about it aren't running for the hills, horrified at what Bruce is doing to dwell among humanity.

But Dick...can sense that Bruce really doesn't have malicious intentions. When Bruce told him of his encounter with Willis Todd (and earlier, several years ago, when he told him of his encounter with William Cobb) he sensed no malicious intent in the way he told him of the encounters, no enjoyment of the act of attacking and... well, killing someone (Dick has never been able to get over the discomfort of knowing the way Bruce, well, takes human "form").

About William Cobb he spoke of being attacked and retaliating out of hunger (since there really is little a human being can do against something of his nature), and regarding Willis Todd, he spoke of trying to defend the skin he wore and failing, acquiring a new one, since without it he could not interact with the human world, nor with Dick.

He really didn't give any kind of impression of acting out of genuine malice.

Dick wonders if his indifference to Bruce's true nature has something to do with his time living with him and his gift. He doesn't really feel any less human than when it all started (although it's hard to tell, since he was a little boy) but he has noticed some changes, not in his physical appearance, but in his ability to feel and see things.

"honestly, I trust you Alfie" Dick finishes after his long diatribe "I know you don't want to hurt Bruce or me. And truth be told, your help and friendship is invaluable to us. Jason would love you too if he had the chance to meet you. After all you and I would be his only beacons of normalcy in the midst of how inhuman Bruce is, as well intentioned as he is."

That said, he's an amazing father, but he's not a very good human. He doesn't know if things would have turned out as well if Alfred hadn't been there to patiently guide Bruce on the path of humanity.

"I'm asking you please Alfie, you already gave him a chance when you thought he was Fae, even though we both know they can be harmful if they set their minds to it. Give him another chance now that you know what he is, or at least, as much as I know of his nature."

The old man was silent as he contemplated his cup of tea. Dick sweated waiting for his verdict. He would not allow Bruce to do Alfie any harm if he decided not to support them this time, but he would be heartbroken if his kind grandfather decided to leave them behind and not get involved with them anymore.

"It's alright Dick" Alfred said as he watched Dick's tense shoulders relax and sighed gratefully "in any case, I think it would be good if at least one human was around to... Bruce" the old man seemed to test the name Dick had given him "while he're still on this path of raising human children. You are about to begin your adulthood and you are right that it is not your responsibility to give up on your career that is just beginning. Besides, I think it might help if anything to get a rental in a better part of Gotham City, so this new kid, Jason, can go to school and grow up healthy."

The old man was taken by surprise by an effusive hug from Dick. He gently patted the young man's back a couple of times, aware of the enormous weight he had just lifted off Dick's back.

"thank you, thank you, Alfie" Dick mentions as he gently pulls away from his grandfatherly figure "even with all these plans to travel with the circus, I don't think I could go away and leave Bruce and Jason alone, struggling to adjust to each other. Much less when Jason is a skittish child, used to running at the slightest danger, who Bruce has already scared in the first place."

"What?"

Dick smiles guiltily, telling him about Bruce and Jason's first encounter, with Jason throwing beer bottles and cigarettes at him and running away like he had the devil on his back.

The old man gently puts his hand to his face, in the most elegant facepalm Dick has ever seen.

"I've told him not to follow him, but he has confessed to me that he sometimes watches him sleep."

At Alfred's questioning look, Dick simply shrugs.

"Doesn't follow him as a human...he doesn't always look the same. I guess you'll see him sooner rather than later."

Soon the conversation dies down, after settling the main doubts, and Alfred declines the invitation to sleep, stating that he will return to his own home and come back at dawn to help Dick and Bruce with the move to a better place.

"I hope you won't go off under cover of night like a thief would, Dick Grayson?"

Dick hastily denies with cheeks red with embarrassment and promises to wait for him the next morning before leaving to Gotham.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Bruce returns to Willis Todd's apartment after another day of exploring the life that once belonged to that man. It's an instinct. Even if he can make his own decisions about how to act, he mostly inhabits in a similar way as the previous owner of the skin would, hanging around the same places he used to, contacting the same people he used to inhabit with, working the same way the person used to.

He has made sure to take jobs unloading legal goods at the port. The memories that now belong to him have shown him the variety of legal and illegal trades that Willis Todd practiced with unusual mastery. He knew how to lay low when he needed to, how to make friends with the right people so questions wouldn't be asked when transporting questionable goods from one place to another, and he had a knack for street fights.

Even if his jobs were illegal and ill-gotten, he earned enough to have been able to give his late wife and brood a proper life.

But that wasn't what Willis Todd wanted.

In his memories there was a huge need to show himself as a sort of macho man among macho men, so the vast majority of his earnings went to sex workers, alcohol and drugs. The latter were not for himself, but for the woman named Catherine, because he apparently enjoyed too much watching her crawl around on drugs sometimes with a fresh hit on her cheek or a bloody nose, too far gone to care about anything other than getting his fix.

he understands humans less and less.

Bruce makes less money than Willis Todd, having stayed away from such activities. His ambitions are limited to keeping his young safe, well-fed and protected, not meaningless things like power games between humans.

He doubts he can ever understand them even if he remains among them for a thousand years.

The payment is in cash and Bruce simply keeps it in his pockets, intended to improve a bit the deficient home of his youngest brood and save the rest for any needs they may have. Bruce doesn't eat, drink or need to sleep like humans, so he is very "low maintenance".

He is pleasantly surprised to find his youngest pup in the kitchen of the small apartment gorging on the food Bruce bought for him.

Unfortunately, Jason is none too happy to see him. Bruce can't blame him, he doesn't have fond memories of the skin he wears, and he won't stop long enough for him to explain, so he sadly lets him go, stepping out of his way.

Then he sees the half-filled backpack with cans and canned goods from the cupboards, along with his coat and everything else Bruce gave him.

Oh no.

He can feel Jason a few blocks away, but he doubts it will take well for his father's skin to suddenly appear even if it's with food or money.

He figures out a way to get Jason his belongings back. It will have to wait until nightfall.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--

Alfred and Dick are sitting in the hotel room they rented, sipping some tea when Dick suddenly seems to perk up and run to the window of his room and hastily open it. It had been a couple of hours since he had called Bruce and asked to meet him.

"Bruce" smiles the boy as a long black shadow slips through the window and wraps itself around Dick like a giant python.

Alfred watches in awe as Dick doesn't even flinch as he releases one arm and pats the creature's strange body, which seems to grow and shrink in no particular order.

"There, there, dad. I missed you too."

Bruce disentangles himself from his son and fixes his white, expressionless eyes on Alfred.

Uh.

Surprisingly, he feels no fear. Maybe it's because he's an old man who has lived through his fair share of terrifying events and come out the other side alive, but he doesn't feel any overriding fear to escape. Mind you, he can feel, however, the power and presence of this creature, now that it is not contained behind the thin walls of a human skin.

Bruce disentangles himself from his embrace with Dick, never taking his eyes off Alfred. His body twists until a tall, thin black shadow has his full attention fixed on him.

"Good evening Bruce" says the older man, mustering all the nonchalance he can feign "it's nice to finally meet you."

"Hey Bruce" interrupts Dick, causing Bruce's gaze to quickly drift to the "Alfred knows. I told him."

That seems to calm the creature, which shrinks in size until it is only slightly taller than Dick. It slithers across the floor of the room toward Alfred and occupies the space on the adjacent chair.

Dick slides over to sit on the bed.

"Alfred offered to help us get a better place in town in addition to helping us with Jason if he decides to stay with us" Dick explains, cheerfully "he already had suspicions about you since...well, since forever. And since you disappeared so suddenly, he was worried about your whereabouts. I... I ended up telling him everything Bruce, we're both out of our heads adjusting to this new life and I... I hope you're not mad at me."

At the mention of anger, Bruce quickly shakes his head and seems to purr as he rubs against Dick's head, ruffling his hair.

"Can you change, Bruce?" asks Dick "I think it's good if we have a conversation."

Bruce nods as he disappears with a slide into the bathroom.

When he reappears, Alfred becomes familiar with this new appearance so different from William Cobb. However, it is easy to recognize as "Bruce" there is simply something that clicks in his mind, and that doesn't allow him to get confused. Alfred believes that, should Bruce ever change his skin again (he hopes not) he would be able to recognize him immediately.

The conversation that follows is long and sincere.

"I thank you Alfred" says Bruce, once the conversation ends "you were under no obligation to help me, or my hatchlings"

"boy" says the old man with a hint of sweetness that touches even Dick "even if I have some doubts. You've shown yourself to want to be good to the people in your charge. I don't mind helping you at all, knowing that you will take care of Jason as well as you have taken care of Dick all these years."

Alfred's restraint in meeting this new form of Bruce just a couple of days after learning of the nature of his disguises is surprising.

Alfred is really something else, Dick thinks fondly.

He tells them worriedly about his new encounter with Jason, who was stuffing his cheeks with food in the Willis apartment. How the boy had run away again and Bruce had wanted to follow him and take him home.

To which both humans had told him no, flatly.

As much as they wanted to get Jason to safety, taking him by force would only make him never trust them.

They had both been angry when, after saying goodbye for the night (Alfred had rented a room for himself and Dick didn't mind sharing his one with Bruce) he had woken up in the middle of the night to see Bruce, sliding out the window with a guilty look in his white eyes and refusing to return to his human form when Dick demanded an explanation about where he had been.

The next hour was no fun at all for Bruce, as he received a stern reprimand from his son, and his neighbor/mentor.

But deep down, Bruce had no regrets.

Even though he doesn't think it went well.

"um... I... I know I scare him" Bruce confesses, once he's back to being human "but I don't want to see my brood sleeping in the street shivering in the cold with nothing to eat.”

That's why I thought that giving his backpack was the best option. But if I left it for him without him seeing me, he'd be suspicious anyway, and if he saw me, at least... I could show him that I wouldn't hurt him."

Dick is suddenly flooded with guilt. He had been so hysterical, thinking about how terrified Jason was that he didn't think about how Bruce had viewed his encounter with Jason or the reasons behind it. 

"Dad!" he says, as the young adult lunges against Bruce's chest and hugs him tightly "I'm sorry I scolded you Bruce, I'm sorry."

Bruce's arms go around him and they both relax.

"I was only thinking about Jason, because he had already shown you that he was scared of you and ready to run, that I didn't think about how you felt about not being able to protect my new baby brother."

"I can't protect him if I'm away...what if something happens to him while he's on the street? He's a crafty hatchling and has survived so far with his blunt claws and fangs. But hatchlings aren't supposed to do that."

"god Bruce, you talk so weird" Dick chuckles, a little wetly, as he continues to hug his father "But I get what you mean"

"honestly young" Alfred says softly and Dick doesn't even bother trying to break away from Bruce's embrace, just turning his head to look at the older man "it was reckless of you, but your heart was in the right place. If Jason allows it, I think you'd make a great father to him."

Bruce hopes he still has the chance after what he just did.

Chapter Text

And when Jason dares to blink, it's gone.

The boy can feel the air around him become lighter, whatever it is, it's no longer with him.

He lets out a choked scream, not realizing that his breathing stopped in that last minute of terror, and sits up in a hurry. Sweat beads in his armpits and his hair sticks to his forehead.

He looks at the fucking backpack and, in front of it, there's a small yellow Post-it with Willis Todd's chicken letter on it.

'I won't hurt you, I'm Bruce'

That shit isn't even funny, not after he almost swallows his tongue in fear, but Jason can't help the fucking laughter that floods him when he reads that stupid note.

He leans back against the wall, trying to catch his breath, the hand holding the scrawled 'Bruce' note shaking so hard it looks painful. The boy clutches the backpack tightly, using it to ground himself.

What on earth?

What the hell was that thing?

It looked like darkness, like the stuff all nightmares are made of. The boy doesn't move until well into the morning, when light streams in through the shattered windows of the abandoned apartment he's squatting in, still clutching his backpack and the note.

When he finally recovers sufficiently from the terrifying experience, he opens the backpack. He almost expects the creature to jump out and drag him into the depths of hell or wherever it came from, but all that happens is that a few granola bars fall out of the backpack, which is heavy with the amount of stuff that is apparently inside.

Slowly he starts to pull everything out.

He may be scared and may have had the most supernatural experience of his young life, but he won't be foolish and waste perfectly good food, even if it was bestowed upon him by an otherworldly creature that probably ate his dad or at least took his form (Jason votes that it ate him). There's his red coat, with his wool hat and gloves, several bottles of water, some sausage and corned beef, granola bars, toothbrush, toothpaste, and various other personal care items.

Uh...

It feels like Déjà vu, and Jason's memories immediately travel back to the first time he had this backpack in his hands, left in his sight by a kind stranger who must have seen him shivering in an alley and took pity on him.

He knows now, undoubtedly, that it was the creature on both occasions.

He recalls a little of the feeling of relief and gratitude that came over him when he found those supplies by his side even though a stranger managed to get so close without waking him. He tries to hold on to those feelings a little, but it's useless, he's scared.

That thing is capable of approaching and chasing Jason without Jason himself noticing anything. It could be in any corner right now, watching him and waiting for its moment to strike and he would never know unless it showed itself to him again.

He licks his lips, salty with sweat and thinks.

Why is the creature following him?

What did Jason do to get its attention?

How does it stop?

What does he want?

What does Jason have to give it to get it to leave him alone?

He's not too tempted to find the answers to those questions, after all, that would mean he has to approach of his own free will that thing, or interact with it of his own free will the next time it crawls over him in the middle of the night with its claws and feathers and eyes and fangs all intermingled in that infinite black void.

That day Jason keeps moving, searching and hiding not feeling safe at all, but clinging tightly to his backpack. He hides in one place only to wake up with the sudden need to move, trying to lose that invisible presence that must follow him, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. He knows he is paranoid, that there is no way the creature will pursue him 24/7, and that, if it does, there is nothing Jason can do to prevent it.

Ah.

That's what it all boils down to.

Jason feels helpless.

Again.

Well, it's not like so far at any point he's been able to say he doesn't feel powerless. He's a street kid, in Gotham, with a dead mother who was a drug addict and a (in an unknown state) thuggish, abusive father who didn't care about anyone but himself and his delusions of grandeur of at some point becoming a crime lord and living the life of luxury and excess of someone who has money but no law.

His mother loved him, Jason knows from the bottom of his heart that Catherine Todd loved him more than anyone, but she could never make him feel safe. She herself could not be safe from her husband's indiscriminate anger and while she tried to spare Jason most of the abuse, she was never able to do anything against a Willis determined to teach Jason to "respect" him.

And Willis, Willis made him feel small, tiny, insignificant, powerless.

Jason couldn't block a punch from a grown man, couldn't even take him on his feet, had tried a few times to stand up to his father in defense of his mother and himself, and had ended up paying for it, curled up on the kitchen floor, covering his head with his hands and waiting for the man to tire himself out.

He could never stop it, not before his mother died, and not now.

And this... new creature with his father's face, was the representation of an impassable wall. An immovable stone and an unstoppable object all in one.

Jason can't defend himself.

He can't avoid it.

He cannot attack it.

He can only lie down and wait for the axe to fall.

As the days pass and his paranoia and fear increase until he simply can't sleep, eat or rest, he decides his next step.

He needs to know what the creature wants.

He needs to know if he can give it to it and then do it, so he can be set free.

With that in mind, he begins to search the Crime Alley crowd for his father's face. It doesn't occur to him to go back to Willis' house, he won't be stupid enough to be caught like a mouse in one of those friendly traps, lured in with food, until the door closes and then taken to who knows where.

The first place he looks for him is at the docks. His old man (though not actually his old man) works there. Smuggling, drugs, and all sorts of misdemeanors and felonies take place there, Gotham being a gateway and outlet for trafficking of all kinds.

The dock is dark, dirty and full of the worst kind of people. He manages to stay out of it, even as he watches to see his old man's face in the crowd, to observe in his eyes that terrifying presence made of the darkest nights and reassure himself, because if Jason is watching him, then he himself cannot be watched in the dark.

Even if he understands that it would actually be a mutual surveillance. Putting himself within sight of whoever is watching him so that he doesn't have the need to crawl quietly in the evenings where Jason feels most helpless in the face of the weather and malicious strangers.

It takes a couple of days to find it.

Surprisingly whatever has taken the image of his old man is working unloading crates on the few ships that actually bring legal shit into Gotham. Food and all sorts of other items that go to be delivered to the various central supply stations around the city, some of the few things that don't have to be unloaded in the middle of the night or pay corrupt cops a bribe, even have licenses and permits.

Shit, he never thought he'd see the day when his old man would work on something legit.

He stupidly shakes his head.

No, that's not his old man, it's just the horrible thing that masquerades as him. And apparently, he likes to play nice.

One of Willis' companions notices Jason and calls out with a shout for his father (?), Willis turns around and then looks to where the other man points and his eyes meet Jason and... he smiles.

It's not the smirk his old man wore when his mother begged for another dose or Jason called him "sir" when he was scared of getting a beating, a loving smile, even crow's feet forming at the corner of his eyes.

Jason turns and runs.

That happens a couple more times. Jason will get close enough to keep an eye on the thing that has his father's image on it, their gazes will meet and Jason will decide it's time to leave.

Surprisingly it helps with his paranoia.

He is able to sleep well again (or as well as one can sleep in an abandoned house) and learns better the habits of the creature posing as his father. He hasn't seen him get drunk once, nor smoke, nor go to brothels, which... is reassuring in its own way. But he hasn't seen him eat or drink once either, no matter how hot or cold the day, no matter how much hard work he's done unloading goods at the docks.

Is he waiting to eat Jason?!

Something tells him no.

As the days pass, Jason's racing heart calms to the point where the creature only causes him mild discomfort in the back of his mind as he survives daily. Oh no, Jason doesn't forget for a minute that this inhuman creature bearing his father's image is dangerous, but the feeling that he will soon be attacked disappears.

I could compare it like living near a nuclear power plant, you know that if it explodes everything will go to shit, but you also know that the chance of something like that happening is too low to actively worry about it.

He surprises himself by slowly moving closer to the creature. The monster with his old man's face seems to be very aware of what Jason is doing, day by day moving a little closer, testing and testing how safe it is to approach, until suddenly Jason takes a step closer than feels safe for him and steps back until he is again watching it from the corner of his eye, only to try to get closer again.

It's ridiculous that Jason knows he's acting like a scraggly stray cat that a guy gave some food to and can't stay away from because he showed him a little kindness.

However, he cannot find the strength to get completely close to "Willis" and he will not allow the monster to take the last step. If he tries to get close, Jason will run, and if that creature chases him, then he will know he can't trust it and Jason won't try again.

They are at an impasse and they both know it.

Until the other subject appears.

It's immediately noticeable when he shows up, because Jason has never seen him around the docks. He's young, but older than Jason, with black hair and blue eyes, and a vibrant, friendly smile that sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like Crime Alley or the Gotham docks, full of shady people who are more likely to spit in your face than say good morning.

Most surprisingly and frighteningly, he talks to the creature that looks like Willis, greeting each other as if they were old friends, even going so far as to do a silly thing as hugging "Willis Todd" without cover or fear, receiving a cheerful smile from the other man.

He doesn't seem to notice his inhuman aura, he doesn't seem to notice the lifelessness in his eyes, nor the terrifying call of human animal instinct screaming at Jason to flee (though it's not as strong as before), he seems perfectly at ease with him.

And that intrigues Jason.

Because he doesn't feel from that man anything frightening like what he felt when he saw... Willis.

That man is human.

And something human is something Jason can deal with.

Start studying these interactions carefully. Every couple of days, this young stranger will show up on the docks, ignoring the bad vibes and suspicious looks, hug Willis when he gets off work, and they'll walk off together until they pass the border between the Crime Alley and Narrows neighborhoods where Jason will lose sight of them and return to his hideout for the night.

Nearly two months after that night, Jason has not seen the creature without Willis Todd's form again, nor has he been stalked in the dark, there have been no long hands made of shadows reaching out to him to give him that strange mockery of affection. So, as he sorts through his dwindling supplies each day, and prepares to find a new place to live crouched down, Jason finds the note again, Willis Todd's chicken scratch, written by whatever bears his form.

'I won't hurt you, I'm Bruce'

I will not hurt you.

I will not hurt you.

Well, the time has come to put that to the test.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Dick sits in the cafeteria with a sigh as he sets his backpack on a nearby chair. He just got out of class and thinks he deserves a snack. He has cancelled his trip to Haley's circus until the situation with Jason is resolved. He can't go off in good faith leaving the kid (his new baby brother, an uncomfortable and excited part of him snorts) to get used to Bruce's weirdness on his own and equally can't leave his father to his own devices trying to raise a human child who is very different from Dick.

He has called Mr. Haley and explained the situation as well as he can. He has told him that his grandfather has become ill and that he plans to wait until he recovers (spoiler: he won't) before going with them. Mr. Haley has been sympathetic, lamenting his grandfather's illness and giving him his good wishes for his recovery, as well as hoping for good news from Dick soon.

Alfred helped him plan this alibi/excuse (god, he feels so much like a soap opera villain) to get rid of William Cobb's identity without raising so many suspicions. Alfred visits them fortnightly from his home in town and in the meantime, he'll be informing Cobb's few acquaintances of his supposed state of illness. He was not close enough to any of them to make them want to come and visit him, so they are content to send their good wishes.

The next time Dick goes, he will break the news of his "demise".

He's gone to see Bruce at the Gotham docks after he gets out of class. It's a grim place full of the worst kind of people, but he hasn't come to any harm so far, apparently they mistake him for Willis Todd's "people", and that gives him at least a modicum of protection. Todd is known for being violent and over the top and a stabber, so the other low level thugs don't want anything to do with him, and the high level ones, don't notice petty people like Willis Todd or Dick. Also, it's not like Dick goes too deep into the docks or crime areas, he meets his father on his way out of work and after their greeting and a brief conversation, they leave the place.

It's been enough for Dick to catch glimpses of the reluctant Jason, following them on more than one occasion.

Bruce seems to think it's very, very cute of him. Dick is sure Bruce was comparing Jason, disheveled and fearful, peeking around corners to look at them with suspicious eyes, to a duckling running after its mother duck.

Whew, man, sometimes it's so unconscious.

At least he has kept away from the poor child, not giving him any more scares in the middle of the night, even if his intentions are beneficial. Some nights he will glance at him while the child sleeps, but always stealthily and never reveals himself to him, wanting to avoid another episode like the previous one. It has become clear to him that it was a bad decision, but one he did not entirely regret.

He had let him approach at his own pace, the boy too curious or frightened to stay away at all. It had been good of him to watch them from afar. After all, it took a little exposure to Bruce to develop "stamina". From the number of times, he'd seen him approach almost as far as Bruce, Jason should have already lost much of the fear that had swamped him in their first few unfortunate interactions. He wasn't going to judge the boy, from what Bruce had told him, he had had a very difficult life so far, and his keen senses of danger had kept him safe.

Hopefully, it would never have to be that way again.

He is patiently waiting for the waiter to take his order when his eyes are drawn to a particular figure watching him from the glass outside the store.

It's Jason.

The boy hides behind his red hoodie, but he is unmistakable. His suspicious look, his defensive attitude and the way he clutches his backpack with the desperation of someone bringing everything he has in there.

And he looks directly at Dick.

He has a frown on his face, almost trying to poke a hole in it with his distrustful gaze. He looks side to side quickly, probably trying to see if Bruce (Willis, the boy must only know him as Willis) is somewhere nearby, (Bruce is working, though he was left to meet Dick after he got off shift).

Dick takes a deep breath and meets the boy's eyes, risking startling him into running away. He nods to the empty chair on the other side of his desk and waits patiently.

Jason takes long minutes to make up his mind. In the end, he seems to hold his breath and rush through the cafeteria door and stand in front of Dick hesitating for a last minute before sending everything to hell and occupying the chair in front of Dick, scooting it back a bit, probably to prevent Dick from being able to touch or grab it (Dick wouldn't do that, but it's probably one of those things where a person always imagines the worst possible outcome in any scenario).

The waitress arrives at his table and looks questioningly at the obvious street kid seated across from Dick with questioning

"Would you like something to eat or drink, Jason?" says Dick as the boy jumps, as if he didn't expect Dick to know his name "I'm buying" he smiles, and the boy shrinks in distrust, but weighs the idea until he nods.

"a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake, please" He says in a sullen voice.

The waitress nods and informs Dick that his sandwich is almost ready and she will bring it to him right away.

"Hey Jason-"

"How do you know my name?" interrupts Jason immediately defensive.

"Willis told me" Dick speaks quietly in an even tone, seeking to appear composed and confident.

"that thing is not Willis" says Jason flatly "that thing is so far into the uncanny valley that it almost comes out the other side."

"hey, don't call it a thing!" and there goes his serenity and reliability....

Dick immediately cringes as Jason jumps out of the chair, but manages not to make any sudden moves toward Jason, who stands transfixed, his gaze returning between Dick and the exit.

"sorry Jason" he says calmly "I didn't mean to scare you, it's just...I don't like being called a 'thing'...it's...well, it's my dad after all."

"Willis has no more children," Jason says flatly.

"I think we've made it clear that it's not really 'Willis'" Dick grimaces, but Jason sits up.

"What is it then, and what happened to my old man?" the boy sits back in the chair, as the waitress looks at them questioningly, putting in Dick and Jason's orders.

"I don't know if we should talk about it here..." Dick looks around nervously "if you want you can come-"

"I'm not going anywhere with you, weirdo!" exclaims the angry boy "if you try to take me anywhere, I'm going to scream bloody murder, you hear me you idiot?"

"It's okay, Jason, I'm sorry" Dick still feels nervous about talking about Bruce in a public place, but the cafeteria isn't very crowded and if they keep the conversation down he assumes no one will hear. He bites into his sandwich creating a distraction for Jason to eat his burger and he finds his words.

"And so, who are you, what is that thing, I mean 'Bruce', the creature with my dad's face, because you know him, and what the hell does he want?"

Jesus Christ, straight to the point.

"My name is Dick" he smiles "How do you know his name is 'Bruce'?"

Jason stamps his small hand on the table and leaves a worn yellow Post-it. Dick reads the message and can't help but coo with emotion. His father is a softie at heart. He hands the note back to Jason who immediately puts it away.

Hum.

"Where's my old man?"

Uff...

Look, Dick knows from what Bruce has told him, that Willis Todd was the worst kind of scumbag as a father, but love is rare and sometimes people still love the one who has hurt them. Neither of them had that in mind when thinking about Jason.

"Uh... well..." Dick swallows "it... it... it's gone."

"But did it go as of 'traveling' or did it go as of 'dying'?" immediately attacks the child in response.

Whew... Dick starts to feel the beads of sweat running down his neck. He runs his thumb across his neck, in the classic death sign, because he can't find the words (at least in public) to admit that Bruce killed this kid's father, no matter how much he deserved it. He closes his eyes expecting the boy to scream and freak out even more, that everyone in the cafeteria will learn that Dick is an accessory to murder (even if Bruce still doesn't understand the concept of murder), but he gets the surprise that the boy doesn't scream or despair.

He lets out a single grudging laugh.

"HA, well, good riddance to that piece of shit" the boy takes a violent bite of his hamburger "I hope it hurt."

Oops.

"I thought you'd be mad," Dick admits.

"There is no love lost between Willis and I, he was a shitty father and deserves whatever he got for this 'Bruce' to be rampant around with his face on...wait does he have my dad's face on? Or did he just take his form?"

"ehem" coughs Dick "First choice, and don't ask me how he does it, you don't want to know."

"Oh no, of course I want to know" nods Jason "but then, tell me what the fuck it is and what it wants, and why it's chasing me."

"I'm not sure... Alfred and I call him a "skin thief," but we don't really understand his nature very well. As for what he wants, not much, just to live, I guess. And he's not chasing you as such, or at least he's not chasing you for anything bad. He... he feels responsible for you" he loves you like a son, he means a little bit, but he knows it's too soon and that Bruce's love is... real, but inhuman, there's no attachment period with Bruce, once he had Willis Todd's skin on, Jason became his.

The boy finishes swallowing a bite of his hamburger and then slurps his milkshake loudly, almost choking.

"Responsible?"

Dick nods.

"Why?"

"Because he left you without a father... even if he wasn't a great father. I think he just takes responsibility for the children who were in the care of people who..."

"It eats" Jason finishes, he looks puzzled, confused, suspicious, incredulous, curious and even a little fascinated. It's a mix of feelings Dick is all too familiar with when it comes to Bruce, although suspicion hasn't been on his mind since he turned 10. He then looks Dick up and down "that's what happened to you?"

Dick nods.

"Do you want to hear what happened with me? It's a long story."

Jason shrugs.

"Anything that assures me it won't eat me."

Then Dick tells him.

He tells him about the beginning of it all, about the loss of his parents and his grandfather Cobb. About his own feelings and doubts upon meeting Bruce and the robotic, improvised way in which the creature took on humanity during his first months living with Dick. But he is also careful to tell him properly of his abiding and loving care, of his genuine concern and unfailing protection. He makes it clear as best he can to Jason that Bruce is not human and that many things he does may not make sense to them, but overall, none of his actions seek to hurt him.

"He told me he woke you up in the middle of the night," Dick says in exasperation, "without his... human form. But he also assured me he didn't do it out of bad faith, he wanted to give you the backpack you had left at home because he knew you needed it to live and he knew you wouldn't be so incredulous as to believe in a second anonymous Good Samaritan who found your hiding place and left you food."

"You expect me to believe all that crap about it just being a harmless monster, ha, don't believe me silly!"

"I never said he was harmless" Dick denies "I said he has no bad intentions."

"it's the same for me" bites Jason "How can I be sure that one day he won't get tired of playing family and just get rid of me...I couldn't defend myself if he decides to hurt me!"

Dick runs his tongue over his lips, nervous. He knows Bruce wouldn't harm them, as well as he knows Bruce isn't human. The problem is that he understands what Jason means. And he has no way of assuring him that it won't happen. Bruce is incapable of hurting them, he knows it deep down inside, but he has no way to prove it.

"I don't know how to show it" he finally confesses "I just know. I know it wouldn't hurt me, or you, but I can't show it, I'm sorry."

Jason wipes his mouth with napkins in silence. Dick sighs internally, waiting for the boy to finish gathering his things, resigning himself to letting him go. There is nothing more Dick can do.

The child puts the backpack on his shoulders, but seems hesitant.

"I want to feel safe" says the boy in a low voice, confessing his greatest wish "I can't trust him if I can't be sure he won't hurt me."

Before Jason turns his back, Dick plays his last card.

"Would you talk to him? Just once, please?" Dick sighs and runs a hand through his hair "if you still decide you want nothing to do with him, I'll make sure he stays away from you forever. I promise."

Several minutes of silence.

"I... he already knows where I'm hiding, doesn't he?" Dick nods "I'll wait for him there tonight, and if then I don't want to see him anymore..."

"Will stay him away from you" Dick says solemnly, will make Bruce stay away, no matter how much his father doesn't like the idea.

Jason nods one last time and then exits the store without looking back. A few minutes later, "Willis Todd" enters the coffee shop and sits in the chair Jason vacated just seconds ago.

"You heard everything, didn't you?"

"yes"

"What are you going to do?"

"I..."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. -

Jason stays up that night. He is unwilling to sleep and allow the shadow stealing skins to scare him again when he wakes from his sleep. Tonight is the end of it one way or another. He is going to find out what that strange creature wants and will be left alone in return.

He has a flashlight on, to make the abandoned room less dreary, and sits patiently until he hears a quiet knock on the door of the abandoned apartment he's squatting in this week.

He had thought he had been lucky that the vast majority of hiding places he found in the city were devoid of other squatters, but he has realized lately, that this thing of finding an available hiding place for him every night without having to pay or fight other people for it, only started since he came home to find Willis Todd replaced by the fur-stealing shadow.

He peers through the fogged-up peephole in the door to make out the shape of his old man. He takes a deep breath, holding the flashlight in his hands until his knuckles turn white and he jerks the door open.

"Bruce says dryly.

"Jason" answers the... answers the shadow "may I come in?"

Jason should say no, he should tell him to fuck off without giving him a chance to talk. But he doesn't want to.

He wants to know.

"ok... go ahead" He says and steps aside to give the shadow a space to enter. Jason's mouth feels dry and when they reach the small corner where Jason has set up his little den, he hurries to grab a bottle of water and empty it halfway.

Jason sits down and the shadow with his old man's face sits a small distance away from him.

"What are you?"

"it's just me" replies the shadow, cocking his head to one side, confused "no one else."

"Uh..." replies Jason dumbly, thinking about what Dick told him about Bruce not understanding humanity very well.

"Why are you coming after me, what do you want from me?"

"Want I want from you?" says the shadow, confused.

"I don't want to take anything from you. I want to give you something, things, if you'll let me."

That takes Jason by surprise, he's read, and found things out, and while he hasn't gotten anywhere asking the shadow what it wants, he's read the stories and always, always, otherworldly things seek to take something, not give, or at least, not give things so easily.

"give me things? What things?"

"a house" says the shadow with Willis' face "care, a  brother of nesting, a safe place, a chance... strength... if you want it."

"and what do you want in return for all that?" says the wary boy, nothing is for free, in the world Jason has always lived in, everything has a price.

"Me?, I've already received it"

"What?"

"when... when I take a skin...I must keep something forever... even if I discard the skin soon after...from a fox I chose to know how to dig a hole...from a bird to be able to fly...from Willis Todd...I chose to keep what I should be responsible for...I chose this...I chose to want to take care of you, if you let me, just like I chose to want to take care of Dick"

"you scare me" Jason says and watches Willis' face twist as if he had hit him "well, more than you scaring me, I'm scared of what you can do to me. There's... nothing, nothing, to assure me that in a moment you won't get tired and get rid of me. I can't, I can't defend myself against you."

"you wouldn't need to defend yourself, I would never hurt you, hatchling."

"But I can't know that!" retorts Jason "I'd have to... I'd have to trust you and your word and I don't think I can do that, not when everyone has hurt me! not when you wear the face of the one who hurt me the most!"

That's what it all comes down to.

"If you could defend yourself against me, if you could have the strength to feel safe would you give me a chance?"

Jason was silent and wide-eyed.

Strength to feel safe?

To not get hurt?

Is that even possible?

All his short life Jason has thought that to feel safe he had to be an adult, he had to leave behind the stage of his life where everyone else could take advantage of him without repercussions, leave this shitty town behind and once he gets there, try to forget the feeling of fear and helplessness that comes with being vulnerable.

"How?" he whispers, unable to find his voice.

"I can give you a gift" says the shadow "something just for you. I gave one to Dick, something he didn't need, but wanted, so he got what he wanted, not what he needed. You don't want it, but you need it, so you'll get what you need."

"Uh... what did Dick get?"

"My wings."

"What would you give me?"

"My claws, or my fangs if you want it"

Jason licks his parched lips and thinks carefully.

"If you agree to be mine, my Hatchling. I will give you a piece of me. And I'll make sure I don't let you down. All the humans you have trusted, have failed you, but I am not human. I will not fail."

"Would it hurt me? your gift?"

Bruce shakes his head in a not.

"You could receive your gift in your sleep, like Dick."

"no... no, I think I'd rather see what you're giving me, with my own eyes."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes... I think so. It's just that I... I, I don't like, I don't like you having my old man's face, he doesn't bring back good memories, he doesn't make me feel safe even when I know you're not him. So... if you ever... change your skin, throw away my dad's skin so I never have to see it again, please."

"I understand. I don't plan on doing it anytime soon, maybe not in a one lifetime. But if it happens, I will."

"You'll have to tell me more about yourself at some point, shadow" snorts Jason "but it's a yes. what should I do now?"

"You? nothing" denies the shadow "but if you can, close your eyes for a few seconds"

"I'll blink, but that's all."

"that's enough"

So that's what Jason does.

He blinks and in the time it takes to close and open his eyelids Willis' face disappeared, replaced by the shadow.

"How?"

The shadow doesn't answer. He remembers Dick telling him he couldn't talk like that.

A black hand reaches out toward Jason, but he no longer feels terror. The hand is clasped, its four long, sinewy fingers locked like a safe. Jason extends his two small hands, twice as small as the shadow's, clasping them together like a bowl.

The fingers unravel and a shiny, sharp thing falls onto Jason's hands. It is silvery and pointed. It looks like a fang... or a claw.

The shadow's hand wraps around Jason's hands, pulling them together until they close over Bruce's claw or fang. There is a slight pressure, and their palms come together. The hands separate and there is nothing left there.

"Ready?"

The shadow nods and rises, until it is tall and long, looming over Jason as it did that night several months ago. But this time, the boy is no longer afraid.

Jason gathers his things, and when he turns around after packing them in the backpack, The Willis Todd face looks up at him and holds out his hand.

"let's go home, hatchling."

"Ok... ok, yeah, let's go."

Jason takes the outstretched hand, and doesn't look back as they walk out of the apartment dejectedly.

He's taken his chance, and now all that's left is to see how it plays out.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

When Tim came home from school to find a note stuck on the refrigerator that said, “Your dinner is in the microwave, see you later, Mom,” he knew immediately that something was terribly wrong with his mother. She wasn't the type to cook dinner or worry about Tim eating dinner in the first place, not even when she was in a particularly good mood.

Her love was small tokens of approval; satisfied nods when Tim shows her satisfactory results.

After a bit of hesitation, he ended up warming and eating his dinner, dismissing his mother's unusual kindness as some sort of carrot that would come before the proverbial stick. More likely, his mother must have been preparing some complicated task for Tim to perform.

The macaroni and cheese was surprisingly good. He didn't know his mother could cook (there's always a chance that it could have been store-bought macaroni put into a dish). Tim had never seen her anywhere near the kitchen, as she had always said those menial tasks were exclusively the work of the domestic help.

Maybe Mother had closed that multi-million dollar deal with that Chinese shipping company she'd been talking about (the one Tim had overheard her talking about on the phone with her assistant) and decided it deserved some kind of celebration. But his celebrations were always outings to expensive restaurants, tight suits and “This is why I don't like to show you off in public Tim, you always find a way to embarrass me”. Tim shuddered as he finished the macaroni and rinsed the dishes to put them in the dishwasher.

After Tim's father died, his mother had been particularly angry at having to stay in Gotham instead of continuing to travel on business as she had been accustomed to. However, it was necessary to get all the company's paperwork in order: property, insurance, etc., and even Tim. So, she had been forced to stay in the city (although she tended to spend more time at the penthouse downtown than at the mansion with Tim) more than she would like and she developed a worse and worse mood.

“ There are business opportunities I'm missing out on by being here, taking care of unimportant things,”his mother clicks her tongue as she signs the paperwork to renew his school registration. “You should be capable enough to take care of yourself by now. You have a credit card and Mrs. Mac. What more do you need, Timothy?"

Tim swallowed hard and didn't dare talk about his half-full immunization schedule and the optometrist appointment his English teacher had recommended when he had realized that Tim performed better academically if he was seated at the front of the class, near the board.

After rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, the boy headed toward his room and spent the rest of the afternoon doing his homework; glued to the worksheet to better distinguish the handwriting and exercises. Keeping up with all that advanced school work consumed much of his time and left him with few hours to do anything but sleep and watch an episode or two of his favorite TV series.

But Tim wasn't complaining. After all, studying hard and being the best was his only responsibility. He had a life that many people of lesser means would envy, and he had to be good enough to deserve it. But despite all those big speeches the just-delivered English test said otherwise.

It was a B+. His mother was going to have a fit. She had already asked the teacher for extra credit to correct that terrible blemish on his grades.

The boy shuddered, already suffering from the future reprimand he was going to receive. His mother had never raised her hand to him (unlike his late father, may he rest in peace) but sometimes, and only sometimes, Tim would have preferred that she did.

His dad would correct with a few well-placed smacks to “make him a man”, but after the beatings he generally didn't get mad anymore and forgot about the problem if Tim was out of his sight long enough. His mother had a way of continuing to highlight every past mistake he had ever made, and knew which one to remember to make him feel more embarrassed in a given situation.

Her words were much sharper and hit harder. And they were harder to heal from than a pinch or a slap or whatever else. When he was physically hit he could nurse the visible wound until it went away. But when he was hurt with words, what was hurt was not a place he could reach out and put a band-aid on, so the wound would metaphorically bleed and hurt for much longer.

All that newly received goodwill and care was going to disappear very quickly when she got home from work.

Tim didn't know how long it had been when he heard a soft “Timothy?” echoing down the hallway from the family section of the rooms. The boy straightened his back immediately, clutching the test sheet in a trembling hand. "Just a moment, Mother. I'm on my way."

For a moment, just a moment, Tim thought everything was normal. His mother was standing in the middle of the hallway in her sleek Armani two-piece business suit, black high heels, and a perfectly groomed, elegant appearance.

And then she looked at him, like, really looked at him, not just at a spot above his head, and smiled. It was a real smile where Tim could even see her perfectly white teeth.

Then his mother took three long steps and soon she was in front of him, hugging him.

Tim froze. His brain short-circuited and he had to refrain from screaming or pulling away when he felt his mother's perfect nails run through his hair a couple of times, not hurting him, just caressing. As if she was combing it with her fingers, the same way Tim usually arranged his hair in the mornings before going to school.

"How was school, honey?" his mother says, with a kind and loving  smile as Tim had ever seen. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Still, the boy pulls out the English test sheet with trembling fingers and hands it to his non-mother; acting as if there is nothing wrong. As if that loving, kind person in front of him was the same as always.

"Uh, here," Tim says, handing over his test sheet. "I'm so sorry, mother," he says, ducking his head to look shamefully at his shoes, at the same time he takes a couple of glances at the bottom of his mother's clothes, looking for inconsistencies or something to show him who he's really standing in front of.

A doppelganger? Is his mother playing some kind of test on him?

She reads the sheet carefully and Tim begins to sweat as he takes a couple of steps back, his shoulders rising to his ears from the tension. He's waiting for the harsh, sharp words, and her inevitable look of disappointment.

"B+? Good job, honey," she says easily, nodding complimentarily and proudly like she hasn't even seen herself when presented with an A. Who the hell is this person?

“ I can't believe you would ruin something so simple Timothy,” the memory of his mother's voice rings loudly, and it's always in a disappointed tone. “Are you just here to disappoint me? How could I have had such a dumb son?” Tim remembers shrinking in embarrassment, looking at the floor and not at the juice stain on his dress pants.

He restrains himself from asking her, “Who are you?” only by the skin of his teeth. He squints and takes advantage of their proximity to take a closer look at his smiling mother, and finds all sorts of differences (which he thinks he may or may not be imagining) that quickly become clearer and clearer with each passing second.

Isn't her skin tone a little paler? Weren't her blue eyes darker? Why are her teeth so white? Did her tongue look black for a second? Maybe he's just seeing things. Tim doesn't see very well, after all, and without glasses maybe he's just being fooled by his own paranoia. Maybe he has simply gotten too imaginative, because...

What could his mother possibly want from him in order to be acting like this all of a sudden?

His mother turns away walking towards the common areas of the mansion and Tim follows her like a duckling. He’s too stunned and frightened by her strange behavior, but knows better than to run away from her when she requires his presence.

"How was school today, did they do anything interesting?"

Tim suddenly jumps at the unexpected question.

“ Mother, there is a photography contest being organized at school and since I will be participating, I wanted to know if you or father had time to go-” “Not now, Timothy, this is important,” his mother gives him a sidelong glance as she dials her assistant. Apparently the potential investor from France needed a little more convincing.

“Let me know when it's a soccer competition,” says his father with a teasing tone. “Every father is interested in seeing his son in a man's sport, not girls' plays taking pictures.” Tim joined the soccer team the following year and brought his father the information about the dates of the games. “It's just kids league, Timmy,” his father rolled his eyes, leaving the sheet on the side of his desk.”High school games, those are real soccer, let me know when you get there. I won't miss it.” Tim left the team the following week.

"Not much. We did some experiments in chemistry and uh..." Tim gulps, "then we took the English test and I hung out in the library for a while after school."

His mother exhales a reflective “Mmm. Did you borrow any interesting books?"

Tim sweats. "A Discworld audio book by Terry Pratchett," he says before he can think better of it and inwardly bemoans himself for being so impulsive. "I know. It's a useless book. I-I'll return it tomorrow, sorry, very sorry, ma'am."

The CD audio book of is safe in his room. But it's a children's book of no practical use and his mother hates that kind of pointless stuff when he might as well be studying.

"Hum..." she puts a finger to her chin thoughtfully, "I think I've heard of that novel before. Good book saga, Discworld." 

Tim opened his mouth and moistened his parched lips. He was so tempted to expand on his explanation of the novel saga he was beginning to read, but knew to refrain. Adults didn't usually want to listen to children talk for so long about useless things.

He shook his head, remembering that this person was not his mother or at least his mother was pretending for some reason to be interested in Tim's childish tastes.

Had some teacher alerted social services again? No, that couldn't be possible. Mother made sure the school stayed out of their business after that first incident with Tim and the pneumonia. Tim always hoped Miss Dania was able to find another good job.

Soon they reach the kitchen where his mother grabs the green kettle and puts water to heat on the stove. "Do you know where the chamomile tea is, son?" she asks, distracted as she rummages through the drawers, "I think I want a cup."

"Uh...yes ma'am. Middle drawer on the left side," says Tim, pointing to the right drawer in the cupboard. Tim knows well where the teas are. They help calm his insomnia and he can almost always fall asleep after a cup or two.

"Thank you, honey," she smiles and Tim feels more and more restless. All that approval and kindness is good and all, and Tim would do a lot of things to keep getting it, but he'd rather his mother just say what she wants for once and be done with it. 

"Yeah, uh, didn't you have a meeting today? How did it go, Mother?" says Tim redirecting the conversation.

That didn't seem like the right thing to do. His mother's face contorted into an angry, no, furious grimace. Her teeth clenched and he could almost hear them crunching, and even with his failing vision he could see her clench the teacup, until her knuckles were white .

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Mother," his voice cracked, his heart was beating fast, trying to avoid the impending punishment for his indiscretion. He knew he should always let the adult lead the conversation.

"Oh, no, no, I'm sorry honey. I'm not mad at you," she said hurriedly, setting down another cup of tea in front of him "It was an, an unsatisfactory meeting. Definitely people I won't be meeting with again."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be," she interrupts. "Those people, they're not worth it"

Tim nods obediently, picking up his cup of tea and taking a sip to try to lighten the mood. They linger for fifteen awkward minutes in the kitchen, until Tim finishes his cup of tea and she claps her hands together with an air of finality.

"Right. It's late Young Man, it's time for you to lie down to sleep."

"But I haven't finished my homework," he says looking at the clock, where it's almost twelve.

"Are they due tomorrow?"

"N-no, but..."

"Then you don't need to finish it today. It'll be fine, Tim, it's more important that you rest."

Tim just looked at his mother with wide eyes like a little owl. Even if she was acting weird she must have known how absurd what she had just said was.

She ignored his stare and motioned for him to start walking towards his room along with her. And before he left the area, he couldn't help but notice that the cup of tea his mother had poured for herself had remained untouched on the kitchen island.

His mother walked beside him through the corridors of the mansion, following him to his room at the far end of the main alcove.

"Uh..." Tim said smartly, standing in the open doorway of his room, trying to hide some of the clutter with his body, "is there anything else you need, ma'am?"

His mother looks around the room for a long moment and then turns her bright blue eyes back on Tim, with a soft smile. "Nothing, sweetheart." She lifts both her hands, and cradles Tim's cheeks with an uncharacteristic softness that Tim can't help but melt into. He feels a short, sweet kiss on his forehead. "Good night, Son, I love you."

And it's those last words, spoken before she turns and goes to her room, that knock down his walls of denial like a tidal wave, and make him realize he was never in front of his mother.

Tim stays awake, staring at his bedroom door all night.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Jason finds himself standing in the middle of the kitchen of his apartment, surrounded by dirt. There are beer bottles and cigarette butts everywhere, but no food.

Willis is gone, he left two hours ago to get something to eat and hasn't been back since. Jason doubts he'll be back later that night. He begins the long process of picking up the trash. He is very careful with the pair of syringes resting in the corner of the stove, making sure to put them in a beer bottle and putting a paper stopper on, to keep them from popping out. He doesn't want to risk pricking himself with any of it.

He hears humming coming from the living room.

His mom is off, watching static on the TV, and humming a sound similar to the candy commercials that run in TV from time to time. Jason wrinkles his nose at the sour smell of urine coming from his mother. He finishes picking up the trash as best he can.

"Mom...mom!" the boy shakes his mother's shoulder as she continues to hum "you smell bad, come on, you need to take a bath."

She looks at him with loving, unfocused eyes, extending a bony, bruised hand.

"My baby" Her smile is vacant and absent "You'll be okay if mommy goes, won't you?" she says softly, and Jason denies in despair "You're my strong boy, you're going to live."

Her face begins to sweat until it melts and slips through Jason's hands and is just a puddle of mud on the couch. When Willis arrives, hours later and sees the puddle, he throws him a rag and orders him to clean it up.

Jason opens his eyes, alerted, but without making a sound. He immediately senses a presence. He grunts a little as he realizes who it is, but refrains from protesting. Dick tells him that this will be his bread and butter as long as he lives with Bruce...and also when he stops living with him as long as he's close enough for Bruce to make the trip during the night.

Bruce, in one of his smaller forms (that one that is vaguely cat-shaped, but not quite) is perched on top of Jason's closet, staring with those creepy white eyes that don't blink at the bed where the boy is resting. About six months ago, when he had first arrived at the house, he wouldn't have been able to go back to sleep and would have crawled into Dick's room, to whine to the older boy until he got Bruce to come out of his room.

Now he just whines a little and pats the bed, giving his not-father permission to lie down next to him. Bruce waits no longer. He jumps, or rather slips into the shadows until he settles on the bed, right next to Jason. Those gestures, which at first were so frightening and unnerving to Jason, have gradually become endearing. With the promise of safety from Alfred, Dick, and Bruce himself, who have assured him that the man-eating shadow has no intention of hurting him. It also helps the numerous moments when Bruce has tried to prove to him over and over and over again that his affection means no harm no matter how weird it is, and now Jason has begun to think that this might all be real and not some sort of Hanzel and Gretel-type long game.

It's... weird, but better than he's ever had and if he's honest, he likes it.

Jason would never have dared to imagine that losing Willis (he had long since stopped thinking of him as his father, as a way of keeping emotional distance from his abuser) would mean getting something like what he has now. In his deepest, most self-flagellating thoughts, he thinks in his mother and how she deserved this too. A house, a family, a good man who loved her, more children, more food, a clean and healthy home. But he also knows it's a waste of time to torment himself with what could have been. His mother was helpless until the end of her days and there is nothing that would have assured him that she would have seized the opportunity when it appeared. Maybe she would have walked away from the "new" Willis, taking Jason with her, and they both would have ended up with nothing better, with her getting another boyfriend and smoking crack while Jason struggles for them both to survive another day.

He feels one of those long paws of Bruce's poking him in the arm and looks up at him. Those empty white eyes aren't so scary now, and part of him wonders if they were really that scary the first time.

"It's nothing, B" Jason whispers "Bad dreams."

Both Dick and Jason doubt that Bruce knows what nightmares really are, because they've never seen him sleep. So when they tell him they're having nightmares, Bruce just does his best to comfort them in his own way, with that weird cat purr that sounds like nails on a chalkboard coming out of a radio with bad static.

One eventually gets used to it.

"I was dreaming about mom" the boy says quietly, not really delving into the content of his nightmare, that's for his therapist and no one else "but it's over" from among his nightmares, this has been a not too terrible one, maybe he'll talk to Dinah about it in his next session.

Jason thinks about the day ahead of him and has a jolt of uncertainty deep inside him. It's been almost seven months since he took the hand of that shadow that lovingly and terrifyingly chased him through the lonely alleys of Gotham and while he admits he doesn't regret his decision one bit, all the way so far has been spent with Dick's daily companionship and Alfred's occasional company, and he doesn't know if he's prepared for the uncertain future of living alone with his adopted father who is also a supernatural abomination who...ate his abusive gene donor and second-rate bully.

Dick has already packed everything he's taking with him to the circus and sent ahead most of his belongings so that he only has to travel with a carry-on suitcase to Europe, more specifically Hungary, where Haley's Circus is currently camping. Dick will leave tonight for New York and from there he will take a nearly seventeen hour flight to Budapest.

So as a farewell, Bruce, Dick and Jason are going to spend today doing family things, visiting the zoo, the park and a restaurant, before accompanying Dick to the airport. Jason looks at the clock, which reports that it's barely three in the morning and decides he should try to get some sleep, he doesn't need to be grumpy about sleep when it's Dick's last day in town, he shouldn't let his insecurities about Dick forgetting about their newly built brotherhood as soon as he's on the plane to New York ruin this day.

His therapist has been working with him on those abandonment and attachment issues, but it's a long process (she said so to him), for now, she has asked him to at least try to recognize them for what they are, insecurities caused by his terrible childhood.

Surprisingly, she manages to sleep until eight in the morning and wakes up to his father-thing that has moved to the head of his bed and rests between the neat curls of his head. 

"Up Bruce, time to get up."

Bruce gets up and slips out of the room to get ready for the day (ergo, dress in his father's skin), and make them breakfast. Jason still isn't used to the fact that he's being provided with food daily by someone other than himself, and still has stockpiles of canned and packaged food stashed well hidden everywhere in case that ceases to be a reality, but for now he enjoys what he has.

He takes a shower, always fascinated by the now easily accessible hot water, and dresses in a pair of Jeans, a shirt and his red hoodie. He brushes his teeth and then, in an act of pure childish mischief, runs into the bedroom where Dick still snores without a care in the world and begins to shake his brother's sheets, making sure to touch his feet with his cold hands.

Dick's disgruntled squeal is glorious and Jason laughs wickedly before Dick throws the sheet over him and tumbles him onto the bed, tickling him.

"Oh, you horrible little goblin!" snorts Dick.

"If I don't sleep, you won't either" Jason says as a statement, jerking to dodge those hands that keep attacking his ticklish spots.

He laughs some more, until Jason says enough and his big brother immediately stops his tickling. Jason smiles as he catches his breath, always pleasantly surprised that a "Stop it" makes him stop without having to ask again.

"Go get some breakfast" encourages Dick "I'll be ready in a moment."

Jason obeys, dragging himself into the kitchen where Bruce is exaggeratedly concentrating on the pan where the eggs are frying. Dick and Jason discover that, with the loss of William Cobb's appearance (an appearance Jason only half knew from photographs), Bruce had lost almost all of the muscle memory skills he had previously had, cooking among them. From being a semi-decent cook, he had slipped to only being able to make a really small variety of sandwiches. The supernatural monster father took it to heart. It had been a surprisingly good bonding activity watching Bruce try to learn to cook basic stuff under Alfred's absurdly strict guidance.

He had failed a bunch of times. Jason thinks it's because he doesn't actually eat human food, so he has no sense of taste or ability to taste what he's cooking. After seeing attempt number fifty fail miserably, Jason unsteadily expressed to Alfred and Bruce that maybe they needed to teach him recipes with exact measurements and timing, so he could make them without the need for intuition or taste. Jason had noticed that Bruce always lost track of recipes when they said "salt to taste," "a pinch of...," "whatever your heart craves," or any other variation of measurement that was purely symbolic. And then, after buying measuring cups and spoons, a kitchen scale, a thermometer and timer and other measuring instruments, Bruce had learned to cook.

In Jason's mind, watching Bruce cook was like watching a scientist perform some complicated formula to synthesize a medicine. If the recipe said "half teaspoon of salt," Bruce would make sure that half teaspoon was measured to pinpoint accuracy. It was funny as hell, but it also worked, so Jason wasn't going to complain.

The timer beeped, indicating the eggs were ready and Bruce immediately removed them from the heat to serve them on the plates where the bacon was waiting.

Jason poured orange juice for both brothers while Bruce sat in his designated place at the table, unusually quiet. It seemed Jason wasn't the only one nervous about Dick's departure. Alfred and Bruce had had a conversation about it while Jason and Dick had gone to the ice cream parlor, and from what the old man told him, it boiled down to telling Bruce that "taking flight is a natural part of life, and you don't have to like it, but you have to accept it" which had left Bruce a little more settled about his oldest son's inevitable journey.

"Good morning, family" greeted Dick cheerfully, sprawling in his chair and messily eating his eggs as Jason grimaced and pushed his plate away from the crumb impact zone "Ready for today, little wing?"

Jason stuck his tongue out at him then ate another bit of bacon and secretly rejoiced at having an affectionate nickname just for himself. 

Bruce smiled softly as he asked Dick how he had slept and they turned on the TV to the news, where they were playing boring news about some random company that had lost money and whose stock was dropping in value by about 15%. They finish breakfast and Bruce, being on his day off from work sits with them watching cartoons until it's time to leave before noon.

The first stop they go to is the zoo, because Dick loves animals and is always in the mood to feed the goats and rabbits at the children's zoo. Jason is more of a museum and library kid, but today is Dick's big day so he'll tolerate smelling goat hair for at least a little while. Passing by the elephant enclosure prompts Dick to go on a tirade about one or two shenanigans from that big elephant from his childhood that he can't wait to see. From what Dick has found out, he has a couple of years left before he retires to a nature preserve after his long circus career, and then Haly's circus will be 100% animal-free. The passing of the modern era has taken its toll on animal acts (something everyone agrees on), however, Zitka is too tame and well cared for by the circus, which will be allowed a couple more tours before taking her to her final retirement spot.

Jason likes the penguin and otter habitats and makes sure to read all the reptile habitat information plates, fascinated by their different shapes and colors. Dick doesn't have the patience to read the plaques, so he is content to stick his face in the glass and coo at the various reptiles from the safety of the clear glass. Not to misunderstand, Dick has some attention problems, but he is one of the smartest people Jason has met in his short life, as long as the information is presented to him in a way that is easy for him to understand, he will never forget it.

Bruce offers to go buy them snacks and both brothers accept his offer, promising to meet him at the seal enclosure in 30 minutes. Dick takes only five minutes after his father leaves to line up for the food before he sits down and pats the space next to him for Jason.

The boy quietly obeys, chewing the gum he'd been eating since they entered the zoo and looks a little dubiously at his proclaimed big brother. They've spent several months together, and Jason can admit that he likes him, doesn't trust adults for many reasons, but Dick is at that age line where he's an adult but hasn't stopped being young yet and feels safe.

"Would you want me to stay, Jason?" says Dick suddenly and surprises the younger boy "if there was the option, would you want me not to go with Haly's circus?"

Jason thinks about it conscientiously. Of course he wants Dick to stay, he's dependable, kind and Jason is too new to this big brother thing to let go so soon.

But he also knows he can't be so selfish as to deny Dick a future, a future he had been planning for long before Jason was a thought in his head. But it also scares him to think that Dick will forget about Jason as soon as he starts his new life with all his parents' old friends and his childhood friends from the circus.

He expresses that very thing to his brother.

"It's okay to feel those things Jason" Dick says simply "I myself spent the last couple of months looking for excuses to tell myself not to feel if I decided to stay here instead of going in search of my future, but that's only because I'm scared just like you, that, if I leave, my place will be gone."

Jason didn't think Dick, who has been with Bruce longer than all of them, would have those same doubts.

"But actually I know that won't happen, this is my family, and you, Bruce and Alfie will be here every time I come back, won't you, little wing?" Jason nods shyly "it's the same for you, little brother. Me leaving won't make me forget you're my family or make me suddenly not care about you anymore, and if there's an emergency, I'll be on the first plane back to Gotham or... I'll fly myself the fuck home, international flight laws be damned."

That brings a smile to Jason's face.

"You just want an excuse to fly across the ocean" laughs Jason.

"Maybe" admits Dick with a shrug "but that doesn't mean it's not real. If you need me, Jason, I'll come, every time."

And it's that phrase that seems to hit Jason in the right place. He steps closer, sullen and hesitant and buries himself in Dick's side, allowing the older brother's arms to wrap around him in a tight embrace.

"I'll do that too" gently interrupts Bruce's voice behind them, where he looks at them softly, as he holds an ice cream for Dick and a yogurt popsicle for Jason "Be there, for both of you, if you need me."

"We'll always need you, old man" Dick snorts lovingly as he motions for Bruce to sit on the free space on the bench.

"Ya, ya" Jason growls as he pulls away from his brother and snatches the ice pop from Bruce "too much cheesiness."

Dick chuckles as Jason takes a violent bite out of his popsicle and Bruce fusses with handing out the paper napkins to keep them from staining his clothes with the ice cream.

It's the perfect time for a photo op.

Dick pulls out his cell phone in the expert motion of someone who loves to take pictures, and points it at the front camera to capture his family. Jason irritably snorts something that sounds like "Technology junkie" and Bruce is distracted trying to get Jason to use napkins, so neither of them are looking at the camera when he takes the picture.

It's perfect.

That afternoon at the airport, before moving to the waiting room, Dick hugs his second father with all the strength in his body.

"Take care of Jason and Alfie, Dad" he says as he looks into his father's eyes, hidden behind his human disguise "I'll come see them soon" He then bends down to Jason's level and hugs him more gently (Jason doesn't like feeling cooped up) "Take care of our strange dad, Jason, I'm counting on you to scold him when he's being weirder than usual" The boy puffs out his chest and nods as if he has entrusted him to bring the moon, Dick smiles in amusement.

When he turns around to board, he leaves with the knowledge that he has a place to return to.

Jason is left with the promise of his support and a fragile light of confidence that Dick will keep his promise.

He hopes he won't have to use it.

...

He uses it four years later when a boy named Tim Drake walks into their lives and Bruce disappears at the same time.

Chapter Text

This is what normal people see:

And this is what people with magical abilities or sensitive to the inhuman see:

Chapter Text

The alarm clock goes off and Tim reaches out in a robotic motion to turn it off.  He hasn't... been able to sleep very well for a while. He keeps thinking about his mother, and what could have happened to make her change so much overnight. His first thought about it not being her is still present in his mind, like a huge red warning sign, but he wants to believe it's not true.

He wants to believe that she has changed. He wants to think that something happened, something strong enough to make him realize that he always did love her only son. It doesn't seem so impossible to Tim, look at "A Christmas Carol", maybe the three ghosts visited his mother sometime before Tim came home that day and showed him the terrible futures that awaited him if he continued down that path.

The boy blushes in embarrassment at his childishness and gets up to get ready for school.

These last few weeks have been... mind-boggling. Tim can't remember a single time his mother would have treated him with such consideration and appreciation, unless there was someone else watching, and even then. During a social worker's first and only visit to the Drake mansion, she had only acted nice enough to give the impression of a mother who just wanted to raise her rich son to be down to earth. Everything else had been settled with a paycheck under the table and a promise for Mrs. Lopez to get a better job, where she wouldn't have to deal with "unruly, whiny kids."

She, the former she, would never have said "I love you" to him before. Even his father, sullen as he was, went so far as to tell him a couple of times, quietly and embarrassed as if it were a secret, that Tim was his "future" and that he was waiting to see the man he would grow up to be. All this, accompanied by a pat on the shoulder so hard it made him lurch forward and left a red mark on his skin that took a while to fade.

Tim gets up and staggers to the bathroom where he grooms himself properly, getting ready for his day at school. He sighs, patting his cheeks, still not entirely convinced that what has been happening is not just a hallucination or a dream, from which he has not woken up. He deliberately doesn't think about the Coraline movie and how it feels quite similar to what might be happening to him (except for the button eyes). He is still resignedly waiting for his mother to return to normal and tell him what she expects Tim to do, to say thank you for the favors received.

Then, he walk into the kitchen, in search of some granola bars for lunch and maybe make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast, when he feel himself colliding with the unknown dimension.

Again.

His mother is standing at the stove, apron covering her expensive business suit, humming a tune as she flips pancakes in the pan.

God.

That idea that she's inside Coraline's world comes back full force.  B-but he's seen no mice, no tiny doors, no wonders, and...staring into Janet Drake's loving eyes, no button eyes.

"Good morning, honey, did you sleep well?"

"Uh... I wasn't very sleepy, ma'am" replies Tim submissively as he sits on the kitchen counter chairs "But I did get some sleep" he lies.

"Mmm... You should get better rest Timothy" she gently chides "I don't want you to be tired all day"

"I'll be fine, ma'am" replies Tim gently "I'll have some coffee and make sure I don't sleep in class" he'll sleep in the library

"Coffee is bad for growth" his mother frowns and Tim straightens in his seat, tense as a guitar string "You're only eleven, you shouldn't be drinking caffeine"

For a silly moment, Tim is tempted to protest, on account of the fact that it was his mother who gave him his first cup of coffee so he could stay awake at his first gala, several years ago. Then he thinks better of it and remains silent.

"Yes ma'am" he replies submissively and then jumps a little when Janet's cell phone rings, on some kind of alarm, and his mother takes the pan off the stove, dropping some fluffy pancakes on Tim's plate, bringing honey and butter close to him. His mouth waters and after his mother gives him a gesture indicating "go ahead" he begins to eat.

"Have breakfast honey, I'm taking you to school today."

"Ma'am?"

She smiles, showing off her perfectly straight pearly  teeth. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel like the smile of a predator, the one her mother usually uses to subdue businessmen twice her age or her late husband and son when they were being "Unreasonable." There's definitely something weird about that smile, but Tim's reality has already been shaken up enough over these past few weeks that one more little thing won't make his weirdness radar any more than it's already screaming.

"I'll take you to school. I need to talk schedule a few days out of class for you."

Tim swallows and nods, feeling like he's somehow doomed. But then again, breakfast is good and Tim savors the feeling of something other than cereal with milk, microwaveable food or packet sandwiches. He hurries to eat to save...his mother more trouble, or god forbid he'll be late for his first meeting of the morning.

He can't remember if his parents ever drove him to school, so assumes they didn't. He would remember, if they did something so special for him. "That's what we have drivers for, Timothy," his mother would say rolling her eyes "Why would I waste my time driving to your school?".

If  Tim weren't so scared and disoriented, he'd say it's great that his mom is driving him to school the same way other kids' moms and dads do. The same way he've seen Leana's mother drop her daughter off at the school gate and hug her before she leaves for class.

How many times did he fantasize about someone doing that for him? But Now...he just can't stop thinking he's looking for his mother, why is she so sweet to him, what has she done to deserve it, what's the price. Getting a B+ in English is anything but a reason for so much sudden affection. He's so distracted looking for reasons and coming up with theories that he doesn't realize it until he's already sitting in the passenger seat of the Ferrari that once belonged to his dad.

That's another weird thing to add to the list. His mother was much more fond of having a personal driver to take her everywhere rather than driving herself. The kid opens his mouth mustering all his courage to ask about his mother's sudden interest in driving and... in Tim, but by the time he realizes it they're already at the school entrance and he decides he'd better make a tactical retreat for the time being. That is, he tries to open the door to run to his classroom, but his mother gently holds him by the shoulder and hands him a brown paper bag.

"Your lunch, son" she strokes his gelled hair and gives him a soft kiss on the cheek "have a nice day."

"Thank you, Mother" Tim replies shakily and touched "Have a good day's work".

Minutes later the boy is already in his classroom, clutching the brown paper bag to his chest, checking that it is real. He stops when he feels like he's squishing something squishy, scared of ruining his... lunch.

The day goes by in a blur.

He doesn't have many friends (having skipped several grades will do that to a kid) and while they don't bully him, they don't pay much attention to him either, in other words, he's all alone.

Tim knows, he knows it's too early to have any kind of hope, that he must be careful not to take advantage of his mother's sudden generosity and even more, he has to make sure he does whatever he is asked to do to keep her in good spirits and collect every memory like rare stamps to add to his memory album, before all is back at normaly. He also knows he's a desperate fool who is already hanging on to all of this after the firs day. It's going to hurt like hell when it's over.

"God, don't let me get used to this more, please" he thinks in despair.

Another month goes by and things aren't over.

No, correction, they're not over yet. Because Tim knows this has to have an expiration date somewhere. His mother (no matter what his stupid brain says, he prefers to think it's her and deny any other previous reasoning about who (or what) else it might be), has kept up the charade for a whole full two months. She has been driving him to school every day without fail and during the dreaded week she took him out of school, the only thing that happened was that Tim visited more doctor's offices than he had ever seen so far in his life. All the overdue vaccinations and medical tests are slowly and constantly catching up. "These are insurance scams Timothy, a healthy person has no business living in doctors offices for no reason" echoed in his mind when he arrived at his first doctor's appointment. But now he has a nice pair of round glasses (that make him feel like Harry Potter) and his eyes no longer hurt when he is doing his homework nor does he have to go near the board to write properly. Even his photographs are more in focus than ever.

This thought brings to mind the terrifying moment when the kid thought it was a good idea to take a picture of his mother and... let's just say that now he permanently makes sure to keep his camera lenses pointed in the opposite direction at all times.

Don't think about it Tim.

The kid wishes with all his heart to be able to just unreservedly enjoy all these displays of affection he's been craving for as long as he can remember, but his stupid brain can't stop picking up and catching things, clues, little crumbs of weirdness that he can't let go of in favor of living in blissful ignorance.

The first thing he noticed is that his mother (she has to be his mother, it can't be anyone else) is the lack of blinking. She doesn't blink much, or like, at all. At first Tim thought it was because they blinked at the same time and that, people don't usually notice such trifles. But sometimes when she's concentrating on work or making dinner, Tim has stared at her, only to notice that her eyes never close, her stoic gaze fixed steadily on whatever she's doing.

Nor has he ever once seen her eat or drink. She always has a simple and convincing excuse for not eating at the same time as Tim. "I had breakfast while you were still asleep," "I ate at work,", "I had dinner with a business associate", simple but irrefutable things that it would be rude to insist on. Yet she always sits at the table with him while he eats, asking him about his day, how he slept or if he's done anything interesting with friends Tim doesn't have.

Last but not least is the work/home schedule that doesn't quite fit into his schedule. Lately she has preferred night work, stating that she wants to be with Tim in the morning (and the boy's heart shrinks with affection at this admission). But...there's a swath of free time from the time she drops him off at school, until well into the afternoon, a few hours after Tim has arrived home from school when his mother disappears, neither at work nor at home, and honestly, Tim doesn't think she spends that time sleeping either.

Tim shovels another spoonful of stew into his mouth and chews patiently as his mother sits in the seat across from him at the table, and avoids thinking about how, when she moves her fingers rhythmically, clacking her nails against the wood of the table, and it flashes in his memory the same movement on the part of coraline's other mother. He shudders.

"Did you do anything with your friends, today, honey?" she asks patiently. She seems obsessed with Tim making friends, better settle that misunderstanding quickly.

"I don't have any friends, mother" Tim replies softly as he eats another bite "The children in my group are very old and don't want a younger mascot following them around" he shrugs "But that's okay."

"Would you like to go back to the earlier grades, the ones for kids your age?" She looks thoughtful "You are right that your age difference makes it difficult to interact with other little ones your age"

"It's not important, Mother" denies Tim "I didn't have any friends there either."

He had been moved up a grade so that he could stand out among the same-age children of his parents' associates, and was only allowed to approach those who served as facilitators of business contacts. But because of this, both Tim and the other kids were aware that Tim's interests were set on that goal and not really on making friends (even if Tim really, really, really wanted to make friends). So once the contact was lost, so was the "friendship."

"That... is unfortunate" she replies after deliberating for a while "Maybe a change of school would do you good then, where you can form caring relationships without pressure. Childhood socialization is fundamental to your formation as a human being and I've noticed that yours requires... work."

That sounded like something straight out of a child care article and quite the opposite of the way his mother talks (don't think about it, Tim).

"But Gotham Academy is one of the most prestigious academies in the state, it wouldn't look good on my record that I dropped out."

His mother cocks her head to the side watching him with those blue eyes that should be the same as his, but aren't, and Tim sits up straight.

"You're only 11, you don't need to worry about that."

"But it's all you and Dad have taught me" Tim thinks "you can't come and change what you've told me all my life so suddenly. What kind of test is this?" he opens his mouth, ready to ask "Who are you?", to hell with the consequences, but as usual, what he asks is something else he wants to know too.

"W-why are you treating me like this?" he finally exhales his cowardly mouth "So different...so..." so well, he means "I haven't done anything to earn this...this love" Janet extends her hand where her perfect pedicure shines to draw him into an embrace and runs her fingers gently through his hair as Tim's voice cracks "I don't know what to do to keep deserving it...Please, mother, tell me what I can do to keep you from taking this from me."

"Anything" thinks his childish mind, heading off thinking of eye buttons or fairy circles, eternal fun and love at a terrible price.

She puts her hands on his cheeks and redirects his head until their eyes meet.

"You are a child...you are...a creature just growing up...you deserve love, my son, you don't deserve to fight for something that is natural for parents to give to children."

Tim bites his lips hard to try to stifle his sobs to no avail and hugs this person who claims to be his mother. All this, all this love and care seems like a very well assembled artifice into which he has fallen roundly. If this is the world behind the magic door, he doesn't understand how Coraline agreed to come out of it. With all the dazzling wonders in the form of the little (big) things he's always craved (love, attention, care), he's primed and ready to pay with his soul for them. He almost waits for her to ask him if he will sew button eyes to stay by her side (and he is undoubtedly ready to say yes). But this other mother simply hugs and comforts him, telling him she loves him.

Tim doesn't want to wake up from this dream, ever. 

By God he will do anything to keep this from being taken away from him. This person, this other mother, was everything Tim wanted, indifferent to how she came into his life. From the beginning he knew it wasn't her (Janet), but Ignoring all the weird things he had noticed from minute one was as simple as realizing that he didn't care what source he was getting affection and care from as long as he kept getting it. Ignoring the dark smudge of bright white eyes in the photos he has carefully taken of his mother is as simple as realizing how much he loves this new person/thing that took his place. How loved and cared for he has been since the white-eyed shadow arrived at Drake Manor, like a cat stealing other mothers' kittens to raise herself.

Let it not be said that Tim Drake is a boy with conservation skills.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Everything burns and burns two months later.

"There is...a very urgent matter to attend to at work Timothy" unlike how his previous mother was, she sounds really distressed and stressed about leaving him, as only meetings with multinational companies could make her get "It will be three, or four days at the most I have to stay, okay?"

"M-Mother..." don't leave me, please stay, I'll be good, I swear.

"Honey" her voice sounds so regretful "I assure you I'll be back as fast as I can, okay?"

"C-clear" replies the boy, because that's what is expected of him. His Mother and Father leave and Tim becomes the big boy who can take care of himself.

"Thank you, my dear" she sounds relieved with her understanding "I'll make the arrangements. I assure you I'll make it up to you, okay?"

"Yes ma'am" he replies as if he hadn't heard that dozens of times before, every time the trip was delayed or they forgot his birthday or just didn't answer his calls. That he hoped this wouldn't happen with his new mom was just wishful thinking on Tim's part.

It's over.

It's over.

Tim knew it, he knew it.

It was too good to be true.

He is still in shock, staring at the cell phone where the "Call ended" sign flashes for a few seconds and disappears. He can't hold back the embarrassed cry that immediately overwhelms him when he realizes it happened again.  He doesn't know how long he's been crying, though he knows it's been a few hours because the sun (or what passes for sun in Gotham) has started to go into hiding. Tim's eyes are puffy and his head hurts from crying and he takes a couple of glasses of water before the dryness in his throat subsides a bit. He already senses that he will be hoarse for a

while. Then the doorbell rings.

The child stumbles in his race to answer, heart pounding and a flurry of "Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother!" echoing in his head. Maybe Tim didn't totally blow it, maybe they still have a chance to fix the mistakes he made that made this mother decide it's not worth her time and leave.

He hurriedly opens the door, but the sight that greets him is not the graceful and elegant figure of his mother, it is an unknown woman.

"W-what?" he freezes. He was foolish enough to forget to never answer the door without first peering through the peephole in the door.

"Good afternoon" says the lady, a young woman, with bright red hair,  looking at him with curious green eyes that sweep up and down him,  stopping at his puffy eyes "Timothy Drake?" she asks "I'm Barbara Gordon, the nanny."

"N-nanny?" the boy asks with confusion, because he hasn't had a nanny in many years.

She nods, with a slightly confused smile, as if she expected Tim to be aware of her visit.

"Your mother, Mrs. Janet Drake hired me to take care of you while  she's out of town on business?" explains the lady softly "Here's the information."

His cell phone shows a conversation with Tim's mother, the credentials  of a Gotham babysitting site on the internet, and Tim pats his pants until he finds his own cell phone in a pocket and unlocks it. There are a lot of text messages from his mother, asking him about his day, apologizing again for leaving him alone and explaining that she doesn't feel safe leaving him in complete solitude in the huge mansion for four days, so she has been looking for a nanny service to take care of him during this time. And that, among all the women and young girls who offered their childcare services, Barbara Gordon had the best

references, besides being the daughter of the police commissioner, which offered double security and guarantee.

 "I thought I'm too old for babysitters now," Tim mutters. Ms. Gordon smiles softly, clearly having heard this protest on more than one occasion. "May I come in, Timothy?"

"Of course!" replies the child in a hurry, realizing how rude he is being by keeping the guest waiting outside "I'm sorry Miss Gordon, please come in."

"You can call me Barbara, or Babs, if you like," she replies with a smile as she enters, carrying a relatively large bag.

They sit in the kitchen while Tim finishes reading the information sent to him by his mother. Ms. Gordon is a Masters student at Gotham U, daughter of Commissioner Gordon, who works at the Gotham library and does odd jobs as a babysitter when she has time available. According to his mother, Miss Gordon has agreed to stay over every night to take care of him, take him to school in the mornings, at which time she will leave for work or college, and then return in the afternoon just a couple of hours after Tim's route has dropped him off near the mansion.

That first day Tim doesn't have as bad a time as he imagined. He is not alone and Miss Gordon is not like the babysitters he had when he was younger, who followed their parents' stern instructions not to get "unduly" involved with their client. Miss Gordon "Call me Babs, Tim" talks to him, asks him about his homework, makes him dinner and doesn't mind playing him a game or two of Mario Kart before bedtime.

He still misses his mother the full four days, but he doesn't feel as lonely as he is used to. He finds himself enjoying Miss Gordon's company and thinks that if his mother has to travel again (as much as it pains him, he knows it is very likely she will start traveling soon), he would like to be left in this person's care.

As the days go by his mother has found time between what must be very important meetings to write him good morning messages and ask him how he has been doing in his classes, and if he is comfortable with Miss Gordon's care. However, something catches his attention. The day before his mother's return, Tim checks calls his mother's secretary to verify the time the flight bringing her back should arrive in Gotham and she tells him, in a confused voice that his mother had no flight scheduled. Tim uses his mother's Icloud account to learn the location of her IPhone and showed her somewhere in Narrows.

She lied to him.

Suddenly, he is not feeling very well. He refuses the snack Babs prepared for him  and says he will retire to his room for the time being. All this without noticing Barbara's conscientious glance as she sees his spirits decline before her mother returns home, just as she noticed the aftermath of his crying the first day she came to work. The young woman's suspicions intensify, after all, her father and the rest of the more discreet division of the GCPD, have been tracking a certain supernatural entity that came to Gotham several years ago, trying to find him and find out what his plans are now that he was impersonating such a high profile character.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

At dawn on the fifth day, Tim, who hadn't really expected his mother to keep her promise to return now that she had learned of his lie, was taken by surprise when he saw his mother standing in the doorway,  giving the impression of exhaustion even with her flawless appearance, managing a soft smile for him. Thoughts of his lie are momentarily erased from his mind as he runs to her, clinging outrageously to her arms in anticipation.

If it were the former mother, Tim is sure she would not have allowed him such an effusive greeting and would have immediately pushed him away from her, shocked by such an unseemly display of affection.

"I missed you so much, Mother" confesses ashamed of the emotional vulnerability he was raised not to display.

"I missed you too, dear" she replies softly as she strokes Tim's hair "How did it go with Miss Gordon?"

Tim launches into a tirade about the games they played and the dinners the babysitter prepared for him.

"How did your meeting go?" asks the boy knowing of her lie, but hoping there was some logical explanation that didn't include her dropping out because she needed a break from Tim.

"Oh, well, well, it turned out not to be that complicated, but it required my constant presence for everything to go well in the end" she says easily, without really telling anything substantial "I'm so sorry I had to leave you, son. Now, I guess I promised to make it up to you" she looks at him with a soft smile "How about going to the zoo or the movies?"

And Tim knows, he knows, when he's being offered a decoy to divert his attention, but dammit, he'll bite it with all his might if it means his mother won't leave him alone again.

"Yes" replies the boy a little too quickly "The zoo is fine".

Miss Barbara comes by in the afternoon after her classes to report on Tim's behavior (excellent, in her words), and receive payment for the days worked, along with a generous tip from her mother, and the promise that she would be counted on in case she needed a babysitter again.

Barbara says goodbye with a smile, a hug and leaves Tim her phone number for him to call her if he ever needs help with anything. Tim has no idea why he would need help, but appreciates the concern and nods in response with a smile.

"Thank you Babs!" She smiles back, ruffles his hair and after giving his mother a final handshake, leaves. Tim hastily jots down the number among his few contacts, it is now next to "Mother", "Miss Tina" (Janet's secretary) and "Mrs. Mac".

"Shall we go in the house, dear?" asks his mother.

Tim nods passionately.

All is right with the world again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Tim knows he is being very clingy the next few days. He is aware that he is not supposed to want to be around his mother 24 hours a day, and that adults generally prefer to have alone time, but he can't control himself. Every time his mother leaves his sight for a few minutes he starts sweating, his mind starts getting saturated with negative thoughts, he starts thinking "What if she leaves?" "What if she leaves me alone?", after all, she had to leave out of the blue and nothing assures Tim that it won't happen again. Even when he's at school or waiting at home for his mother to return from work, all he can think about is when his cell phone will ring to let him know via an impersonal message that the business trip will be extended for another couple of months.

This had not happened before. Before his new mother arrived, he knew how to be alone. He knew how to be a good kid, quiet, responsible and obedient. He is no recognition of this new Tim, who wants company all the time, who is clingy and ready to throw a tantrum the moment he feels his mother is going to leave him alone. He finds himself trying to figure out where his mother is when she's not with him and he knows it's not right, that she's an adult, entitled to do her own thing, have her privacy and not have to deal with him, but it's almost as if he's possessed.

Calls to his mom's secretary become more frequent, always asking if she's in the office or if she's off work yet or "Do you know where my mother is, Miss Tina?", and then he realizes that some nights his mother is out when it's bedtime because he peeks into her room and no one is there, only to have her show up at breakfast time as if she's been present all along.

It doesn't help that every time he tracks the location his mom's phone is always at a specific address in a middle class neighborhood in Narrows. Maybe she's dating someone, she has a partner she doesn't want to introduce to Tim yet. If she was his first mom that would be impossible because there would be no way in hell she would talk to anyone below her social and salary level unless it was strictly mandatory. But it has become clear that this new mom is different in every way, so she might have found a partner somewhere that she is willing to meet.

Tim is not jealous.

He swears.

He, just needs to make sure his mom is dating a good man who doesn't think Tim is just a nuisance and wants his mom all to himself. Then, one day when he is sure his mother is at work he decides that he will visit that house and see with his own eyes what it is that makes his mother visit this place non-stop and abandon Tim.

He doesn't realize how much he stands out in the Narrows until someone asks him if he's lost not five minutes after he gets out of the taxi. Even though Tim is acting like he knows exactly where he's going. His going out clothes are a polo shirt and stiff shorts with dress shoes and white socks above the ankle. Everything about him screams rich kid.

He attracts stares and realizes they are not all good looks. He has only four blocks to go to the address he has memorized, but he can already feel someone following him. He starts walking faster. Whoever is following him starts walking faster, Tim is starting to get scared and doesn't dare look back and the damn dress shoes are the last thing a kid should wear for running because he doesn't get up to the speed he really wants and needs before someone gets a heavy hand on his shoulder. He screams and lashes out with a punch, but a hand catches his before the blow can connect.

"You almost hit me in the balls" replies a thick, amused voice pushing Tim's hand away "Good job, kid. Always attack the balls if the one attacking you is taller than you."

Tim opens his eyes, expecting to encounter a criminal. He calms down a bit when he realizes that the person who stopped him is wearing the uniform of a local school even though he's a huge guy with padded muscles who looks like a gym junkie. His eyes are green and kindly and his curly hair frames an angular face.

"You're not from around here, are you?" he asks "Are you lost? Do you want me to call your parents to pick you up?"

Tim thinks better of it and realizes that maybe, and just maybe, it wasn't his best idea to go into an unfamiliar neighborhood looking like a decoy for criminals of all kinds, with no one knowing where he was.

"Yes sir" he replies softly "I can call her from my cell phone...I, I wanted to get there myself."

"Bad place to choose to be independent" scoffs the older teen a little "Come on, my house is nearby, you can expect to be picked up there."

Tim follows him without really thinking that he shouldn't trust strangers so easily. But this person is being kind to him and doesn't seem to want to hurt him despite what he thought at first.

"Thank you, Sir."

"I'm Jason. Don't call me sir, I'm not that old."

"Yes, Mr. Jason" he replies "My name is Tim. I'm very pleased to meet you."

The other boy snorts but doesn't comment and starts walking, at a speed where Tim's short legs can keep up.

"What's a Bristol boy like you doing around here?" asks Jason casually "This is not a place where you should be walking around so casually. I had to get a couple of thugs to back off before they jumped you."

"I was looking for my mother's boyfriend's house," Tim confesses, but he doesn't elaborate. He's been assuming his mother is dating someone without getting any confirmation, but it's the logical thing to assume, a pretty woman like his mother spending time alone with a partner is a little better than thinking she's just trying to stay away from Tim because she can't stand him. The incredulous look Jason gives her makes her understand that he doesn't believe his mother has a boyfriend on her side of town either.

"Maybe you should ask her to bring you herself." Tim shrugs his shoulders without responding.

"What's the address?" asks Jason "I could drive you there and make sure you don't get kidnapped or mugged in an alley or your mom's boyfriend isn't a creep."

Tim thinks it's a good opportunity and shows the address written on his cell phone notepad to this nice teenager. Jason's sarcastic smile slowly fades as he looks at Tim with a new focus that makes him nervous.

"Are you sure your mom has been dating the guy who lives in this house?" he asks carefully, his gaze sweeping Tim from toe to toe to head.

"H-is he a creep?" freaks out the younger boy.

"No!" Jason immediately and curtly responds "No way. But... Are you sure your mom is dating him, like... Totally sure?"

"Well... she hasn't said she's dating him" or that she's dating anyone, thinks Tim "But lately her IPhone location shows her at this address for a long time every day. So I thought... maybe she had a boyfriend she didn't want to introduce me to."

Tim doesn't understand why he's explaining himself to Jason when he doesn't know him at all, but maybe it's the fact that he's been needing someone to express all this to very urgently. With no friends and no more family to ramble on to, one can only brood for so long before exploding.

"Mmm... so" Jason starts to fidget "Come on, I'll take you there".

Tim smiles and thanks politely as Jason begins to walk. He moves slowly despite his long legs, just so Tim can keep up with his walking, which he is very grateful for. No more than fifteen minutes of walking pass in awkward silence, where every so often he will feel Jason's gaze out of the corner of his eye, before they are there. The first thing Tim notices is that it's a very small house with a yard of yellowing grass (it's summer and it hasn't rained much) and worn paint on the facade. Again, the boy wonders what on earth his mother would be doing in a place like this. But when Jason goes to the front door and opens it with his own keys, beckoning him inside, there is a new concern.

Is this boy the person his mother has been seeing!?, he is tall and big but he can't even be twenty years old. His mom is seeing a younger man!!!, Tim is horrified, thinking that maybe his mother was right not to tell him who she was spending time with.

Jason leads him into a living room cluttered with old but well-loved furniture, the cushions of which are covered with small crocheted rugs. There is a large television on a table and on various surfaces of the house there are flower pots with small aromatic plants, the walls are covered with photos.

The older guy asks him to sit down and Tim says he'll call his mother to come get him (lie) from his cell phone. Jason offers him some water or soda to drink and goes into the kitchen while leaving Tim to his own devices.

"We'll talk about this when I get back, okay?" the older man asks, to which Tim nods nervously.

Please, if any gods have mercy on him, let this teenager not be his new stepfather. PTA meetings will be so awkward.

Tim notices a framed photo showing three people looking at the camera. The first of them a handsome blue-eyed boy with black hair in a ponytail, who is obviously the one holding the camera and in his other hand an ice cream. In the middle is a little boy who must be Jason when he was younger, holding a popsicle with a frown, and at the end, a grown man who is probably the father of the two boys holding napkins in his hands trying to keep his sons from getting dirty.

The photo calms her uneasy mind. It is more likely that his mother has been dating this person in the background of the photograph than a high school student. Looking closely, over the face of who he assumes is the father of the boys in the photo is this strange... black blob, identical to the one in the photos of his new mom, so maybe they're a couple of... whatever they are and they're dating. He breathes a sigh of relief.

He stands up and begins to walk around the small room, noticing the photographs and trinkets that decorate the room. Everything is so alive and so different from her own home whose walls are filled with expensive artwork, Chinese vases and Greek busts, with its metal skeleton hard leather furniture that is the latest fashion trend somewhere and that no one wants to sit on for more than fifteen minutes at a time.

A glow catches your eye.

There's a drawer ajar under the TV that attracts Tim like a magpie, he reaches in and pulls out a watch. It's a Rolex Day-Date identical to his mother's (Tim is sure it's hers, because there's no way a man like the one in the photos could afford one) which confirms she's been here.

"Hey!, What the hell do you think you're doing!?" he hears Jason's booming voice claim and Tim jumps.

He hears a tray with glass beakers set abruptly on a bedside table and the muscular teenager advance towards him in three steps, snatching the watch from his hand.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?, taking what's not yours, you little shit!" shouts the boy, opening his palm and making a surprised face when he realizes what he has in his possession "Where the hell is this shit from?" he asks the air.

"Mmm" Tim clears his throat, still with his heart pounding from the scolding "I-I'm so sorry, Mr. Jason" he hurriedly apologizes "I-I wasn't going to take anything from your house, I swear" he stutters "I-I... by any chance... Is your dad... is he... is he dating my mom?"

Jason looks incredibly nervous.

Tim stands up straight and proceeds to explain.

"As I told you earlier Mr. Jason, my mom has been leaving the house quite often to come to this address and I...I think she is dating your dad and I came to see which person she is dating, since she hasn't mentioned anything" The boy inwardly congratulates himself on his clear explanation "I...that's mom's watch, which indicates that she has been here recently. When will your dad be back, I would like to meet him if it's not too much trouble."

Tim watches curiously as Jason's face seems to turn whiter with every word out of his mouth, little beads of glistening sweat trickling down his forehead and neck. Maybe Jason didn't know his dad was dating either, if so this will become a more awkward situation than it already is. Tim...he had no idea that his curiosity could trigger all this, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stalk...pry into, his mother's private life.

"Y-you say your mom's been coming here often?" The older teen stutters uncertainly looking at the Rolex in his hand "How long has she been doing that?"

"I think it's been several months, but I started noticing it about two months ago" he replies "She drops me off at school and the location of her IPhone shows her here until the afternoon."

"Uh..." The boy scratches the back of his neck as he thinks his words "Your mom... is... acting... different? since she's... dating" he smiles nervously and Tim gets excited.

"Yes, sir!" Tim jumps up and down in excitement "She's much nicer and..."

"Does it take better care of you?"

"Exactly!" Tim shouts ecstatically.

Tim watches as Jason pulls his own cell phone out of his pocket, dialing a number unknown to him. It only rings a couple of times before someone on the other end answers.

"Dick" he says, and Tim is surprised it doesn't sound like an insult You need to come home now" Tim hears frantic muttering on the other end of the phone that he can't quite make out "Bruce did it again" He says as he looks directly into Tim's eyes.

"He did what?" Tim asks innocently.

Jason sits down on the couch and points to a seat for Tim who sits down as well.

"Look kid" he says trying to stay calm "I won't be the one to explain it to you, but... Why don't we wait for your mom or my dad to come over, I'm sure they'll be so happy to explain it to you."

Tim smiles dazzling and satisfied, deliberately ignoring how sarcastic the older teenager is sounding.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Jason."

"Just Jason, kid" says the boy with a strained smile "I have a feeling we're going to become very... Familiar with each other after today."

Chapter Text

The boy, Tim, watches Jason pull out his cell phone with his big, beady baby deer eyes. Jason feels too out of place and needs adult support. Fortunately, Dick doesn't seem to be busy because he answers after only two rings.

"Dick" he says, and Tim jumps a little at the nickname "You need to come home, now."

"Jay, did something happen, is everyone okay, Little Wing!" his brother sounds concerned and Jason hurries to explain "Bruce did it again" he says looking the new boy in the eyes.

"Shit" replies Dick "I'll get there as fast as I can, two days max Jay, call Alfred."

"I will" Jason replies and quickly says goodbye.

"Who did what?" the little monster asks innocently and Jason sits down on the couch, pointing to a seat for the child to occupy.

"Look kid" he says trying to remain calm in the face of the fact that his damn dad apparently killed another human being (most likely a shitty human being, but he killed him, after all and stole another baby) "I won't be the one to explain it to you, but... Why don't we wait for your mom or my dad to come, I'm sure they'll be happy to explain"

The conversation about what happened to the boy's mother is a hot potato that Jason is happy to throw at Bruce, he already wants to see him shrink back into the shadows when he realizes his little game of double life is over.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Jason."

"Just Jason, kid" Jason tries to smile reassuringly, but he's sure he's just grimacing "I have a feeling we're going to become very... Familiar with each other after today."

The boy doesn't answer as he savors his glass of soda and Jason takes the opportunity to take a closer look.

When he saw this bait of criminals walking rampant through the streets of Narrows, completely oblivious to the fact that no less than three people had begun following him several minutes earlier, he only hoped to save his scrawny hide.

Everything about Tim screamed rich kid, from his shiny dress shoes, to the ridiculous stiff fabric shorts and his polo-style shirt, and especially that stupid probably $100 bowl cut. He wonders what drove Bruce to the rich kid, or, rather, to his mother (Jason still can't get over the fact that Bruce may as well be a woman). Although come he to think of it, there is nothing about his appearance (his real appearance) that would indicate a gender of any kind.

At first glance he doesn't look like someone who needs a lot of help. He probably has all the food he wants or needs, an army of nannies, more money than he'll know how to spend in his life and his whole future taken care of. He'll probably be able to buy his way into Harvard and then work comfortably for the rest of his life at mommy and daddy's company as the nepotism baby he was born to be.

Well... maybe he's projecting a little, Jason admits graciously. The boy sits perfectly still on Jason's old couch and takes little sips of his drink without making a sound, his legs so close together that even his shoes are level and his back is straight as a steel rod, and no child in Jason's opinion should have looked so still, so... robotic.

"Hey bud, I'll be out for a few minutes, I have to call my grandfather" before leaving he turned around and pointed accusingly "Don't touch our shit anymore."

"Yes Mr. Jason, I'm sorry, I won't do it again" apologizes the boy looking at him with those huge wet eyes and Jason is sure he won't listen, but shrugs his shoulders and walks out.

The conversation with Alfred is much more complicated and lengthy than Dick's. Alfred had been willing to roll with them and Bruce for a long time, but he has also been much more aware of Bruce's nature and in a sense, was even prepared to intervene if something in the skin thief's nature might prove harmful to the children in his care. He was as much a friend/grandfather as he was a watchman.

Jason knows that Alfred won't let a third murder/child theft go without an incredibly good explanation from Bruce and yet there is a high probability that he will call in some of his old friends and acquaintances on the off chance that there is some danger. Jason can largely understand that he and Dick trust Bruce completely because they have never come across the less sunny and rainbow side of fae affairs. Unlike them, Alfred, who has a thousand stories to tell each more terrifying than the last about all manner of deceitful and murderous creatures that dwell beyond the veil, is much more reluctant to accept things as they come and trust the "good nature" of something without question.

Once he finishes his conversation with his grandfather, he runs a hand across his forehead and holds the bridge of his nose. Jason had begun to suspect a couple of months ago that Bruce was up to something, but there was no way he had imagined he was hiding a whole new child and a new skin from them.

He had told Dick of his suspicions, but his older brother had no history of anything like this happening with Bruce. They had both been thinking that maybe Bruce was getting to the point where he might be looking forward to going back to where he might have come from, as difficult as it was to consider the possibility. With Jason slowly approaching adulthood, Bruce might think it's time to leave the nest. After all, even with all the time that has passed, his actions are still a bit...animalistic and instinctual.

Bruce had been changing his schedule and attitude for a while, but it was most noticeable when Jason came down with the flu about two months ago. One day he woke up and was so sick that Bruce had no choice but to stay and take care of him for the four days it took for the worst of the cold to go away. Bruce acted as he always did, loving, terrified of the concept of illness and creepily focused, but there was also a kind of restlessness about him, as if he couldn't sit still, as if there was a place he wanted to be at the same time he was with Jason. Almost as if he wanted to break in two. 

It was really bad luck for his monster dad that Jason got sick when he was trying to hide his other family. If that hadn't happened, Jason is sure he would have managed to hide the matter for who knows how much longer. After all, that sort of thing doesn't happen to him very often anymore.

What things, someone would ask?

Diseases, apparently.

Children like Jason, who grew up in the most extreme conditions of deprivation, are usually destined to spend if not their entire lives, at least a large part of it recovering from the repercussions of malnutrition and diseases contracted by people on the street, when they have no access to showers, toilets or simple shelter from the rain.

For this reason, Jason hadn't had much hope for himself in the health, looks and stature department. But to his enormous surprise, when he spent the second year of life in the care of his new family, puberty hit him with the force of a train and he began to grow.

And grow.

Now, at sixteen, his height was verging on six feet tall and he had a thick build like that of a gym junkie. Well, not such a far cry, but he had grown tall and thick (taller and thicker than Willis or Dick's appearance) and had padded muscles that his twelve-year-old self could only have fantasized about.

The doctors called it a miracle. But Jason knows it was all because of Bruce's gift. He still doesn't know much about how that shit works, but he's sure it was his own wishes that shaped his creepy dad's magic.

His desire was to be able to defend himself so that he would never be bullied/hurt again. Apparently, this had translated into not only having a healthy appearance, but had improved his overall physical health to near perfection. It had cured the sickness and malnutrition of his entire early childhood, and had given his body the strength to always be at its physical best. The asthma he had from smoking cigarettes to distract himself from the cold? Goodbye, The spots on his skin from sleeping outdoors? Faded, The tooth that ached and oozed from lack of dental hygiene, fell out... but grew back (even though it was supposed to be the permanent kind).

Sometimes (very often) he thinks about how much of his humanity he lost when he accepted the gift from the skin thief who is his new father, but looking closely at the advantages, he dismisses that thought just as quickly at every opportunity. Humanity be damned, he's going to enjoy his magic and his monstrous family 100%.

At first he had felt fear when he woke up in the middle of the night to find B, lying on top of the dresser with his beady white eyes pointed at him. Or when he woke up to the feel of his old man's little paws combing the tangled locks of his curly hair (Dick just laughed and said Bruce was grooming him). Now it's all become landscape and a comforting act. And he knows, when he wants time alone, all he has to do is close the door to his room and he'll be left alone.

After Dick's departure with Haley's circus, Bruce, Jason and Alfred slowly found a dynamic that worked for everyone. Their older brother was always there on vacation or during the off-season of wherever they were currently parked, as well as at least once a week on a virtual call. Even far away, he managed to be a great support to Jason and taught him how to understand his new father and begin to trust adults again. Fears that Dick would go away and forget about Jason vanished with his occasional visits and constant concern for his family's well-being, which had resulted in the formation of a firm family bond that Jason clung to tightly. Having an older brother was the best thing. Dick always brings him cool stuff from the countries and cities he visits, taught him gymnastics, helped him catch up with school, and has given him a couple of rides on his shoulders as he flies over the trees of William Cobb's old house. Jason doesn't want something as ethereal as flying, but experiencing it (even if secondhand) on Dick's shoulders is something he'll never forget.

And Alfred, man, Alfred.

Jason believes he had never taken a liking to a person as quickly as he took a liking to the old man who showed up almost every weekend to keep an eye on his well-being. He was a BADASS (yes, capitalized) old man who had an incredible sarcastic streak, a refined and sharp humor and didn't mince words about putting everyone in the house (including the grim supernatural abomination) in their place. He took Jason in without coddling him or feeling sorry for him, taught Jason good manners, talked to him about good literature, scolded Bruce when he was being too weird and Dick when he ate too much candy and had a sugar high, and also scolded Jason when he was being a rebellious, rude little shit. He turned Jason from a foul-mouthed punk into something of a muscular nerd who likes tea and reading on cold days.

Alfred was the kind of man he wants to grow up to emulate, now that he can afford to dream of reaching adulthood and not just ending up dead in some ditch. Even if he's a little afraid of what the old man might do against his father when he gets home in a few hours.

God, Jason hopes with all his heart that Bruce has a damn good excuse. He shakes his head, pulling his mind out of the nostalgia spiral he'd fallen into to remember what's coming. He has a rich kid who doesn't know his mother was devoured and replaced, a brother and grandfather on the way each with a different idea of how to deal with this murder/child theft committed by Bruce and then there's Bruce himself, who has yet to show up and explain himself. And at the end of it all, there is Jason himself who has to keep all the order until one of everyone else truly comes home.

He breathes as he gives himself strength to go back inside... Only to find the little shit with his head stuck in his things, and then jumping up and down like an infarcted hare when he realizes he's been caught red-handed... again.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They don't really do much for the next few hours, Tim, when he's being watched, is an incredibly quiet and well-behaved child, and Jason doesn't really know what to ask the kid without letting slip that his mother has been killed and subsequently replaced by Bruce, which is something he's not willing to explain. Now he understands a bit about how Dick felt when he had to explain it to him, before he joined the family.

The few safe questions he has been able to ask the boy have revealed only a couple of things. He's a little genius who skipped two years of school at Gotham's most expensive private school, is 11 1/2 years old, has bad eyesight and likes photography.

Other things he has discovered (with a quick Google search) is that Jack and Janet Drake were a married couple who owned one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country and amateur archaeologists. Jack Drake died three years ago in some sort of accident during one of his expeditions in the Amazon rainforest, since which the man's wife had settled in Gotham to care for their son after his devastating loss. He definitely can't delve into his home situation without looking suspicious, so he'll wait for Alfred, relying on the old man to find out more about this child and why Bruce chose him out of all the children who might need a new family.

"It's getting late" Tim casually comments, as he looks at the time on his cell phone "Maybe I should come back tomorrow?"

Jason tries to think of a reason to keep the child present, but he can't think of a good one. The boy has his own home, and even when they share a parent, this is not something he is aware of yet, and he can't ask him to stay overnight when they don't know each other well and it might be misunderstood. Jason nods with a little hesitation.

"You're right, maybe you should come back tomorrow" he comments resignedly as Tim begins to pick up his small backpack and fidget restlessly as he looks out the window where the nighttime streetlights have already been turned on "I'll walk you home"

"No!" the boy jumps up "No need, Mr. Jason. I can go alone, I don't want to disturb you."

"Look kid, this isn't a safe neighborhood and I don't want anything to happen to you. I'll take you home and that's my final word" Jason frowns as he picks up his wallet and keys and scribbles a note in case Alfred arrives, which he leaves taped to the fridge door.

The boy realizes that he will get nowhere by insisting and nods meekly as he walks out of the house, with Jason close on his heels.

"Let's see, give me your hand, it's dark and I don't want you to separate from me."

Tim looks at the hand as if it were a piece of strange, unknow material, switching between staring at Jason with disbelieving eyes and examining his calloused hand. Finally he seems to awaken from his reverie, extending his thin, white little hand which is easily enveloped by Jason's, covering it completely. Jason suddenly feels that he is holding something fragile and delicate, and he makes sure not to squeeze too hard while being careful that his grip is not slack.

They board the bus for Bristol, and even as they are seated in the vehicle the boy clings to Jason's hand with unusual attachment. following Tim's directions, moving through the city until the houses are separated from each other by acres of well-maintained gardens and extravagant porches, they arrive at a huge steel gate, whose nameplate reads "Drake Manor". Jason's jaw drops. That's not just a giant house, that's a real fucking manor, an absurdly large and elaborate building, like something out of a fucking regency novel, with its overly green decorative gardens and perfectly laid out trees in a meadow of perfectly mowed green grass.

"W-want to come in?" the boy nervously offers, putting his access code on the door, as Jason silently watches the metal grille open "I could make some tea for us" he smiles shyly, almost excitedly and Jason feels a little bad about having to decline.

"Sorry, Timmers" Jason runs his hand over his neck and watches as the boy deflates completely, his shy excitement replaced by resignation "I should get home, but shall we exchange numbers, I could come over later and visit you or something, so you can finally meet the old man?"

The boy looks at him excitedly, as if he expects Jason to simply discard his sheepish eyes and puppy dog outdoorsy look and turn away like an asshole without ever looking back. He holds out his hand so Tim can hand him his phone, where he jots down his number next to the kid's sad little contact list consisting of three more numbers. Gods, this kid slowly puts together such a depressing picture that Jason feels like accepting the invitation to come in, no matter how uncomfortable he feels in front of the opulent mansion, just to keep him company. Then he hands over his own phone for the kid to return the favor.

"You can write me anytime, Timmers" allows Jason "I'll write you back whenever I have time, you know, when I'm not in class."

"I'll be sure not to disturb you, Mr. Jason" nods Tim emphatically "Thank you very much."

"Call me Jason for god's sake" complains the older one but finally sees no other excuse to stay any longer "Ok, Tim, good night little buddy."

"Good evening... Jason."

Jason turns around to walk back to the nearby bus stop and feels a little uncomfortable that the whole time Tim stood in the driveway watching him walk away and only seemed to perk up when got lost at the first corner down the street.

Jason may have read a lot of sappy, old-fashioned bullshit about what rich families are and do, but when he agreed to take Tim back home he figured he'd at least find a butler or a nanny waiting for his "Young Master" or a responsible adult to yell at the kid for disappearing and ask where the fuck he'd gone. Not just a locked steel door and the porch lights off as if Tim was the only one living in that huge shitty mansion.

Or Maybe he was simply hoping for some sort of confirmation that Bruce had been wrong in choosing this new kid, or that the reasons for Tim joining his flock of semi-magical mutts were not as good as his own. Just... Jason knew he was being a little petty, thinking that rich kids can't suffer, or at least not as much as poor kids, but it was hard not to feel frustrated. This was too unexpected and he needed some time to process.

That was all.

Jason couldn't see or feel a piece of Bruce all the next day and he was starting to worry. Not for one damn second did it occur to him to call or notify the police like he would if a normal person had gone missing, what was he going to say, "Hello officer, my monster dad is missing, be careful, he eats people," but that doesn't mean he's not worried. He wants his old man back more than he needs an explanation for the other adopted son, that can wait, they will adjust after all, just like Dick did when Jason arrived. But they won't be able to if he doesn't come back. He has never thought of Bruce as the type to shy away from explanations, mostly because he seems incapable of understanding the complexities of human feelings in their entirety and if he doesn't understand something, then he will seek to have it explained before he can be embarrassed.

On the other hand, Alfred warned via phone call that it will take a little longer to arrive, as he needs to get in touch with some of his old colleagues and although he doesn't hint at anything, Jason worries that even if Bruce returns, he will no longer be allowed to stay. He'll try to talk to Alfred more seriously when he's present, Jason (And he's sure, Dick too) will do what they can to make sure their father isn't taken from them. He's not going down without a fight about his old man being run out of town.

Speaking of Dick, he was another one who was also on his way. It took a while to get his flight, so he would arrive the next day, by sunset. He deeply regretted it for Dick, who will arrive shattered by jet lag to dive headfirst into all this mess.   

And the boy, Tim.

Despite Jason's offer, Tim did not even write a greeting this entire day, only replying when Jason wrote to say hello and ask about his mother's return, to which he replied with a negative, stating that he would continue to wait. Jason again insisted that he could write or call him if he needed anything, concerned about the child. After this reaffirmation, Tim wrote him a couple of times to inquire, but nothing more.

Jason was fine with that for the moment, there being no good excuse to become pushy, he asked he to let him know if his mother had arrived to meet with him and to talk to him or seek him out if he had any problems.

The boy apparently took his offer quite seriously, because at dawn on the third day of their first meeting, he woke Jason with frantic knocking on the front door of the house. The older teen jumped up, surprised that he had overslept when he had been waiting all night for Bruce to show up at once so he could explain his little "prank," and was even more surprised to realize that he hadn't come home.

For the third consecutive day.

Did he realize that he was found out and was too scared of the scolding that awaited him?, Bruce had never done that before, but he had never hidden the existence of a second family before either, so his reactions might have been stronger.

He crept to the door, expecting perhaps a Dick irritated by these new developments or an Alfred accompanied by his retired special forces friends, but was surprised to see Tim again, a little less impecunious, his eyes red and puffy as if he had been crying.

Shit, did Bruce visit him first?

"Mom didn't show up last night!" he blurted out suddenly, interrupting his thoughts "She said she wouldn't leave me alone again so suddenly, she promised me!" he sobs.

"Hey Timmy" he tries to reassure, reaching out to put his hand on Tim's bony shoulder and guiding him into the house. "Slow down little buddy, what happened?"

Tim quickly tells him that at the time Jason dropped him off at home, he tried to call his mother and received no answer. The last he had heard from her was the day before when his secretary claimed she had left work. After Jason dropped him off at his house, he had spent the night and the next day awake, waiting for her, getting scared and blaming himself as the time without returning increased.

The disturbing thing for Jason (Besides the fact that he ran to a potential stranger for help) was that he was absolutely convinced that his mother was angry with him and had stayed away to punish him for coming to Jason's house yesterday. It seemed that the little boy was spiraling into a self-loathing spiral the likes of which Jason had never seen before in someone so young. It took him the better part of half an hour to calm him down, still unable to convince him that whatever had kept his mother away from him was not his fault. He hadn't even been able to get it answer to the question if there had been anyone watching  Tim at night, had there been any fucking adults watching this kid other than Bruce, if had he stayed up, all alone in that mansion staring at the door all night waiting for Bruce?

The boy had barely finished tearing up the last batch of wails when the door opened softly and a certain old ex-military man entered with a regal and elegant step, dragging his suitcase.

"Alfie!" Jason looked at the old man hopefully. He must have made a good sight, Jason patting Tim's back, who had clung to him, whispering how sorry he was that he had disobeyed his mother.

"Jason, son, are youtwo all right?" The old man abandoned the suitcase at the front door heading toward both boys, causing Tim to jump to hide behind the older boy nervously.

"Hey, easy Timmy" calm down "It's my grandfather, Alfred Pennyworth."

"It's nice to meet you, young man," greets the old man in a compassionate and soothing tone.

"I'm Tim Drake, sir" stammers the boy, hiding the last traces of tears and straightening his spine "I'm sorry I made a spectacle of myself" if it weren't for the puffy eyes and hoarse voice, you couldn't tell that the boy had been crying five minutes ago. It was alarming the way he hid his feelings in front of an adult present. Jason and Alfred exchange a glance, but decide not to delve further into that thought for the moment, fearful of causing the boy to shut down if they ask him what the action was about.

"Oh, don't worry, young man, it's nice to meet you" the old man gives him a shy smile "Jason, son, have you two had breakfast yet?, if not, let's go through to the kitchen and I'll fix you something."

"Great, thanks Alfie, I just got up" The older boy drags Tim behind him, who tries to refuse stating that he doesn't want to bother and can go eat on his own and come back later "Do you like pancakes, Timmy?" Jason ignores the comment "Or maybe cereal?"

The boy whispers "Whatever you guys are going to eat, thank you very much and sorry for the inconvenience" but obediently slides into the small kitchen table while Alfred starts cooking, distracting the boy from his fear with some "When I was in the military..." type stories.

"Your father didn't come back the night before?" casually comments Alfred as he cooks.

"No, Alfie" Jason declares, glancing sideways at Tim who tenses up as well "I've also tried to call him, but the call cuts out immediately, as if his phone is off or no signal."

"We'll take care of finding him soon, son."

"Will you help me find mom too?" Tim comments sheepishly "She's not answering my calls either...maybe they're in the same place together?"

Alfred makes a thoughtful, noncommittal gesture. Jason had been pretty sure that Bruce had taken the skin of this Janet Drake woman, but Alfred made him reflect that there is no more confirmation of that hypothesis than this child's statement, so don't rule out that the two have been in contact for one reason or another.

However, Jason believes it is true that Bruce has gotten a new skin, the Rolex is proof in his eyes. He can testify that no woman has ever entered this house and furthermore, Janet Drake's alleged visits to the dwelling happen at times where it is well known that Jason and Bruce were together. Tim was quite thorough for a child in showing him the evidence, almost to the point of feeling like a little stalker, keeping paper records for each discovery.

They eat breakfast, with Tim being a silent witness to their familiarity, looking back and forth as they converse, eating his breakfast in correct little bites that spoke volumes of time spent learning etiquette. He even tried to offer to help with the dishes, something Jason quickly dismissed as he sent him to the living room to watch cartoons.

Alfred goes after Tim and Jason stays in the kitchen, confident the kindly old man will be able to get the story behind his mother and Bruce out of him and find out how or since when this change happened. However, he stands behind the wall separating the kitchen from the living room, close enough to hear everything.

The story Tim tells them is complete while at the same time having gaping holes. The boy is meticulous at some points when answering Alfred's questions, but blatantly vague in other areas. Specifically, anything about Tim's feelings about his mother's sudden change, his suspicions, his reactions, any hint of his interaction with this new Janet Drake. As if he considers his personal feelings or thoughts to be in no way important and doesn't bother to let anyone know, so as not to be a bother.

It really irritates Jason to no end. Because a kid, one Tim's age, should be filled with the compelling need to be noticed, to say that he liked or disliked something, that he was afraid, hungry, sleepy, angry, because even he at Tim's age didn't hide what he felt so well. Jason protected his feelings under a cloak of feral rage, desperate to survive, but he didn't deny feeling things. Tim looks like a frozen shadow of a human being. It's so different from his initial breakdown (when he arrived in the morning) and makes Jason want to pinch his cheeks to at least show discomfort. But he has a suspicion (or rather certainty) that he only does this to hide his emotions with adults.

It was surprisingly difficult to get hints of Bruce's less-than-human nature out of him in the form of Janet, but Alfred managed quite well to slip it in at some point or another. The not blinking, the semi-robotic movements he still made when he didn't know how to react to something, and the general aura of strangeness that many people couldn't help but feel when they stood too long in front of Bruce.

It painted a very clear picture.

Jason played dumb, walking into the living room while pretending he was finishing drying his hands even though all the dishes had been dry and clean for a while now. He had tried calling Bruce once more, but again, the call was going to voicemail immediately, which didn't bode well for his location and his concern was increasing.

He may have been trying to prepare for a future in which Bruce would leave them behind, being what he is, but if he is sincere in his thoughts, he will be fucking heartbroken if the creature he has come to regard as his father disappears from his life the same way he arrived, suddenly and terrifyingly.

"Tim...don't you have to go to school?" finally expresses Jason, because it just hit ten o'clock in the morning and Jason got Alfred to call him absent for the day today. Normally he doesn't like to skip school, but the situation warrants it, at least until all is clear. But Tim is a rich kid going to private school and he should have people who care about him, even if it's out of obligation.

"You don't have to worry about that, Jason. I've sent an email from the company email in my mother's name" the boy smiles satisfied "They won't worry anymore."

Jason looks at Alfred and his pursed lip of disapproval, and knows that the only thing stopping him from letting the kid know his concerns (and giving him a little scolding, because fraud is not okay) is the lack of a formally established relationship between them all. That is, the revelation of the extended relationship they have because of Bruce.

There's really no good way to tell him that his mother has been replaced by a man-eating creature with an adoptive streak for human children left behind.

Tim stays with them until nightfall.

"Do you have a babysitter waiting at home?" asks Alfred casually, after Tim's casual comment that he should be going home to wait for his mother.

"No sir, I don't need babysitters."

"Sure, shrimp" interrupts Jason "A housekeeper, a butler, even a security guard, is there anyone in your house to take care of you until your mother shows up?"

It was very curious how, despite the fact that the time for missing persons notice was almost up, neither of them made even the hint of calling the police.

"No" replies Tim very calmly for a child left alone and vulnerable in a huge empty mansion "I'm old enough to take care of myself. I have a credit card and everything."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no" Jason steps between the door and Tim as the boy tries to gently slip out the door "If I had known you were going to be alone back there in that huge house, I wouldn't have left you alone yesterday. You stay here and sleep. Alfred and I will feel more at ease"

"But... my mom?"

"She's a adult woman, I'm sure she'll call you if she comes back" Alfred reassures "We'll immediately take you back to your home in case that happens."

Jason thinks of the longing in Tim's eyes when he invited Jason into his house even though it was late at night and how he stood watching as he disappeared into the grove before catching the bus and is sure that this boy is used to being alone, and doesn't like it, but has resigned himself to it.

It takes a long talk to convince him to stay, but he eventually agrees.Jason provides him with a pair of Dick's old pajamas that are big enough he's practically swimming in them and a toothbrush. The older teen is biased because he is now a fucking huge teenager, but Tim is a particularly small size for a rich kid who should never have to know what hunger is.

Alfred is putting a plate of curry and a glass of milk in front of a longing Tim when the door clicks open and Jason leaves them in the kitchen, hurrying to the entrance, hoping it's Bruce, who has come to settle their misunderstanding at last.

"Hello family!" greets the voice of Dick Grayson, who enters pushing at least three huge suitcases.

"Dickie!" Jason lunges at his brother, clinging to him in a tight hug. They see each other every week by video call, but it's not the same.

"Hey Little Wing!" the older brother tries to return his hug, but he already knows it's useless to fight against his little brother's strength "Jesus, what have you been eating, I swear, every time I see you you get even bigger and more muscular, that's what you want Jay, for your brother to be considered the skinny one in the family?"

"You're only saying that because it bothers you to have to look up only to face me" Jason replies with a smile, and that's when he notices his brother's companion standing in line at the door, as if she is waiting to be invited in.

"Come in Kori" Invites Dick animatedly "Family, I want to introduce you to my girlfriend, Koriand'r."

For a single moment, The lady who enters the house looks like just a completely normal beautiful woman, so completely normal that Jason immediately became defensive. The impression he got at first glance could only be compared to typing into the search engine "Tall beautiful woman" and basically, Dick's companion could fit any of the results. There were no more striking features about her than those two descriptors, which was disconcerting.

Then, something seemed to detach from his guest's skin, falling to the ground and disappearing in a soft flash of white.

Then she was all different.

Her skin began to glow a bright copper color, which seemed to border on orange. Her hair lengthened until it landed below her calves, unfurling into impressive, even, silky curls, the color of which was an exquisite gradient that began in a dark red at the roots and grew lighter and more accentuated until by the time it reached the end of its course, it was glowing an orange-yellow, like that found in the glowing flames of a wood fire.

She boasted a figure that would be envied by any supermodel, but what was most striking, once she removed the dark glasses from her face, were her bright neon green eyes, which emitted a soft glow reflected by her orange skin.

With what kind of creature had his brother initiated a relationship?

"Jason, this is Koriand'r, an alien princess" Dick smiles, dispelling the mystery that enveloped the newcomer without ceremony or suspense "Kori, this is my brother I've told you about, Jason, and there's my Grandfather, Alfred and the..." his bright smile gradually fades, freezing into a mortified expression, looking at the kitchen entrance.

Jason turns around, suddenly remembering that they have extra company, who is currently looking at Koriand'r with his mouth wide open, his lips forming a perfect "O".

"Tim" coughs Jason "It's Tim Drake, who I told you about."

His brother laughs uncomfortably as he rubs the back of his neck "Well... Hi Timmy" he smiles painfully, expecting, like Jason, the screams.

Jason turns around looking at Dick as if to say "What the hell, bro?" and Dick only responds with a smile that clearly says "Shit" and a frantic whispered explanation about having told his beloved girlfriend that she didn't have to hide from her family because they were all used in the supernatural/weird stuff, prompting her to immediately shed her glamour as she walked through the door of the house where her secret was supposed to be safe.

He clearly did not count on the possibility that Tim would be with Jason and Alfred at the time of his arrival, and neither Jason nor Alfred considered it relevant to inform him of Tim's presence, since he had basically been called back home because of him.

"I am grateful to be welcomed into your family sanctuary" Kori continues, ignoring the brothers whispering frantically "On my honor, I promise to protect this sacred place from harm, as I would my own home in the stars."

Koriand'r ends his little presentation with a bow and a strange hand movement that apparently was typical of his culture and Tim finally can't take it anymore, because he clenches his hands into fists, raising them a little, shaking them frantically as he shrieks.

"You're a real alien princess!"  he exclaims aloud when he finally can't take it anymore, exhaling the sentence in a burst of pure, unadulterated emotion. "That's so cool!" his voice is high-pitched, squeaky excited and sincere.

Well, that's a lot better than what they imagined was going to happen, although Jason supposes, watching Tim try to control his excitement, that any kid is more likely to get excited than freaked out if he meets a freaking alien princess. Jason himself has to restrain himself, trying very hard to look cool, even though he's just had it confirmed to him that life in space exists. Even Alfred raises an eyebrow to show his maximum level of surprise.

"Of course" replies Koriand'r placing a hand on her chest proudly as she looks with amusement at the excitement of her little guest "I am Koriand'r, exiled princess of Tamaran, who has come to the Earth in search of political asylum."

Tim shakes his head, nodding at the speed of light, eating every word out of Kori's mouth with excitement, bunny hopping without moving in place, when he seems to realize how he's acting and freezes. It's like a switch flips on.

And suddenly he looks so embarrassed.

The boy controls his expression, shakes off the non-existent crumbs from his clothes apparently trying to make himself more presentable despite being in old pajamas that they had to roll up his sleeves several times so he wouldn't trip, and waves.

"Good evening Mr. Dick and Miss Koriand'r" he says politely, no trace of uncertainty or childish curiosity in his voice "My name is Tim Drake and I am here because my mother is apparently related to your father, I am sorry for being so rude and interrupting your family gathering with my behavior" He then extends his hand as if for a formal greeting.

Kori and Dick look at Tim, a bit puzzled by this sudden change in behavior.

"You don't need to be so formal, Timmy" Dick says sweetly, taking the boy's hand between his own, squeezing gently and then opening his arms to enclose him between them, the boy froze before melting "You're part of our family now, after all"

Jason slaps his face and says quietly.

"We still haven't explained to him about dad and his mother."

Dick tenses, without withdrawing his embrace, and then laughs nervously, knowing he's screwed up.

"We were waiting for Bruce to come back, for him to explain the whole situation" complements Alfred meekly.

"The one hiding under stolen skins remains missing?" comments Kori casually "I would have thought he was already back in this lair"

This time it's Jason who squeals.

"The one hiding under what!?" shouts Tim, slipping out of Dick's arms, taking a couple of steps back, away from the crowd.

Kori finally realizes that the little boy in the room had been out of the loop and covers her mouth as she makes a mortified gesture.

"I'm sorry" she whispers "I had no idea you didn't know."

"It's not your fault Kori" Dick comforts her "This was all a bit unexpected, but no one had any bad intentions, just, it's a mess everywhere you look" he laughs awkwardly as he looks at Tim who looks back at them, seeming to ruminate some thoughts, but surprisingly not looking scared.

"So...if she eats people?" The boy bites his lip "My new... mom."

"Aw shit" sighs Jason and Dick puts his hand to his chest, relieved as he walks over to the couch and plops down on it "Thank God, Timmy did know something."

"Did you know your mom was someone else?" asks Dick "Why hadn't you said something?"

Tim gives him back a look that clearly says "That's not something one can just say"

"I thought of her as Coraline's other mother," admits the boy with his head down, a little embarrassed at his resolve.

"Close enough" Jason shrugs "Close enough, but it doesn't eat children."

"So you're not going to eat me?" the boy smiles, a tension that no one had noticed until now seems to disappear from his shoulders. He drops down next to Dick, limply "What a relief."

"Tim..." Jason takes a couple of slow steps towards the boy, kneels down until he is level with the couch and grabs Tim's shoulders "Tim... Did you suspect your mom ate people like Coraline's witch does?" he asks softly.

The child nods.

"Did you think she would eat you?" another soft question to which Tim sheepishly answers yes.

"So... Timmy... why the fuck didn't you run for the hills if you thought I was going to eat you!!!?" He shakes the kid desperately, unable to understand how he could be so... like that.

"I-I...I didn't think it could end any other way" the boy replies after Jason releases him "I thought it was...like...payment."

Dick complains aloud in pain, while Alfred squeezes the bridge of his nose as he takes a breath. Kori crosses his hands over his chest, while his gesture is pained.

"No one should have to pay with their life for a little of love, kid, you should have run the fuck away if you felt that way" Jason has decided, someone has to keep this kid alive to see adulthood and it might as well be him. Timmy is the kind of kid who would jump in the white van with no license plates if the driver sweet talked him and offered him a couple of pieces of candy.

"I don't have any friends or places to run to and mom was giving me everything I ever wanted...until I let her down and she left."

"Hey, hey, I'm pretty sure she didn't leave because of you or any of us and she'll show up soon enough to give us a good explanation and fix all this" consoles Dick.

"So my former mother...this..." He runs his finger down his neck as Dick did so many years ago when he was explaining to Jason what had happened to the real Willis Todd.

There is a bit of morbid curiosity in the older brothers, something strange that they haven't had time to analyze very thoroughly until now. They both suspect (They are sure Alfred does too) that there is something about Bruce, some kind of spell, something that makes them take so lightly the death of a person who should be, if not someone important to them, at least a human life that has its own value that they should instinctively care about. It's fine that Dick wasn't particularly fond of William Cobb at the time of Bruce's adoption and Jason especially hated Willis for being a terrible person, but there's still something odd about the way any grief or sorrow is dulled. As if Bruce doesn't just take over his skin, but his place. Like some sort of reverse Cuckoo bird, where instead of laying his eggs in another bird's nest, he steals the parent's place and the little chicks don't quite notice as they are being fed and cared for just as eagerly. And yes, maybe their new parent has different feathers and sings differently, but it's still there.

They still have the capacity to feel fear, anger, or all sorts of feelings related to this new parental figure (it's not like their confidence is innate), but there was something, something that made the one who originally inhabited the skin be considered the "other parent" "former parent", that they were instinctively relegated from their position and the privileges that come with it.

"In a nutshell... yes" admits Dick, ducking his head.

"Your mother and our father...are the same creature, Tim" Jason continues where Dick left off.

"How...?"

"You don't want to know" the two brothers reply in tandem, because while Jason heard about how his father had been replaced from Dick's mouth when they first met, he doesn't think it's a nice story to tell an eleven year old kid.

"Does that have to do with what Miss Kori said..." muttered the boy under his breath "Is that my mother's form or literally her skin."

He's a little creepy kid, Dick dares to admit, as he squeezes him a little tighter in his side. Much like Bruce, he has to grudgingly admit, with growing affection because he's already getting attached and no doubt he'll come to love him as his little brother quickly, with all those quirks and an apparent need for affection and knowledge.

"Ok, enough Timmy" Jason claps his hands "We will analyze this situation later, for now let's eat the dinner Alfred prepared and wait for our old man to show up so we can bully him for playing double family" he claps his hands to end the awkward conversation and points to the kitchen door "I didn't have time to introduce myself with all this dilemma, but it's nice to meet you Miss Koriand'r" he says in a soft voice as he extends a hand towards her "I'm happy to meet you."

Kori has a surprised look on her face, as if she had doubted her welcome after revealing her secret in one simple sentence, but if anything this family has to be adaptable, Jason thinks, because everyone has gotten used to living with a murderous, skin thief father without much fuss, an alien princess with a little reckless slip up is absolutely welcome to the family.

So, Jason is trying to act cool in front of a real alien princess.

Timmy isn't the only one who wants to squeal like one possessed at the confirmation that there is life beyond planet Earth.

"I'm happy to be here. This planet has been kind to an unkwoun like me and in time I'm sure it will become a home for me" her face took on a wistful expression for a second, but then she gives Jason a precious smile.

"I hope it does" Jason concedes as he motions for them to go to the dining room together, Dick nudges Jason affectionately as he passes to sit next to him and winks at him, as a gesture of thanks for the welcome for Kori.

Dinner is a half-lively, half-serious affair. Once the discovery of Bruce and Tim and Kori's arrival died down a bit, thoughts began of where the fur thief would have gone and if he would return. Tim couldn't stay with them forever if the creature disappeared, the kid was a high profile character, not a street rat like Jason, he couldn't just disappear from social service, they would be looking for him, even if only for the money he surely had on him. Dick couldn't just take him to the circus (at least with Alfred watching).

The night progresses quickly and Tim begins to nod off as he tries to stay awake by sheer force of will. Jason changes the sheets on his bed and when the boy finally falls prey to the exhaustion of the day's emotional roller coaster, Dick gently carries him and tucks him in.

They had had a discussion shortly after arriving about sleeping arrangements. They had all agreed that Alfred would take Bruce's room (not that he would use it much anyway), Tim would use Jason's (he tried to refuse and say he could afford a hotel, but no one would allow such a thing), and since the couch was too small for two people, Dick and Kori would go to big brother's old room. Which left Jason on the couch.

The fourth day of Bruce's disappearance came with a bit of a somber air. Fortunately, it was the weekend so Tim wouldn't have to go to school and according to the information he provided, he didn't have any caregivers who would notice his absence so he could stay with them with no problem. That was something that had others worried, but they made sure to keep their opinions to themselves for the time being.

On the fifth day, Tim becomes very nervous. He has varied between bursts of childlike energy and curiosity about this new world that has been discovered for him and moments of panic because he feels that he has undeniably been left to his own devices because he is not good enough for either of his parents to want to stay forever. Jason, Dick and Alfred are vibrating in their seats to get this child into therapy, but they don't have any legal custody for it yet.

On day six, it's Jason and Dick who are freaking the fuck out. Bruce has NEVER disappeared like this, never left without a word, never left them behind without a word, is he really gone, just like that, hadn't they meant anything to him, they had never doubted the skin thief's love for them until now.

On the seventh day everyone is restless and there is a foreboding of danger that everyone is sensing. Tim is sitting on the couch wearing another of Dick's old shirts and muttering that he needs to get back to the mansion so no one gets in trouble. Alfred, Jason and Dick are desperately trying to come up with a way to let the boy stay with them, rather than having to return to an empty, neglected mansion and Kori has been restless, claiming to sense something in the vicinity that means danger, the alien princess' hands glowing green with magic from another planet, but even that isn't enough to snap Tim out of his spiral.

Bruce returns to the early morning of the eighth day.

No one has been able to sleep, not with Kori muttering her magic while claiming to recite spells to protect the house, Dick and Jason feeling a strange tugging in their head, as if something is calling to them and Tim feeling increasingly abandoned. Alfred looks with knowing eyes at his honorary grandchildren and realizes that it is a magical bond about to break. Whatever it is that connects them to the skin thief creature seems thin and ready to disappear. There's not much he can do except hope that the break doesn't hurt the children, he'll need Miss Koriand'r's help to lessen the impact of the magic being taken away from the human boys.

Before such a thing can happen, the door swings open, yanked violently off its hinges.

"B!" shout the two older children, as Tim watches in horror from his seat on the couch as a creature slithers into the house, its movements jerky and uncoordinated.

Tim watches, fascinated and horrified as a huge mass of... darkness, crawls up the front steps, using the claw he clutched to the door frame to propel his body into the house. The creature leaves behind it a festering trail of black ichor, what it assumes to be the blood of its own body, there is also a trail of feathers, hair and fur, and some splinters of what it believes to be bones. Above, where the boy assumes it is the creature's head (mostly because of the white eye glowing amidst all the mass) there is a huge chunk of blackness missing from where more black liquid gushes out and strange white bone formations that do not resemble a skull of any known creature, small, snaky black tentacles move in all directions at the edges of the wound, braiding together as they desperately try to close the wound. There is also something squeezed between what looks like a jaw that quickly spits off to the side of the dwelling. 

Tim senses in no uncertain terms, that thing is his mother.

Dick and Jason pounce on Bruce, oblivious to the mangled appearance of their monstrous father, and the skin thief gurgles an agonized sound that conveys despair and the shadows almost completely cover the boys, pressing them against his wounded body.

Then that one white eye lands on Tim and opens in surprise. The boy can't say a word, before a long clawed hand shoots out from the center of that dark thing encircling his trunk with ease and pulling him into the jumble of limbs, while he can only let out a rubber duck-like squeak, but instead of harm, the creature gently cradles him with the same care it is showing Dick and Jason, and they give him a caress on the head that reminds him of the first time Janet gave Tim affection, the first night he and his new mother met.

"Mom..."

Tim sinks into the amalgamation of shadows, content to let her affection surround him on all sides.

"Shit Bruce" Jason whispers "I was so fucking scared, I thought you weren't coming back, what happened to you man?"

"B..." whispers Dick, freeing his hands from the shadows, to bring them closer to the injured head "Who did this to you?" he asks painfully "Is that why you wouldn't come back?"

"It doesn't look like he can return to his human form with those wounds" Alfred interjects, stepping forward, but not approaching what looks like an extremely protective father. A good decision, Jason thinks, as he watches Kori take a couple of steps back, not in fear, but aware that she could be attacked if interpreted as a threat.

It's the first time either of them has seen Bruce injured. There is a mixture of fear, sadness, pain, seeing someone they considered invulnerable left in a state where it looks like he will soon be disarmed. It is frightening, mostly, because, what in the world would be able to stand up to the terrifying skin thief?, why would they attack him, are questions that will have to wait until Bruce can speak once more, for now, the relief of not having been abandoned has the three children relieved enough that all the other unknowns can wait.

Kori has slowly approached whatever it is that Bruce has spit in the corner and after Alfred's nod, she touches it with the toe of her shoe and lifts it up, holding it between her index finger and thumb ever so carefully.

"It looks like... the wing of a giant butterfly" Alfred mentions aloud looking at the mutilated piece with unusual surprise.

It is a wing, over a meter long (it could be longer, as it appears to have been ripped in half), iridescent blue and red in color, casting a soft pearly, spasmodic glow, as if it still has life despite never being attached to a body again.

"Release those humans, creature" A loud, powerful voice shouts a few steps beyond the entrance and Bruce growls, squeezing his children against his body tighter as they all turn their attention to the speaker "Release them and accept your fate or give resistance and meet your doom!"

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

It's not that he wanted to deny it or that he hadn't realized it.

He had been aware, although not from the beginning, for quite some time.

He was also aware that it wasn't supposed to happen.

Or, rather, it had never happened before and, therefore, it was instinctive to assume that it was not possible.

Everything was simpler before. Just a simple, instinctive existence, without any kind of evil or goodness in itself. Indifferent to how it was born, because in faelands things are born and die in all sorts of ways without any explanation, or at least no explanation that satisfies the minds of those who seek logic in existence.

From the moment he decided to keep and inhabit the skin of William Cobb, nay, of a human being, parts of himself began to peel away never to be recovered. Things that had never before made sense or mattered suddenly became crucial. Time, for example, once completely useless and measured in the way the world changed with every blink of an eye, Forests, villages and creatures appearing and disappearing at the edge of his vision over endless days and even longer nights, had now become important.

Beautiful.

He had begun to treasure it.

He had not realized that when he took his first human skin, being guided by the images that were essence and memories and his own basic thoughts, concerned only with food, shelter and the growth of the abandoned hatchling in that lonely nest in the middle of the forest.

It had taken him much longer than he thought to admit that he was making Decisions, that he had begun to examine his actions before he took them, that he had begun to notice the difference between A and B, even when both options might have led him to the same outcome at the end of it all.

It started simple, the very moment he took in William Cobb's skin and realized when trying to feed his hatchiling, that feeding it raw meat was not the same as feeding it meat cooked on the fire or bugs squirming in the mud.

That there was a whole range of right and wrong choices when it came to humans. That raising it until it could feed itself was not the same as kicking it out of the nest or leaving when its young showed the first sign of independence. That it needed guidance and care beyond simply repeating an action (hunting) until the hatchling did it the right way.

That he would not remain the same as it grew, nor would it be a copy of its progenitors, destined to repeat a specific pattern in its behavior (hibernate, migrate, hunt, camouflage) until the end of its life.

And that apart from that he was also being influenced by his hatchling. Not only was he cultivating Dick to grow healthy and strong, but he himself was also changing and adapting for his comfort or that of the world around him. 

He was losing and gaining things like he had never experienced before.

He was used to taking and taking and taking, treasuring the forms and memories of other things, discarding after a time what he had used before moving on. He moved between the borderlands, the faelands and the human lands without further difficulty, belonging to no one but himself.

Humanity was taking things from him. Things that would never be returned, things that no longer felt his, whose simplicity was now unknown to him. He had taken a road of no return and could not know what awaited him at the end. 

What a frightening feeling.

Now known by a human name, Bruce, he could feel every blink of an eye and found himself treasuring every little fragment of time he had. He wished he could walk at the same speed as the other humans so he could quietly enjoy his short life. He couldn't help but look at Dick, who had once been so small and so helpless, who had needed him, leave the nest and set out on his own journey as he was destined to do from the beginning, with a see you later and a promise to visit.

Instead of feeling relieved, relieved of an enormous responsibility, he had been restless, impossibly anxious, looking for a way to get a little more time with his hatchling, to hold that hand a little longer.

He hadn't known what to do back then, to throw off William Cobb's skin and wander aimlessly through the human lands and the borderlands again, was unthinkable. The simplicity that had once been so natural to him was now undesirable, what was the point of sleeping for decades on end, what good was there in being unable to communicate, in having no ideas nesting in his head other than a primal need to feed, he could not simply rob himself of the ability to reason!.

He had made up his mind to chase his older cub and guard it jealously, but he had gotten a new one by accident and stayed home to keep an eye on it, as his new little pup needed him much more than his older one.

A part of Bruce had been happy to get a new pup, a new hatchling to protect, feed and keep company. But... what if his older hatchling needed him?, what if he was in danger?, what if... what if... how would Bruce be there if his older cub thought to walk through the endless night without him?, what if his gift wasn't enough to keep him safe?

He expressed his doubts to Alfred, when the elderly human came to visit them over the weekend after Dick left and Bruce was left alone with Jason and an empty room down the hall.

"It's only natural, Bruce" Alfred smiled softly "You're feeling the fear that all parents feel when children finally strike out on their own."

"Can't anything be done?"

"Nothing that is truly right" Alfred takes a sip of his tea as he seems to think "would you think Dick would be happier in this town, unable to leave your side?"

"No," Bruce says immediately. 

"What do you think would happen if I had forced him one way or another to stay?"

"He would flee" the supernatural being has to admit that there is something in the soul of his elder hatchling that he is meant to be a nomad. That he is not meant to be attached to one place or one person, that he has much to give to the world and will settle for nothing less. he can see it, his soul is shaped like a bird, yellow, red and green, flapping gracefully and yearning for freedom "He'd hate me."

Dick had always tried to take flight, always fidgeting at the edge of the nest, and it had been an enormous effort for Bruce to hold him until his wing feathers had finished growing.

Alfred nods.

"In general, when a parent smothers their children and prevents them from growing up, the children resent it. Because they are being forced to stop experiencing and feeling things they can never do under a parent's jealous care or control" the human elder frowns and wrinkles his nose a little "I can understand the uncertainty and fear that comes with knowing that a child can be hurt without us being there for them. But... that's also part of life. I'd be devastated if Julia was hurt and I couldn't be there for her." Bruce nods, understanding that feeling as the one he's been experiencing since his days and nights aside from caring for and loving his younger brood are also divided into longing thoughts for his older hatchling.

His mind then turns to his youngest pup.

The youngest, his little pup with a soul that roars protectively, and who is the complete opposite of Dick, but in his own special way.

His pup was hard to convince to come into his care, hurt, wounded and wary not only of Bruce but of his own kind, having been reviled countless times when he should have been jealously protected by those who brought him into the world. He lashed out easily when cornered and ran at the first opportunity, making it quite obvious that he had survived by a mixture of luck and instincts that only those who are dragged into the most desperate situations can acquire.

His youngest pup desired the care that had been denied him, but at the same time feared receiving it because he had realized that such a thing could be taken away from him or that it might come at a greater price than he was willing to pay.

It took constant reinforcement for him to begin to believe that there was no trickery in Bruce's offer, and as soon as the pup was more sure of himself at home, Alfred wasted no time in taking him to therapy, the way he did with Dick so many years ago. It was a great help, because there were things he couldn't just make go away, like the fears that haunted his youngest's head.

He watched his small, brittle-boned, famished-faced pup grow, his face acquiring a pleasing roundness and reaching an ideal height, as well as a menacing appearance to other humans. All this without abandoning his gentle heart, which still shared his food with homeless humans and other younger humans.

That he desperately wanted to help others.

His only weakness now was his gentle soul, easy to hurt with harmful words and actions, but that was the reason for him to be there with his pup, taking care of him.

Unlike Dick's bird-like soul, his new son's was like that of a  lion. His interests were not set on migrating to faraway places, seeking new thrills or finding new places to live. On the contrary, his youngest had his heart set on staying in the home he had chosen, and protecting his territory and himself. He longed to have things that were his and his alone. After being denied even the smallest stability for so long, he had become attached and territorial (MY house, MY brother, MY father, MY grandfather, MY family... mine, mine, mine, mine, MINE), but Bruce understood that feeling, as he himself feels that way about the little nest he has built.

He has tried very hard to fit in with humanity. He has taken the role of Willis Todd and played it to the best of his ability, using his memories and his contacts and the place he had made for himself in the world to blend in. He has stayed out of the shady dealings among the humans in the port, knowing that his own children would not want him to take part in them and also having no interest in getting mixed up in that kind of trouble that would always end up coming to his home. Willis Todd's buddies think he's in some sort of "clean-up season" where he's trying to stay out of jail, and they smile derisively waiting for the moment when he'll inevitably return to his usual wanderings.

Bruce simply indulges them, while anonymously providing the police station with information about the dirtier business to be conducted. After all, leaving packets of information on the police station rooftop is a piece of cake for someone who won't be seen if he doesn't want to be seen.

Until that time.

It's a normal day while Bruce is doing his assigned chores unloading a myriad of boxes that he never finishes, when someone, one of his friends (Jonny or Mickey, he doesn't remember or care to remember) walks hurriedly in his direction with a knowing and cursed smile.

The gesture does not correspond.

The man takes no notice as he slips an arm around her shoulder.

"Hey Todd" greets the human "Todd buddy, you're the man I need."

"For?" he interrupts, when this human comes to meet him it's never for anything good. Drugs or pimping, the guy only offers the jobs he's clearly made it clear he won't perform.

"Oh come on, Todd" he smiles wider "don't be like that, your old friend Tony has found the perfect job for you. I'm sure the cut you'd make would be enough to get that kid of yours out of this town or pay for a better school or spend it on the real fun stuff."

"I hear you."

He had no intention of collaborating with him. What Bruce is referring to is that he just needs enough evidence to collect to leave on the roof of the police station to take care of this troublesome person. He doesn't feel threatened by him (he doubts there is anything in this human settlement that could really threaten him), but he feels bad, like a guy with a sticky, stale aura who is trying to mess with others and contaminate them. He doesn't want any of his pups near this person. Maybe this is his chance to get rid of him.

"I knew you'd come around!" smiles the human with yellowed teeth and bleary eyes.

"You haven't explained what it's all about."

"Come in the evening after the last shift" he whispers against his ear using the hand he placed on his shoulder to make him crouch within his reach "And don't tell anyone else, the less we are there, the more we each get."

"Understood."

The man laughs loudly as he walks away, repeating to Bruce to shut his mouth and disappears into the merchandise as quickly as he arrived.

Bruce can't wait to get rid of him with the police.

The night arrives and with it the illegal activity in the port begins. Many cargo ships will enter and leave the city under the cover of night bringing all kinds of merchandise that could not enter in daylight. No matter how many times Bruce announces the arrival or departure of one of them, for every shipment seized, six more will make it.

Some of those who see Willis Todd pass by smile knowing that his clean act has reached its limit and greet him with old familiarity. Tony, waits standing outside the door of what Bruce knows is the port's top dog, one of the lieutenants of the man known as Black Mask or Roman Sionis.

The man speaking on behalf of his boss summoned some thugs for a very special job; the kidnapping of the son of a wealthy Bristol woman; eleven year old Timothy Jackson Drake.

Bruce already knew before he agreed to appear that he was going to stop the planned crimes from being carried out and this only made that feeling more urgent.

The planning of the kidnapping was surprisingly quick and clinical. Obviously everyone (including Willis, from Bruce's stored memories) had experience kidnapping people. It was all quite convenient really, the boy lived practically alone in a mansion in Bristol, with no nanny or permanent butlers and the mother worked too long away from home, leaving a wide enough time gap when the boy left his school and until his arrival at night, where no one would notice them going in and out of the property.

It is likely that they were seeking to force the mother to pay a huge amount of money in exchange for the return of her son.

Bruce returned home that night with five hundred dollars down that Tony put in his pocket with a yellowish smile and a clear goal; to prevent the kidnapping from being committed.

It is not possible to give notice to the police before the crime is committed, there are too many police under Sionis' control and it will be as simple as moving up the date or not showing up so the police will think they have been tricked. Their best option is to let the child's mother know what they have planned to do to her little brood and hope they both get out of town to stay safe until the danger passes.

That night he remains on guard, watching over his youngest son's sleep as he has not felt the need to do for some time, thinking and thinking how to prevent an innocent child from falling into the hands of Black Mask's ruthless people.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Finding Janet Drake is not easy. She is a high-profile woman who is permanently relegated to very exclusive places in the city. The nights he studies the woman's movements looking for the best way to give her notice, he only sees her going from her office to expensive restaurants for business dinners or high society galas and meetings. He spends much more time in that limousine and in his office than he does driving up the steep hill to her mansion in Bristol.

He can't find any good place to corner her or where his message can be delivered to her with privacy. None of her assistants or watchers will allow someone like him to come within meters of her, her security team would stop him immediately.

Bruce watches her from a ledge in the office building where his business is headquartered, his white eyes fixed on the woman alone in her office. He'll probably scare her off if she sneaks through the open window on the 23rd floor just to give her a warning about what will soon happen to her and her puppy if they don't get out of town, but Bruce thinks she'll be fine. Bruce would be grateful if someone would give him such a warning that would allow him to keep his beloved children safe.

Before she can pounce on the open window, the woman answers her phone and calls her driver to have the limo ready to take her to the Iceberg Lounge.

Hum...

The Iceberg Lounge is a very exclusive casino in the city, even Bruce with his little interest in anything besides his children is aware that the place exists. But he also knows that it is a place where the criminal element hangs out, which of course includes the casino's owner, Oswald Cobblepot, a high-level bootlegger known colloquially as "The Penguin."

He decided to wait a little longer.

He followed the limousine hopping from rooftop to rooftop, slipping through the alleys and shadows, his native home, without losing sight of the woman and her vehicle. He watched her apply her makeup and touch up her hair before stepping out, back straight and face up, striding confidently into the casino.

Bruce couldn't enter as Willis Todd into the Penguin building (he wouldn't make it past the entrance) and his other form would have no place there either, with so many lights and reflective surfaces where he might be noticed.  Fortunately Gotham was always reliable with its exteriors, no matter the luxury of a building's interior, on the outside the facades were gray and dark, with protrusions and blind spots that he was more than willing to take advantage of.

He settles back at an open window, like one of Gotham's thousands of harmless and plentiful crows. In front of the glass window Janet Drake and Roman Sionis sit across from each other.

Bruce listens to the entire conversation. And with every word spoken, a well of anger he didn't know existed inside him swallows every part of him until he can only see red all around him. This was not a mother who was trying to save her young by paying or entertaining a potential enemy. She was the one who was behind her baby's danger.

"Make sure the body is found quickly, I need to get everything sorted out before I leave Gotham."

 She was the one who was trying to get rid of him.

Bruce believes that was the point at which he stopped listening to the conversation.

And of course, he is aware that, in nature, when there are few resources and many offspring, it is normal for animals to abandon or kill the weakest to ensure the survival of the most suitable offspring. He has seen birds throw chicks from their nests and herds leave starving cubs behind, but only in desperate situations and never intentionally willful.

This woman, having resources, time and money to spare, wants to get rid of her innocent offspring because she considers him an inconvenience in her carefully planned life. Just as her broodmate had been, if Sionis' not-so-subtle insinuations were real.

"Jack wanted an heir" she replies, her eyes rolling and her voice steady and unhesitating, when Black Mask scoffs at her intentions "I don't need one."

They talked about her son's life insurance, payment for the job and how long it would take to complete. A week was how long it would take for the boy's body to be found, long enough for the woman to have time to play the worried mother who just wants her child back. The alibi was ready.

Bruce thought of nothing as he followed the vehicle on its way to the outskirts of Gotham, thought of nothing as Janet Drake's driver dropped her off right in front of the huge, lonely mansion and turned around, disappearing into the trees. Nor did she think anything as she slipped away like drops of black ink until her shadow covered the body of the woman who was too busy opening the doors of her huge house.

His end happened when he turned around and opened his mouth to scream.

Bruce made sure to keep it from making noise and in just a couple of minutes he was walking in Janet Drake's skin, opening the door as she had been doing a moment ago. The only evidence was a tiny bloodstain, impossible for any human to detect that would be washed away with the next rain.

She looked at her hands, soft white hands, unfamiliar with hard, manual labor, with neat, carefully manicured nails. She took a robotic step into the mansion, grimacing as her heels clicked. Bruce preferred silence and smooth glides.

Bruce begins to let the images of his memories dance, acquiring every ounce of information Janet Drake has given him through her skin. He sees all her deepest secrets. He sees her watch gently and dispassionately as life slips away from her husband because of the poisoning, as the man, Jack Drake, tries desperately to cling to life.

Before that, he sees her give birth and let the nurses and her husband take care of their child, uninterested.

There is... something strange about her. Bruce has but two previous experiences inhabiting the skin of a human being, but in both, he has experienced remnants of feelings that the owners of the skins left behind along with their memories. Fear, pain, anger, happiness, all of these are things she has felt second hand as she has seen the images that make up the life of her skins. But in Janet Drake there is a substantial void in her emotions, sure, she can feel some of them, but nothing in her memories of other people.

Never, in any of her memories, did Janet Drake feel emotions that were not attached to herself.

Wow.

He shakes his head to clear it of these not at all pleasant discoveries. He will have to create his own feelings for the calf he has stolen.

Because Bruce is aware that this time, he has done it on purpose. He has gone into someone else's nest and stolen the little hatchling that lived there alone. His eyes stray to the second floor, to a closed door containing a sleeping body.

She walks, this time without making any noise with her heels and opens the door with equal stealth. The small bundle of a child neither flinches nor wakes up with her irruption.

Mine.

Bruce thinks cheerfully with a smile adorning his new face, as he closes the door again.

The puppy is his and he has no regrets about stealing it.

She refrains from telling her other children about her new brother even though she knows perfectly well that it is wrong to keep them in the dark about it.

He has no regrets about his new offspring, but he knows that what he did was wrong. It wasn't an accident or self-defense, he made this new acquisition on purpose and where before he wouldn't care, now he is worried about the repercussions.

Would his other children look at him differently if they knew he had performed an act that was considered terrible on purpose?

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

His newest offspring was different from his previous two but charming in his own way. Bruce could see that he was starving in several ways, and that he was willing to change parts of himself to fit the molds others imposed on him if he was granted a modicum of recognition and love in return.

She would compare him to a chameleon, changing color with the ground he walks on, trying to go unnoticed and fit in.

That was dangerous in its own way.

He was much more willing than his nest brothers to change in irreversible ways at the wish of others. Bruce refrained for the moment from giving him a gift. The child did not seem to crave anything that Bruce could give him with parts of himself and might take his gift as a command to change.

He might end up becoming unrecognizable, a little amalgam of shadows just like him, just because he thought that's what Bruce wanted if he gave a gift.

So she settled for providing him with affection, attention and care, in which her little chameleon was nurtured and thrived.

What was troubling was that at times, when Bruce embraced his new brood, she could see his son blurring slightly. Offering himself and willing to discard his humanity. Sometimes... something dark in him wanted to take him up on that offer, because it would ensure that at least one of his offspring would never leave him. But he resisted each time because of that same love he had for him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The situation was becoming untenable for Bruce. Not because of any kind of tiredness and or lack of energy. Bruce had the ability to bounce from place to place without stopping to rest (It would be a long time before he needed to sleep).

But both children were beginning to want to monopolize his time and attention and it was impossible for him to split into two (he had tried).

Tim specifically, was starting to become more demanding of his time, wanting to monopolize it now that he had a little more assurance that he would not be neglected. He was also having trouble interacting with other human pups, he was in an older age group than he should be and the gap was separating him from the others. He needed more people to interact with and Bruce (like Janet) couldn't offer him that.

It would do him a lot of good to have the siblings he hadn't yet met. Bruce was sure he would fit right in once he got over the surprise.

But, and he realized as the months passed. Lies, the longer they last, the harder they become to sustain and the consequences pile up. Now he's not only fearful that his children might look at him differently, he's also afraid they'll be angry that it took so long to come clean or that they'll think Tim is a nestling who's just a nest-collapsed. The relationship between his two older children happened very organically and smoothly; with Tim, he's not so sure.

It all came to a head the week he had to care for his oldest calf who had fallen ill with some unknown ailment. Leaving his youngest pup in the care of others while he cared for his second oldest was heartbreaking. He was furious with himself at having had to choose, he wanted to be for both and he knew the only way to achieve this was to tell the truth, he would not have to live anxiously and worried about being either for one, or the other, if both were within his reach.

As she nursed Jason's illness, she could think about how Tim would fit easily into her nest, while they both watched TV and ate chicken soup back to health.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Her youngest son is desperate when he returns home after so many days away, afraid to live through the memories of being abandoned in an empty nest.

Bruce does his best to make it up to him, showering him with attention and affection, but he understands that this has reached an intolerable point.

He need to talk to his older children.

During the day, when Jason and Tim are at school, she has taken over Janet Drake's chores using all the knowledge he has gained from his memories. It has taken him a while to get used to it, but it is ultimately a labor that can be learned. She has in his favor the fact that, in business, humans abandon their feelings a bit in favor of making the most profit, so Bruce's quirk goes unnoticed when everyone in the boardroom has turned the sharpest, greediest parts of themselves on them. Bruce almost enjoys it, she doesn't have to be careful with the people in that place, she can bully them and tangle with them and snatch things from them without really hurting them (if she don't count their wounded prides).

He leaves the office without calling a driver and gets lost in the tide of bodies that is Gotham at dusk. All it takes is a patch of shadow, a dark corner in the subway for him to shed his skin and replace it with an equally familiar one, going to meet his second eldest son.

That will be all, he will tell him at that time.

It's not long before he gets home when he realizes that there is something strange around him. There is no noise, he has not met any neighbors or acquaintances, the street is completely deserted, only illuminated by a few lonely street lamps.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, preparing to text Tim and Jason urgently. He is texting to ask them both to stay inside the house (their respective homes) until he arrives for them when something blue and affiliated quickly falls on the hand holding the phone, separating it from his body.

"Surrender" they speak to him clearly in human language even though the owner of the voice was obviously inhuman "and return to the midlands. This... game of yours must end, great darkness."

Who...?

Bruce watches the human hand shaking on the ground, cursing, because it will be very difficult to continue wearing Willis Todd's skin with one less limb. That distraction costs him dearly when his throat is ripped open.

Neither wound is anything fatal to him (but they definitely are to his skin), but they send a message that this is serious. He gently turns around as he looks around and sees the lack of witnesses, realizes he's in some kind of illusion made of magic. He's probably not even in Gotham really which in a sense is a relief.

He does not recognize the being that is attacking him, but he recognizes who it could be. He is tall and broad with blue eyes that glow brightly in the dark, he is wearing red and blue armor whose only relevant weakness is on his back where by force there has to be an opening for the huge butterfly wings that flap gently. He has a rather human-like appearance despite being a fairy.

"I know you can understand me, great darkness" the fae says softly, gesturing peacefully, in contrast to its long blue claws covered in Bruce's black blood (or what he may believe to be his blood, he had never seen it before) "It is not your place to inhabit the world of humans, you must know that" Bruce blinks in his human body, keeping silent "Whatever you plan to do there, leave it now. Humanity has never needed our intervention."

It sounds reasonable (although Bruce has never planned to have his presence change the human world) and Bruce might even be willing to listen, to resolve this as peacefully as possible, until the fairy opens his mouth again and condemns himself.

"I will not allow you to keep stealing human children for whatever it is you plan to do with them. They will be better cared for by someone of their own kind."

Better care?

By someone of his own kind!?

As if Bruce hadn't saved them from the very humans who were supposed to take care of them?! He nursed their bruised and diseased bodies, nurtured them until they grew up. HE WAS, who took care of them, not the humans, HIM.

They are his children!

HIS!

He won't let them be taken away from him!

He doesn't mind much else, before he abandons his current human form and hurls himself furiously towards his attacker. The blue and red-winged fairy blurs as well, abandoning that semi-human appearance until he is as wild and furious as Bruce himself.

Fine, there is no place for humanity right now.

Time melts away as he attacks and defends himself, as he has never had to do before. Parts of his body are torn and ripped off, just as he makes his attacker suffer and writhe every time he succeeds in tearing him apart, but neither of them gives up.

All Bruce needs is for him to scream, and then he'll be walking around in the skin of a fae prince.

But the other does not.

Not even when it rips his wings off.

He should know what will happen if you do.

Bruce's not sure if he can really die or will just fade away when he doesn't have enough strength to stay awake. What he knows is that if that happens he will not return in time to see any of his children alive again. Life will pass and they will grow up, have children and die somewhere without him being able to be by their side.

He doesn't think he wants to live after that happens.

Think of Tim, in that empty mansion, waiting for a mother to arrive who will never come back and believe he was abandoned again. Think of Jason distrusting his unconditional love if he's not there for him again when he's afraid and of Dick, trying to hold it all together now that he's the oldest.

The fight is at a stalemate now. The fairy prince spits blue blood as he trembles, his sharp red claws are bathed in the black petricor that belongs to Bruce, his wings torn from his back (one still trapped between his jaws) his blue eyes are two angry lanterns pointed in his direction.

Bruce would talk, he'd try to reason, but he's not going to risk the only skin he has left. It will be a hassle to replace it (even if he doesn't mind the idea of acquiring another puppy), and this jerk said he'd take their babies away from him.

On second thought, it's ready to grind until it's just ground beef.

Then the other one arrives.

Bruce knows he is in no condition to fight this new nuisance. Fortunately, she seems to be concerned about the wounded prince, because she rushes over to him, carrying one of his mutilated wings probably to heal him.

Bruce takes the opportunity to run.

He has no doubt that they will come looking for him, but he needs to get to his children before this is over, he cannot leave them abandoned, waiting for a return that will never happen, doubting his love for them. Now more than ever he regrets not confessing the truth about the third brother he keeps hidden, Tim would not be left alone if they already knew of his presence and were willing to take care of him, once they drag him away. 

Perhaps, if he have enough time he can ask them for that one favor.

Getting home is as simple as following the bond that binds him to his children because of his gift to him, he has no time to change shape or do anything but hurl himself against the closed door of his nest and rips it off. He realizes that he still carries the fairy prince's wing inside his mouth and spits it angrily into a corner.

"B!" he can hear the voices of his two older pups, "Dick's home, his baby's home!" he crawls towards his older sons leaving a trail of black ichor behind him.

His children embrace him and he is relieved to be able to see them again even if it is for the last time.

Then he notices his youngest, Tim, looking up at him wide-eyed from his spot on the couch.

How?

No, that doesn't matter, her three children are together, in the same place, as if they have heard Bruce's pleas to be able to see them one more time. She reaches out and wraps her hand around her youngest baby, pulling him into the cuddle pile at once. Her baby squeals adorably and in return Bruce lovingly strokes his head. She feels his little one squish against him and melt.

"Mom..."

"Shit, Bruce," Jason whispers. "I was so fucking scared I thought you weren't coming back, what happened to you, man?"

"B..." whispers Dick, freeing his hands from the shadows, to bring them up to the injured head "Who did this to you?" he asks painfully "Is that why you didn't come back?"

"It doesn't look like he can return to his human form with those wounds" mentions Alfred, who is also present to his surprise.

Bruce is about to adopt the only skin he has left to explain himself, to say goodbye, when the voice of the second fairy interrupts, shouting from the entrance of his house.

"Release those humans, creature" A loud, powerful voice shouts a few steps beyond the entrance and Bruce growls, squeezing his children against his body tighter as everyone turns their attention to the speaker "Release them and accept your fate or put up a fight and meet your doom!"

The lady with horns and golden armor, points her sword at him. Her eyes are two black holes, and she crawls on a red snake tail. Behind her, the fairy prince crawls along roughly, his eyes pointed at the severed wing that Kori holds between his hands possessively and angrily, aware that he can threaten this being with permanently removing the limb.

Bruce is about to release his sons to reciprocate when Jason and Dick jump in front of him, covering him with their bodies.

No!

That's not what he want!

It is his duty to protect his children, not the other way around!

Jason lets out a roar of bestial rage that a human should not be able to do, as his fingers deform into claws and his eyes take on a greenish glow. Dick sings in fury, a furious melody leaving his lips, as feathers begin to become visible through his black hair and on his skin.

"Who the hell are you!" shouts the eldest of all the brothers "Leave our father alone!"

"It has already corrupted you, child" says what they believe to be some sort of snake woman in a serious voice, seemingly unthreatened by Dick and Jason's posturing "But you can still be saved from the influence of the great darkness. We will not let it devour you."

Jason opens his mouth to tell this person where he can stick his salvation, when Alfred steps forward, placing himself in the middle of the two factions of the impending battle.

"Kal-El, son, is that you?" says the old man to the huddled, bloodied fairy.

"A-Alfred Pennyworth?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Roman Sionis was the lord and master of the criminal underworld in Gotham. There was nothing he didn't have at least a hand in and no one who dared to get in his way. He was used to being untouchable and enjoying it.

So when Janet Drake asked for an emergency meeting she didn't think much more than the woman trying to get some new deal or favor. She was a cold woman, he had to admit, but she was no different than anyone else. Greedy and confident, she thought she was special. As did the other dozens of Sionis' dozens of wealthy clients, who conspired and betrayed each other, like snakes eating their own tails.

The woman came in quietly, and placed a check on her desk table.

"I need you to cancel our previous agreement. I no longer want to carry it out."

"Oh yeah?" Sionis smiled picking up the check, to surprisingly find the amount of one million dollars. That was many times what he had initially charged to get rid of the woman's son. "What made you change your mind?"

"That's nothing for you to be interested in. This money will cover any expenses for your trouble."

Sionis looked at the check and then looked the woman in the face. Her face... remained the same, but there was a strange quality about her that he had not seen before.

"What if I don't want to back out?" he smiled again, showing his teeth "What if I'd rather go through with our deal, maybe I just want the fun?"

"You will stay away from me and my son from now on."

"Or what?" he refused to bend. This slut couldn't really think she had any influence over him. Maybe he'd kill her and her son together over this shit.

The air in the room cooled and the woman's blue eyes fixed him in his seat. Sionis was not used to feeling like prey. But this time something told him, something deep inside him that refused to call instinctive, to keep his mouth shut.

"Roman Sionis" the woman's voice was icy and dangerous, Sionis glimpsed something else in it, something... inhuman "If you ever contact me or my son again, or a single scratch happens to Tim that I can trace back to you. I will feast on your flesh and blood until there is nothing left of you but skin."

Then she opened her mouth and something black came out of it, falling on the desk of the mob boss who didn't scream only because shock prevented him from doing so. The black thing rose above him, with white eyes that looked nowhere. Sionis was speechless with horror, looking at the flayed skin of the woman who was once his client behind the black shadow that writhed and changed shape, showing flashes of white teeth on different parts of his body.

That was a vision that would accompany Roman Sionis' nightmares for the rest of his life.

He blinked and the apocalyptic vision had ended, showing Janet Drake in all her icy splendor.

"Understood?"

He nodded silently. He knew there was no other acceptable answer, if he didn't want to end up like the woman who had bargained with him for the death of her own son.

The woman turned and silently walked out of the room, leaving Black Mask begging never to see her again. Now all he had to worry about was finding the strength to stand up and ask someone to bring him another pair of pants.

Chapter Text

"Alfred" whispered the one who called himself Kal El in an urgent voice "Step aside old friend, this is on a different level than what you are usually used to. The great darkness can and will, walk on your skin."

"Son" the old man steps between the bristling, snarling children and the two warriors from the fairy lands with their weapons raised "would it be possible for us to converse for a moment?, There are... things to explain, and violence is most likely not necessary... more"

Bruce gurgles, furious, his whole body spasming as he seems to slowly regenerate. Tim is safely hidden in what looks like the inside of his body, just his confused little head peeking out of the darkness, his face astonished, fascinated and frightened at the same time.

"You attacked our dad!" yells Jason and his voice sounds animalistic, with an inhuman growl in his throat "He didn't hurt you, he didn't hurt anyone!"

The statement is easily invalidated.

"The creature you mistakenly call "father" has killed several human beings" The golden-armored lady exclaims keeping a suitable distance from the door of her home. It seems as if she could knock the whole thing down just by blowing some air, but she seems to be respecting the boundaries of her home "it has collected several children for unknown purposes and modified their human souls for no reason. Is dangerous and we are here to stop him."

That doesn't make Dick and Jason lose their defensive positions, but it makes them look at each other and think as they observe their changed human bodies for the first time. Jason notices the feathers sticking out between his brother's black hair and along the edges of his shirt, as if he had caught inside a pair of wings. For his part, Dick similarly examines his younger brother. His fingers ending in long, sharp nails, his fangs and his feline eyes.

It is true that they have ignored from the beginning the changes that their bodies have had to adapt to their gifts....

But...

Oh.

That's what they were.

Gifts.

They were not forced to change or accept what they were given. They stretched out their hands to receive what was offered and the advantages they have received with their gift have far outweighed the disadvantages.

With Dick, them could probably argue that his gift was without permission (but it's not as if he would even claim against it) but once he realized what it was and what he had received he accepted it. One can be a little more sympathetic to the Bruce of that time, who most likely didn't even know he was doing anything wrong. Everything he has learned about morality (good or bad) he has learned since he came to them and not before.

Yes, they are being biased and deliberately and blatantly ignoring little Timmy and the still unknown story of why he ended up with them.
But in their defense, they are confident that there is reasonable justification.

How to...

75% sure of that.

They will raise it to 80% to round up the figure.

"That were gifts" Dick finally says, placing a hand on Jason's shoulder, restraining him from attacking these intruders. If these people left their father, whom they heretofore considered larger than life itself, in such a sorry state, they with their newfound powers will pose no obstacle "Willingly offered and accepted."

The one called Kal-El (in Alfred's words) steps forward. Apparently he was the one who had the confrontation with his father and took most (if not all) of the damage. He holds his bloody side and limps, dragging a red and blue wing that he seems unable to bend on his back, looking sideways at Kori who holds what would correspond to his other wing, in clear threat.

"Often our gifts are considered curses to the inhabitants of this world" He exclaims softly, but a bit condescendingly "Ours, including me, can be cursed and deceitful and hide terrible intentions behind harmless attitudes. You could be being devoured from the inside out right now and you wouldn't even realize it, you human child."
"Well, shit" Jason spits and turns around "Old man, are you eating us from the inside out?"

The look Bruce gave him, wounded and deformed beyond recognition could be described as a disconsolate denial. They were pretty sure that if he were human he would have a betrayed look and shake his head.

"Sorry old man, I know you wouldn't" apologizes the second of his sons "I was just clearing it up for these guys, okay?" he turns back to the intruders "See, Bruce is one of the good guys."

The creature these two intruders described as "great darkness" gives a mournful gurgle and curls up around his youngest son. Tim lets out a delighted squeal and seems to be very happy, cataloging his parent whispering about unimportant things like "it has carpet texture" and "feathers". Apparently the child managed to sense how the tension of the moment is plummeting and allowed himself to relax. As the only one who apparently has no power, Bruce seems to be absolutely focused on keeping him out of the danger posed by the intruders.

However, given that they have known him for a week, they could not tell that Bruce, who is currently around his youngest son, is preventing his youngest baby from unleashing his infinite curiosity that would lead him to poke and climb the two mighty fae on their doorstep without any respect or regard for his own well-being.

"You really don't think that's enough to make sure he's not hurting you" The golden armored lady steps forward. She still holds the sword in her right hand but no longer points it at Bruce with aggression "Little Human... the only ones of our kind who can be called anything like "good" are those who stay away from humanity. That one of us is curious about this world is almost never good news, indifferent to what our intentions are."

Alfred nodded silently, conceding the point.

Kal-El had witnessed the evil and damage that could be caused by a fae unleashed on the human world. He had seen helpless people unwittingly sell their souls, who were deceived, cursed and driven mad for making the mistake of catching the eye of a mischievous creature, who indifferent to having good or bad intentions had too much power on this side of the veil.

"We don't know what his intentions are, collecting children the way he does and contaminating them with his magic" says Kal-El again "What is planning to use you for, even if it is just out of mere curiosity to see what will happen, the ones who will get hurt the most will be you, children. Come to your senses, I'm sure we can find a way to cleanse your influence and return you to your natural state. Alfred, old friend, you better than anyone know the dangers... Why did you allow this to go on for so long?"

Alfred scrunches the bridge of his nose, looking ten years older. He's still standing in the middle of the two sides, because, even though the tension is lower than it was a few minutes ago, he's still in sight and he's the only thing preventing a pitched battle in the middle of the house.

"It's a long story" he finally sighs "I've never seen anything like him before and I confused what was going on. I don't think him poses a danger to the children in your care, but I understand where the concern is coming from. Let me tell our story before you make a final decision. I don't blame you for not investigating before going on the offensive, because in matters involving the world behind the veil, acting immediately is always the right response."

This last he said looking at his honorary grandchildren and Bruce, who were about to claim against that statement.

"I am not indicating that the attack on your father was justified, nor that it is appropriate that he was hurt" he clarifies sternly "I am talking about when there is a creature involved with humans, whose intentions are unknown, it is best to assume that they do not have good intentions and act accordingly."

And that is, from Alfred's perspective, one of the truest things he is aware of. Had he not been there to witness Bruce slowly making his way into fatherhood, Alfred would have sent Kal-El long before he got that far. Being there to witness that the ancient creature's intentions were not to devour unprotected infants or warp them for his own desires was the only thing that had stopped him. And there were even several occasions where he came very close to doing so, stopping only for the welfare of his adopted grandchildren.

God, he was getting soft in his old age.

In most cases, when humans came to intervene, there was almost never anything left to save. Given the sometimes human-like appearance that fae or other creatures could have, they are often misunderstood as being similar to them in instincts and morals.

But there was nothing more wrong than to assume it.

Most if not all types of fae and creatures are meant to be predators.

Even Kal-El, who had changed and learned much since little Clark had found him in the barn eating Ma and Pa Kent's chickens, could never completely let go of his predatory nature. He was a kind of Sprite who fed on the blood of creatures lost in his woods that were too exhausted to defend themselves. He could look genuinely friendly and reasonable, but the reason he was so trustworthy was not his appearance but his treaty with humanity to preserve the peace.

Alfred was aware that Kal-El still had to fight hard with his instincts to confuse and exhaust a human until he had no strength to defend himself when he found them lost in the lands of his people, that he had to genuinely fight against himself to bring them back to his world instead of leading them deeper into the forest to feast.

Oh, no, the fae weren't predators exclusive to humans, or something like that. Faeland is a slightly wilder and more twisted version of the human world, where everyone survives on what evolution has led them to eat. Mermaids will delight in gnawing on the bones of sailors in the same way they would gnaw on the body of a selkie if they managed to get their hands on it as it passed through their territories.

Worse, not all types of fae and creatures on the other side of the veil fed on flesh and blood. Some others could feed on feelings, on life energy, on souls, each type of existence being a type of food for some of them.

And others more fortunate could live without any of it.

"I'm not convinced it's wise to listen to the story" the lady in golden armor steps forward a little, just enough to be within reach of Dick and Jason. She doesn't seem to fear either of the bristling, angry children, she looks at them almost with something resembling a coo "Nor much less allow him" she points to Bruce who growls "Keep on inhabiting the world of men."

"He's our father" Dick tenses and clenches his fists "He's protected, educated and cared for us as best he could all these years."

"He is not one of you" The lady, whose identity is still unknown cocks her head "I doubt his intentions were such."

"Maybe" shrugs Dick "At first he didn't seem to know what he was doing, but not once did he hurt me on purpose or do anything to put me in danger...he...he's our family, don't take him away, please."

"Oh if anything, let us follow him wherever he goes" Jason reasons, despite the immediate denial of the intruders and Alfred "He offered me a home, he protected me. He gave me something that would allow me to defend myself, something I had never been able to do until I met him..."

"The people he killed..."

"They were not good people" Dick resumes "I can't be sure that, under human laws they would have been put to death for their actions, but Bruce is what he is, even you can recognize that."

"You could say it protected us from them" says Jason "Just...they literally were so bad at being parents that none of us are against having been adopted by the supernatural creature that we don't even fully understand."

That makes the lady raise her eyebrows curiously. It is not normal for a human to prefer the love and affection of a fae (as impulsive and changeable as they can be) let alone want to remain in their care and keep their gifts. Humans generally want to quickly dispose of whatever has been bestowed upon them, take back what was probably stolen from them, and flee to the farthest possible point in the fae realm.

She notices, however, that they are also misunderstanding something.

"We are not here to judge him for crimes committed against humans whom he has devoured and whose skin he has used as a disguise" he explains gently "What he does to eat and camouflage himself cannot under the laws of our people be considered a crime, because he has done nothing more than what his nature dictates."

"Oh?" complains Jason "So then what's the problem?"

"We are not here because of what he has done, but because of what he has the potential to do" Kal-El exclaims "Even if it sounds cruel to you humans, that he has killed and devoured an old man, a criminal and a woman, he would not have brought us here. But now he has gone from doing what his nature dictates to putting himself in an advantageous position among humans, a place where he can gain more power and interfere on a grand scale in this human city, he could begin to spread out and greatly influence everything around him"

"That sounds... crazy?" whispers Dick.

"It is not" Alfred, who had allowed the conversation to progress, interjects "Children, you yourselves are witnesses to the otherworldly forces that move your foster father and yourselves by their intervention. But there have been cases, with far less fortunate endings, where people are devoured and squeezed to their essence to feed creatures hungry for power or filled with the simple desire to hurt, and children..."

"Human children are an easy target for creatures like us" Kal-El, sees that they are now getting somewhere and lets his weight lean back against one of the walls, as the wounds on his body slowly but steadily close "They are mostly innocent, manipulable and helpless. It makes them a perfect kind of sacrifice, highly coveted by our own who have decided to intervene in the human world. Do you have any idea how simple it is to crawl through an open window and grab a baby from the crib where he sleeps?, Don't misunderstand us children, we are not here because of what he has done. It is the potential of what he can do with you that brought us here."

Dick licks his lips and swallows. He has not for a moment doubted his father's love for him and his siblings, but he thinks of what might have happened if he had not been just a lost creature who had taken him under his wing out of well-meaning curiosity. How easy it would have been to make him disappear, devour him and walk on his skin, or do the same to his siblings. Even without fully knowing the story of how Tim ended up with them, I could guess that there was a great deal of mistreatment/neglect involved, which is why no one would have looked very deeply into what happened to him if Bruce had been less than the loving and infinitely clumsy father that he is.

"It is not the first time that a creature pretends to care for human offspring and then devours them. Nor is it the first time that one of our kind has deliberately chosen a human it finds curious to eat parts of for the sheer pleasure of doing so. However, I think it is feasible to listen to this story and even risk reaching an agreement, if you are willing to tell the truth, and only the truth."

The woman (or so they think she is), takes her sword in her left hand to make a cut on the palm of her right hand. What gushes from the wound on her skin, if it can be called blood, is a bright golden color, like liquid gold spilling out. It does not fall in drops, but runs down evenly, until everyone notices that it has taken the shape of a ribbon, thin and shiny.

Everyone turns around to watch Bruce, and they meet the latest skin in his collection for the first time.

Jason grimaces at the neat and proper appearance of the woman they've come to know as Janet Drake. She looks a little pale and wobbly, probably because Bruce isn't healed from his wounds, just hiding them behind his disguise, but otherwise she looks like a ruthless businesswoman who gives off that feeling, that "I don't know what" that makes all her children able to recognize Bruce even though he's physically the opposite of Willis Todd. In her lap, little Tim Drake curled up, content and wondering.

"Mom..." he says in delight and rolls over in her lap to cling to her belly like a baby koala "I missed you so much."

Bruce strokes his head even without speaking and they see something move on his neck, settling in. Then when he tries to speak they can notice that there is a black void in place of teeth or tongue. It looks like he still can't quite put his disguise together.

"Don't destroy this skin" Is the first thing he says after a moment of silence "I don't have any others left, and then I would have to look for a replacement to be able to communicate."

And it will be one of you two.

Everyone heard what was not pronounced.

"Understood" says the woman picking up the long thread of her own blood from the floor until it is properly coiled in her hand like a rodeo lasso. She lifts it up and displays it to those present "This heirloom is known as the "lasso of truth". It came from my own mother, who received it from hers to the first of us who walked the earth. No one who holds it can lie in any way, not even by twisting words as we are wont to do. Whatever is said as long as it is held will be the truth and only the truth" She extends one of the ends, pointing it towards Bruce/Janet for him to take "If what they have said in your defense is true, then you need not fear this test. If you fail it, it will be right to assume you are hostile and put the humans to safety until we take you back to where you belong never to return."

Everyone stares silently at the relic and Bruce, mostly holding their breath. Tim seems a second away from hanging onto the noose out of sheer curiosity and only his mother's firm embrace keeps him from doing so.

The tension is summarized in the room for a different reason.

"I accept the test," says Bruce reaching out to take the lasso, which wraps over his arm like a snake.

"Understood" the golden lady nods to Alfred and another to Kal-El "Kal-El for the borderlands and Alfred Pennyworth for the human lands, you will be the witnesses to my judgment."

Both men nod and the trial begins.

"What was the reason you came to human lands?" she says as the first question and the light from the lasso takes on a little more glow.

"I had no particular reason" Bruce says "I spent a lot of time asleep here not knowing I had crossed the border."

"For what reason did you decide to keep the first of the human children who currently belong to you?"

"When I devoured his caretaker, I looked through the images that made up his memories and found that there was a hatchling that he was taking care of" Bruce cocks his head in recollection "Hatchlings left alone in their nests starve to death, so I thought I could care for him until he could fend for himself"

Dick sighs, completely eliminating the fear that had flooded his heart moments ago when Bruce had agreed to be interrogated with magic. It's not as if he had ever expected him to immediately declare that he had loved him like a son at first sight, but it was better that he had looked upon him as a curious pet to care for, than to be hiding some intricate plan to eat him and have all her love and care be a lie.

He didn't believe that either he, Jason or the obviously attached Timmy could ever recover from the blow if they did.

"Have your feelings about the children in your care ever changed?"

"Yes"

"In what way?"

"They are no longer only hatchlings" Janet Drake's voice sounds a little less human now, with something that sounds almost like a growl "They are my hatchlings. They are mine to care for, nurture and protect."

Sounds a bit possessive, Dick thinks, but he thinks he can be forgiven for the whole... non-human thing.

Sometimes, but only sometimes, Dick thinks they're too soft on Bruce. That's why he gets away with things like... adopting a whole child and going months without telling his other children.

"Do you intend to hurt, use, deform or sacrifice them in the future?"

"No, and anyone who tries to do any of those things with mine will die."

The lady is silent for a moment, as if puzzled by Bruce's responses. She was obviously expecting something different, a slip of the tongue that would show that it was best for the children to get away from him and allow them to be cleansed of his influence and return him to where he had come from.

"It is strange, but not unheard of" Says Kal-El "Even we are capable of feeling love and having benign intentions. But rarely does that match what a human wants or needs. Do you really have no intentions of making use of the power you have acquired among humans to settle here?"

"No"

"Why then did you choose a powerful woman as your next skin and get her youngest son?"

The question asked by Kal-El seems to send Bruce reeling for the first time. Everyone becomes alert, Tim looks at his mother with wide eyes, fearful.

"Rage... I was furious."

"Anger?" says Tim, whose eyes are starting to look watery "Did I make you angry?"

"Not you, my son" She smiles "The one who walked in this skin before me."

"Can you tell me how it made you mad?" asks Tim, shakily.

"It will hurt you very much to know" warns Bruce "I don't want you to know until you're much older."

"We need to know" Says Kal-El "It could be the definitive argument as to whether or not you can stay here with those you call your offspring."

Bruce/Janet opened his mouth, apparently trying to delay the truth he had to tell, but Tim stepped forward. He put his fingers to his ears, pressing hard.

"It's okay mom. I trust you," he said closing her eyes.

Bruce placed his hands on his son's, grateful for his infinite and undeserved trust. Regretting how easy it would be for someone else to take advantage of that and tear him apart until there was nothing left. Feeling that twisted little part of himself that would also like to take advantage of such trust, a spark he quickly extinguishes.
Not their children.

It will not, take advantage of them.

"The owner of this skin tried to kill him" he said at last, certain that his youngest son could not hear him "She bargained with the human nicknamed Black Mask to have this human child kidnapped and murdered within a week's time. She did it without hesitation and without remorse. If she despised this little chameleon, I decided I would take him for myself instead."

"Jesus Christ on a cracker, holy shit!" Jason exclaims loudly and angrily "Black Mask!?, she was going to turn him in to that monster!?, Willis was trash and even he didn't threaten me with Black Mask ever!"

Jason bit down on his fist and Dick wrapped his arms around him when he heard the first wail. Of the many monsters he had had to watch out for when he lived on the street, Black Mask topped the list by far. There were a great many people who if caught would abuse and kill him, but that man, that beast, was one of the ones he had always been careful not to run into even if it meant running into others who would also take advantage of him.

At least with them there would have been an end, Black Mask is known to be a sadist, and enjoy every ounce of pain extracted from his victims. More than once Jason came across corpses out of his holds and dumped in the alleys or the harbor that were little more than ground meat.

The police had fought for years to get their hands on him, but, as wicked as he was slippery as an eel and had his fingers in all the right pies that helped keep him out of jail.
If Tim had been handed over to the man and they had a week to do what they wanted with him before he had to turn up dead, the boy would only have been allowed to die perhaps hours before his remains were dumped in the harbor like so many before him.

That this woman, that Janet Drake had planned to subject her own son to such indignities, showed a far more monstrous nature than Bruce was. At least Bruce would eat people because that was the way he was made to be, not for pleasure.

"That's..."

"Monstrous. You may not know who Black Mask is, but we do and what would have happened to Tim is just... repulsive" interrupts Jason "I can't even blame him for doing that. It's... horrible."

"So, now we can understand that it's not some kind of hatred that made them come after our dad" Dick emphasized the word, making it clear once again to these people that they thought so "But let us say it one more time; we want to stay with him, we feel cared for, loved and protected and we don't consider his gifts to have been forced or misused."

The armored lady and Kal-El look at each other, thoughtfully, as if they could communicate without words (they by no means rule out the possibility).
"Is there any way we can stay with our father and you can be reassured to let him be?" continues Dick, moving closer to Bruce and pulling his hands away from Tim's ears, giving the boy a pat on the head to which the boy leaned in like a kitten looking for petting. Gods, everyone and their mother could see that the boy was the type who would climb into the white van with no license plates if offered affection.

Jason vowed to put some self-preservation into that skinny body even if it kills him.

"We can offer you a deal" the woman says at last, pulling the lasso in a smooth motion until it comes off Bruce's arm "One whereby we will feel proportionately safe that this won't turn into a situation similar to what happened with Innsmouth..." Alfred, Kal-El and she coughed uncomfortably "and that the human children are safe from he ever developing the sudden desire to eat or use you. In return we offer that you may stay and care for the human children you already have, but limited to not acquiring any more."

There is a small spasm in Janet/Bruce's hands when she is told that she won't be able to get any more children that has Jason and Dick squinting with suspicion. With the situation less tense, they haven't forgotten that she literally stole and secretly kept a whole child from the rest of the family.

"I understand...that's fine. I will accept a deal with you if it will allow me to stay."

"It will take a little more time to close such a deal" Alfred explains to those present "It involves several types of magic and real names and is not something we can do right here and right now. For now, is it safe to say that hostilities will stop?"

"As long as my offspring or those under my protection are not attacked, I will not retaliate" Bruce/Janet reluctantly says.

"We accept these terms" says Kal-El "I request that my torn off wing be returned to me, it will be easier to heal me than if I had to grow it all the way back."

Kori looks at her partner, receiving a nod of acceptance and approaches the fae standing in the doorway with a determined stride. She has remained silent and on the sidelines of the whole debacle, aware that it was not her place or her time to intervene, but she had been fully prepared and ready to fight if her chosen mate and her family had needed it. She had not been formally introduced to the father/mother (?) of the household and wished to make a good impression.

The last of the tension disappears from the air, as the golden-armored woman stows her sword in a scabbard on her back and returns the loop to her blood, guarding the relic with her own body. Jason drops down at his father's side, a little uncomfortable with the new appearance, but still showing complete welcome. Tim has managed to escape Dick's arms to stick his head as close as possible to where Kal-El is regenerating himself, watching with undivided attention the red scales of his wings joining together.

"Timbo, no, no, no, no!" Jason grabs him under the armpits and pulls him apart "Leave him alone, you little shit."

"B-but..."

"But nothing" Jason doesn't give him a chance to protest and Tim is momentarily distracted by the flash of his fangs and claws, moving on to prod and touch his brother "...Better than nothing, I guess" Jason allows it, resigned.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The deal, when finalized days later can be summed up in three instructions "Don't eat your children, don't modify Gotham and don't pick up any more human children."
With the mighty fae duly appeased, Bruce receives the overdue reprimand. All the family members (with the exception of Tim and Kori) take turns letting him know what mistakes he made in adopting his new baby brother.

"Fortunately" Dick chides "You won't be able to do that particular trick again."

"No more adoptions" sings Jason

Bruce looks subdued even though he has no regrets about making the deal with his fellow humans to remain caring for his children. Tim notices his mother's sadness and reaches over to take one of her hands in his.

"Don't worry, Mom" he says squeezing his mother's hand "No more human children don't mean you can't get more children."

"Timmy!"

Chapter Text

Hello friends, it's been a long time without updating, and I know that I previously said that I don't like the idea of putting up a fake chapter to say that I'm not going to update, but I had to let you know what was happening and why this fic is NOT being abandoned .

I got a new job.
I have to quit soon.
they demanded a level of compliance from me that was impossible to meet, so since I started I've simply been going from mild anxiety about a new job, to daily panic attacks because I can't sleep or eat because I'm worried about the things I had to do to the next day and that were impossible for me to fulfill.

I lost the pleasure of eating, sleeping, drawing, reading or writing. More than once I found myself wishing I was dead so I wouldn't have to deal with this new job.
The workplace isn't even bad, and my co-workers are good, and even my students were nice too. But I can't take it anymore, with a level of responsibilities that never ended and that were consuming my entire life.

I couldn't even find it in myself to reply to the comments in the previous chapter, something I love to do.

Never before in my life had I wanted to be dead and I think that was the final point. that if being there put me in an emotional state where death seemed like a way out, then that was not the place I should be.

I feel embarrassed because I've only been there for 2 months, but this got out of my hands.

I'm sorry for throwing everything at you all of a sudden. I hope that now that I'm leaving this new job I'll be able to find a new one and start taking back everything I love and that I abandoned.
I'm sorry for not updating in so long, but I'll try to bring new things soon, once I stabilize my emotional state.
See you friends!