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“Dick… what do you have?”
Dick glanced up. He met Tim’s eye first, then glanced to Tim’s right (at Jason), then Tim’s left (at Damian). Dick forced a smile. “Chocolate shake?” he offered the cold cup as evidence.
Jason’s palm met his forehead.
“Seriously?” Tim asked.
“What?” Dick shifted the weight of the toddler on his hip. “I do have a chocolate shake.”
“Why do you have a child, Grayson,” Damian demanded, but flatly enough that it didn’t sound like a question. “And why is the child naked.”
“He’s not naked,” Dick disagreed. He glanced down to smile at the dark-haired toddler, swathed in black cloth. But, okay, the kid was otherwise not exactly clothed. The toddler glanced away from Tim, Jason, and Damian (or maybe the huge Batcomputer monitor, behind them), and up at Dick. He had his fat little fingers shoved into his mouth.
“Dick,” Tim groaned.
“What?” Dick glanced over at them, again.
“Who’s the kid?” Jason asked.
“Uh, so. About that.” Dick glanced between his brothers and the toddler.
“Why didn’t you leave him – her? – why didn’t you leave the kid at a police station or a firehouse? Hospital? Social services? Why’d you bring it here?” Jason asked.
Dick mulled that over, testing out a few ways to phrase that.
Deeper in the Cave, the door to the Manor opened and Alfred’s measured steps began the long staircase descent to the main level of the Cave. Dick tried his best not to tense guiltily, but from the looks that he got from his brothers, he didn’t do very well.
“Dick…” Tim started.
“Listen, it’s not as bad as it looks!” Dick said.
“Does Father know you have brought a civilian into the Cave?” Damian asked.
“It’s a fucking baby,” Jason said. “B’s not gonna care about a fucking baby being in the Cave.”
“The question remains,” Damian crossed his arms.
“I mean. I’m pretty sure he knows, as much as he can know, right now,” Dick said.
“The fuck does that mean?” Jason asked.
“Master Richard,” Alfred greeted. “Who is this?”
“Hey, Alfred…” Dick turned slowly to face Alfred. “I can explain.”
Alfred glanced down at the toddler, who glanced back up at Alfred, then popped his fingers out of his mouth to shout: “Al!” Though said with a soft baby L that made it sound more like “Ow” than “Al.” Then the baby reached up and bounced against Dick’s hold. “Al, Al!”
Alfred stood very still for a long moment, then slowly set his tray of sandwiches down on the desk, beside Jason.
He took the baby from Dick, black cloth and all. “Master Richard, what on earth happened to Bruce?” Alfred asked.
“I… thought you might recognize him like that,” Dick said.
“Bruce?!” Jason demanded.
“What the hell, Dick?” Tim added.
“That is meant to be Father?”
Alfred pulled the toddler in and cradled him as if he were precious. Bruce lay his head against Alfred’s lapel. “I would know Master Bruce anywhere,” he said. “It appears, however, that he is in need of a change of clothes. I will see that he is appropriately clothed.”
“Thanks, Alfred,” Dick said.
“Make no mistake, Master Richard, I will want a full report from you on what misadventure led to Bruce requiring swaddling in his own cape,” Alfred said, but without heat. He was already walking away, fully focused on the toddler in his arms.
“Of course,” Dick acknowledged. Then he turned back to his brothers.
“What the fuck happened?” Jason hissed.
“Uh. He turned into a baby?” Dick said.
“Wh—no shit! How did he turn into a baby, Dickface?” Jason asked.
“Uh… Klarion?” Dick shrugged. “I honestly didn’t know he could do that.”
“I’ll put in a request to the Justice League. For magical assistance,” Tim turned back to the Batcomputer. “Do you know what motive Klarion had?”
“I don’t think he had a motive. I think he was just bored,” Dick said.
“That… tracks,” Tim said. “Unfortunately.”
“How long will Father be an infant?” Damian demanded.
“Anywhere from three minutes to three years,” Jason said. “Depending on whether we can get a magic user in to fix things. Or if the spell has a timer built in.”
“Three years?” Damian asked.
“Well, yeah. If we don’t find a fix, he’ll still stop being a baby eventually. Five-year-olds aren’t babies,” Jason shrugged.
“I am not raising my dad,” Dick said.
“Neither am I!” Jason said.
“But your boyfriend knows how kids work,” Dick wheedled.
“What? You want me n’ Roy to raise Bruce?” Jason asked. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’d be so weird!”
“C’mon, doesn’t Lian want a little brother?” Dick asked.
“Fuck no! She’s perfectly happy as an only child.”
“What? Kids always want baby brothers and baby sisters,” Dick said.
“Not all of them!” Jason snapped.
“Guys, no one’s going to be raising him. This isn’t going to last forever,” Tim said. “It’ll be over as soon as a JL Dark member has time to take a trip to Gotham to reverse the spell.”
“Any JL Dark member?” Jason asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I didn’t know Swamp Thing could do magic, now.”
“You know what I mean,” Tim glared over his shoulder.
“But what if they can’t?” Dick asked.
“I didn’t know you had the superhuman ability to be fatalistic about minor curses,” Tim said drily. “We’ll cross that bridge if we have to. For now, maybe let’s have some faith in the abilities of the JL magic users?” He eyed Dick reproachfully.
“Right,” Dick nodded. “Sure.”
–
Alfred had managed to dress the tiny Bruce in tiny Bruce clothes that were backed away in airtight bags in the attic. Bruce looked the part of a proper little gentleman, even as he picked his nose and babbled to a stuffed bat that Damian had deigned to part with, in order that Bruce might have something to play with.
“Father has informed me that the bat is named Bug,” Damian said, very seriously.
Bruce, Damian, and Dick were all in the foyer, where Bruce had seen fit to plop down and play with the bat some more.
“Bug,” Dick echoed. He tied his hair back absently, frowning down at the toddler version of Bruce. “Sure. Bug.”
“Bug!” Bruce echoed, lifting the bat to show Dick.
Dick smiled, in spite of himself. “I see,” he said.
“Al! Bug!” Bruce carefully got to his feet and toddled off toward the kitchen. He knew the layout of the house, for the most part, but he’d of course been in the Manor for his whole life and even a two-year-old generally knew the basics of their home’s layout. “Al!”
“In here, my boy,” Alfred called from the kitchen.
Bruce squealed in laughter and tottered away faster.
“Has he asked for, ya know…” Dick nodded subtley to the portrait of Martha and Thomas hanging over the fireplace in the next room over.
“If he has, I have not heard as much,” Damian said. He crossed his arms with an attempt at a superior look that didn’t quite hide his discomfort. “Father has been content to follow at Pennyworth’s heels, thusfar.”
“I guess that’s good,” Dick said.
Damian grunted.
“Tim says that Zatanna’ll be around sometime in the next few hours. After she finishes up, uh, a show, I guess?”
“Zatara could not be bothered to cancel or postpone such banal and meaningless plans in order that a curse might be lifted?” Damian’s frown darkened.
“I mean, it’s not a curse that’s hurting anyone,” Dick shrugged. “And the shows are her job. Zee can’t just dip every time she’s called for. Much less when it’s about something that isn’t necessarily time-sensitive.”
“I would disagree on this alleged lack of time-sensitivity,” Damian said.
“You just don’t know how to deal with small children,” Dick said.
Damian scowled at him, but didn’t disagree.
–
Cass had the toddler Bruce lifted over her head, holding him up by his armpits.
They stared at each other.
Then Cass broke into a smile. “Baby.”
Damian scoffed.
Cass held Bruce out, lowering him a little, and spun slowly.
Bruce looked shocked for a long moment, then started to laugh, grinning toothily at Cass.
“Baby!” Cass repeated.
“That ‘baby’ is Father,” Damian said.
“Yes. B,” Cass agreed. She slowed her spinning to a stop and pulled Bruce in to cuddle him up in a whole-body hug. “Baby,” she whispered.
“He’s kinda cute, you have to admit,” Dick said.
“I do not find small children to be ‘cute,’” Damian disagreed. “They are soft. Incompetent. Unable to care for themselves.”
“The big eyes are to make people want to keep them safe,” Jason walked into the sitting room, where the rest of them were gathered while Alfred finished meal preparations. “Biological imperative n’ all that.”
“I do not think protection of another is a biological imperative,” Damian disagreed. “Biological imperatives are those which ensure one’s own survival.”
“Personal survival can be pretty entwined with familial lineage survival. Or like, community survival,” Jason said. He plopped himself down on the couch, nearly bouncing Damian off the other end of it with the force of his flop. He grinned at the annoyed look he received for the stunt.
Cass sat down where she stood, in the middle of the rug in front of the unlit fireplace, and sat Bruce in her lap. She murmured to him and signed, reaching around the toddler to do so in front of him while he leaned back against her chest.
Bruce babbled in interest and reached out to touch her signing hands.
“He's so trusting,” Dick mused, watching Cass and Bruce. “Happy, too. Man, it must be nice to just… have suddenly not experienced loss or hardship.”
“Sure,” Tim glanced at Dick out the corner of his eye. “But it's also inconvenient.”
“For us, maybe,” Dick frowned thoughtfully.
“No, I mean. He lived a whole life, Dick. He learned things. He made friends. Yeah, he's had loss, but… I don't think the bad outweighs the good of the life he lived.”
Dick turned to Tim, frowning more deeply. “It's just… look at him.”
“If it were you, would you want everything you've done and experienced just… gone?” Tim asked. “Sure, Bruce's losses were erased with this whole… de-aging thing. But like. So were the relationships that made those losses mean anything. Maybe he doesn't have the loss of his parents weighing on him, but he's also not at an age where long-term memories are necessarily being formed. He won't have known his parents at all.”
“I dunno,” Dick glanced away.
“If it were you, that—” Tim nodded at the toddler. “—that would mean never having known your parents. Never having met the Titans. Never having met Wally. It would mean your whole life was just removed.”
“Why are you trying to convince me?” Dick forced a laugh.
“I can see you debating just leaving him like that,” Tim said.
Damian’s gaze snapped over to them.
“He wouldn't want to be left like that,” Dick murmured.
“Yeah, and let's respect that. I know he's a toddler now, and that you could just make that kind of decision for him, and he'd never know different. But… but I don't think that would be for the best.”
Dick sighed through his nose. “You're probably right.”
“Yeah? Good. I was going to start using Damian against you, if you didn't agree,” Tim said.
“What is the meaning of that statement, Drake?” Damian demanded.
“I mean, if B’s a kid, you don't have your dad around. And you'd probably end up with some of the responsibility of infant-rearing. Which I doubt you'd want,” Tim said.
Damian sneered. “Though I hate to agree with you,” he said. “I find that I must, in this situation.”
Tim turned back to Dick, eyebrows raised. “Even Damian agrees,” he said.
Dick made a face, pulled the elastic from his hair, then started to put his hair back again, into a new ponytail. “Yeah, I get it. He can't stay a toddler forever.”
“He'd still only be a toddler for like two or three years, at most,” Jason said.
“Unless Klarion put some kind of age stasis spell on him,” Tim said.
Jason made a face. “That's probably an option, isn't it?”
“It's Klarion,” Tim shrugged. “Everything's an option, if he's bored enough.”
“You know, Klarion's been the same age for a decade, now. That I know of,” Dick said.
“You think he put an age stasis kind of spell on himself?” Tim asked.
“Uh, no. I think that's the Sidhe blood, personally. It just occurred to me that he's probably a hell of a lot older than he looks, being that he doesn't look too much older than you,” Dick glanced at Tim.
“He doesn't look older than me,” Tim said, offended.
“Sometimes he does,” Jason said.
“No he doesn't! He looks like… like a fifteen-year-old.”
“Ehh, no, I don't think so,” Jason said. “He could pass for, like, seventeen or eighteen. Maybe nineteen, at a stretch.”
“Unbelievable. You're saying I look younger than the eternal brat?” Tim demanded.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Jason shrugged. “Like, he's very twink-y, don't get me wrong, but he's got the whole older thing going on with his eyes, where you can tell he knows stuff, no matter how much bullshit he's saying or doing that seems to contradict that.”
“And, I mean, it doesn't help that you have such a baby face, Tim,” Dick said. “You could probably pass for fifteen.”
Jason nodded, pointing at Dick in agreement.
“I hate it here,” Tim grumbled.
“Then leave,” Damian said flatly.
Tim flipped him off.
–
“Maybe we should put him in one of his own shirts? And some, uh… gym shorts maybe? Since he shrank in the Batsuit, and the suit didn't shrink with him, it stands to reason that he'd probably Hulk out of the toddler clothes,” Dick mused.
“That image will haunt me for the rest of my life,” Jason deadpanned.
Zatanna had Bruce sat on the kitchen island as she walked around him slowly, humming in thought. The toddler tried to follow her with his eyes, without moving from his spot, and almost toppled over from trying to turn his head further than it would go. He caught himself, rebalanced, and whipped around to start watching her continue around on the other side.
“I'm gonna go grab some of his clothes,” Dick nodded to himself.
“Yeah, do that. There are some things in life that I have no desire to see. In fact, I have an un -desire to see,” Jason said.
“I can tell that's a Tolkien thing, Jason. You're not living down the nerd thing,” Dick said.
“Unlight was etymologically brilliant!” Jason snapped.
“See, you just confirmed it,” Dick said. “Nerd.”
“I'll shoot you!” Jason threatened, at Dick's retreating back.
Alfred cleared his throat. “Not in the house, Master Jason.”
“Of course,” Jason said. “Bloodstains are a big hassle to get out. I'll shoot him outside.”
“Thank you,” Alfred said wryly. Then he stepped over to the island counter and picked up the toddler. “A moment, please, Miss Zatara,” he said.
“Of course,” Zatanna smiled almost sadly at him. “Take as long as you need.”
Alfred smiled at her and held Bruce close, a hand splayed across the entirety of the back of his small toddler head. Alfred bowed over him a little, breathing in a past that was so long ago that he'd almost forgotten parts of it.
Dick returned with the much larger clothes as Alfred offered Bruce back to Zatanna.
“You were always another parent to him,” Zatanna said. “I remember.”
“Yes, indeed. There was a reason that custody fell to me, after Thomas and Martha died,” Alfred stroked Bruce's dark hair. “And it was certainly not due to my staff seniority.”
Dick paused in reaching for Bruce, eyes widening for a moment. Then he frowned thoughtfully, shrugged, and continued to reach for Bruce.
“I always wondered about that,” Zatanna smiled down at Bruce, then passed him off the Dick to be changed. “But he was always either tight-lipped or obstinate in not realizing. I still can't decide which.”
“Perhaps a bit of both, though I daresay Master Bruce must have realized, at some point.”
“What are they prattling about?” Damian walked up to stand beside Jason, scowling.
“Alfred, Thomas, and Martha fucked,” Jason said.
Damian turned to look at him in disgusted horror.
“What?” Jason raised an eyebrow, looking back down at Damian.
“Do not use such crude language in reference to my Grandparents, Todd,” Damian demanded.
“Oh. For a second there, I thought you were all grossed out about the poly thing,” Jason said.
“I am, as you say, ‘grossed out’ – but that my disgust is toward any thought of my Grandparents copulating,” Damian said, scowling more deeply.
Jason snorted. “That's fair.”
Dick passed Bruce back to Zatanna, now drowning in clothes that belonged to adult-Bruce.
“Anyone want to get a last cuddle in before I turn him back into his usual, emotionally constipated self?” Zatanna asked.
Cass immediately materialized beside Zatanna to steal the toddler away.
–
“And here's you conked out on the couch with Bug,” Tim offered Bruce a picture. Another in a large stack of pictures.
“Bug,” Bruce said.
“The bat. You named it Bug.”
“Of course,” Bruce sighed.
“And here's a picture of you sitting in the stock pot – Jason wanted to see if you fit. And here's one of Alfred reading to you. I think he said it was a book you liked when you were that little, the first time around. Oh! And here's a picture of Cass playing airplane with you.”
Bruce accepted each picture in turn as they were handed to him. “I thought you said the curse didn't even last twenty-four hours.”
“It didn't,” Tim agreed.
“How do you have so many pictures?” Bruce asked.
“Conscious effort. Here's you in the back garden.” Tim handed him another picture. “You tried to eat a snail and… oh, here's a picture of that, actually,” Tim handed another picture over. “You tried to eat a snail and Alfred took it away. You cried for like half an hour.”
“Right,” Bruce acknowledged.
“Here's Jason trying to teach Dick how to change a diaper. You peed on Dick,” Tim said. “Alfred said you weren't potty trained until, like, four? Don't worry,” he set a hand on Bruce's arm. “That's well within normal potty training ages.”
Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, here's when you ran around naked. We still don't know how you got all your clothes off,” Tim passed another picture over. “I think Cass probably helped you. She's really a troublemaker. It's just that she's so quiet about it that we always forget. And here's you sitting on Alfred's foot, holding his leg, so that you could ride around while Alfred cleaned up after lunch.”
Bruce dropped his hand from the bridge of his nose and continued to accept the pictures from Tim. “Is there any chance of living this down?” he asked.
“Nope,” Tim grinned.