Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dayshift, Signal admitted, sometimes got lonely. 

He didn’t usually mind the quiet solitude - God knows he needed it occasionally, what with how chaotic the manor could get. Still, it was nice when someone besides Oracle was on comms.

“Xylem carries minerals, and phloem carries…nutrients? That does not make sense. They are the same thing.” Robin working on homework was a common and welcome accompaniment to patrol.

“I think the difference is more about which part of the plant they’re in.” Would Signal normally still remember details like these from 8th grade biology? No. But sometimes having a little brother meant reading ahead in their textbooks so you could maintain the illusion that you knew everything.

“Hm. Of course.” The sound of a scratching eraser came through the comms. Signal held a thumbs up in front of his mask; it should show up on the screen of the Batcomputer where Robin could see.

Signal swung through the city, enjoying the way the light hit the windows of buildings as afternoon shifted closer to evening. 

He concentrated for a moment. Pulled on the light. Let the colors dance around his fingers.

“Stop that.” Robin’s voice sounded in his ear. “You are being too conspicuous.”

“I wasn’t doing anything!”

“Mhm. Of course not.” The eyeroll was practically audible.

Siblings. Why did he ever get them?

Nearly at the end of his route, he started swinging faster. He reached for the light again, this time letting it simply exist in his mind. Then he pushed through, to gain a small glimpse into the future, to see if the next rooftop was going to have anything interesting or if he could head straight back and-

“Signal! Do not swing and use your vision! That is very dangerous!”

“Dude!” Signal huffed and landed. “I still wasn’t doing anything.”

“I saw you.”

“No you didn’t. You can’t see that.” No one could see the same way that Signal saw.

“Tt. Of course I see when you are using your powers, I am not blind.”

Signal stutter-stepped. He thought no one could see when he was accessing his future sight. Oh, God, how many times had he given his position away without knowing?

“Oh shit. Are you serious?”

“Yes? Signal, did you not know this?” Robin sounded concerned. Not a good sign.

“No! No one ever said anything! Aw, crap.” He reached the alleyway where he had stashed his bike, and started it up. “I’m heading back to the cave now. Can you help me test this? I need to know exactly what it looks like to other people, and how far away they can see it.”

“Yes, of course. I will bring in Nightwing to assist.”

Signal did not laugh at that, but he may have smirked a bit. Even after all this time, Robin always looked to his first Batman to help with something new.

It was a good idea anyways; Nightwing had more field experience than either of them. He would be able to more accurately help them figure out what exactly an opponent could see.

—

“Dude, I don’t see anything.”

Duke frowned. “You’re sure? What about now?” 

“Nope, nothing.” Dick shook his head.

“Richard, what are you talking about?” Damian was getting frustrated. “How can you not see that?”

Duke rocked back on his heels, considering the training mats he was standing on. The cave was, as a whole, a gloomy place - there was only so much you could do to brighten up a damp hole in the ground.

Whoever had originally picked the mats - Dick - must have thought the bright pink would help. Maybe they did. Duke didn’t really know what the cave looked like without them.

All three of them were in the sparing area, but Duke was the only one on the mats. He had gone there without thinking to perform the tests and was regretting it. If he had picked a less garish background then maybe he would currently feel less like a poorly performing show dog.

“Ok,” Dick said, “I don’t see anything. But! Maybe I just don’t know what I’m looking for. Dami, what does it look like to you?”

Damian scrunched his face up considering. “He just…glows? Yes. There is a small halo of light surrounding him when he uses his ghost vision.”

Dick looked to Duke, who didn’t know what else to do besides shrug. 

“Alright, well, I’ll keep an eye out. Duke, are you good to keep going?”

“Sure, no problem.” Duke pulled at the light again.

“There! Did you see it?” Damian pointed at Duke, but turned to Dick.

Dick shook his head. “No, I didn’t see anything. He just stood there. Are you sure you’re seeing something?”

“Ugh!” Damian threw his hands down into fists. “I am not lying!”

“Whoa,” Duke said, “not saying you are. Let’s test this some, yeah? Let me know when you see something.”

Damian scowled but nodded. Duke waited for a few seconds before pulling on his powers again.

He saw Damian’s answer coming a second before the boy actually spoke. “Now - you are using your power now.”

Duke nodded. “Ok, again.”

He immediately started, trying to throw Damian off.

“Right there, you did not wait that time.”

Dick looked between them, contemplatively. “Huh. I’m still not seeing anything.”

“Let’s try again.” Duke readied himself the same way he normally would for a vision, but didn’t activate the final break through the light. After about a minute, he dropped his stance. “Did you see that?”

“No, I did not.” Damian looked puzzled.

“Damn,” Duke sighed, “that was a trick question. You really can tell.”

Damian glared at him, but it was half-hearted at best.

“We need more eyes on this.” Dick pulled out his phone and placed a call. It rang twice, then Duke could hear the tinny sound of someone on the other side. 

“Hey Tim! Are you free right now? No, no, everything’s fine, just a little experiment in the cave. Oh, Cass? Yeah, bring her along, that’d be a big help. Thanks bud, see you soon.”

He hung up and turned back to Duke. “Alright, perfect. Between Tim’s plans and Cass’ body reading skills, one of them will definitely be able to figure this out.”

—

They could not figure it out.

“You are not lying.” Cass was looking intensely at Damian. “You see something. Why can you see when I cannot?”

Tim was poking at a tablet. “Light sensors don’t pick up any change. If it’s there, it’s too subtle for our technology.” He seemed somewhere between frustrated and intrigued at the limitation.

“All of you are blind,” Damian said.

“Ehh, I dunno man,” Duke ventured. “I’m beginning to think it may just be you.”

It would certainly be better for Duke if that was the case. That would mean this hole in his defenses had suddenly shrunk to being exploitable by only one person in the world, who just so happened to be his baby brother.

Bad for pranks. Good for not dying. 

“I think Duke is right,” Tim agreed. “It does sound like this is a Damian thing.”

“Hmph.” Damian straightened. “Of course it is. Once again, my superiority over the rest of you is obvious.”

Cass considered him for a moment, then smiled gently. She reached down and ruffled his hair. “Don’t worry, Dami. You are still good, and nothing will change. Dad does not dislike metas.”

Duke, Dick, and Tim all winced, with varying degrees of subtlety. Duke especially felt bad; he had just been thinking about how much it sucked to be singled out for his powers, hadn’t he? Damian was definitely freaking out right now.

Of course, the kid wasn’t going to admit that. He ducked away from Cass’ hand and retreated to stand by Dick. 

“Father already tested me for meta-genes,” he insisted. “It is in my file.”

The last part was directed at Tim, who gave an affirming nod and moved towards the Batcomputer.

Dick worried at his bottom lip. “You know I hate to say this, but it may be time to bring Bruce in.”

His statement was met with grumbling, but no actual objections, so he pulled out his phone and made another call.

—

“And you’re certain only Damian can tell?” Bruce said. A chorus of exasperated voices rose up around him. “Alright, alright. I believe you.”

He looked at the Batcomputer, where Tim had pulled up Damian’s medical file. The results of meta-gene testing, done years ago now, were still shown as negative in all areas.

“Have you always had this ability, Damian?” Bruce asked.

“Yes.” Damian straightened. “I would have reported as such if I had known it was not standard.”

Bruce knew that Damian only reverted to this awkward, overly-formal speech when he was uncomfortable. He vowed to get to the bottom of this mystery to ease his son’s mind.

“It could be a marker we haven’t looked for yet,” Tim mused. “These are just all the known indicators, right? We shouldn’t assume science has actually found everything.”

“Maybe, but what can we do about that?” Dick pointed out. “It’s not like we’re going to be the ones to solve that problem.”

Hmm, now that was a thought. Bruce pondered. How quickly could he get a lab set up? Gene sequencing itself wasn’t new science, he could get the machines needed easily through WE Medical. After that it should just be research and pattern recognition and general analysis, right?

Before Bruce could drop a distressing amount of money on revolutionizing genetics, Tim cut in.

“Probably not, but we may not have to. Damian is specifically able to see Duke’s powers, right? So, what if we just compare their DNA and look at what they have in common!”

Tim paused hesitantly for a moment. “I mean, if that’d be ok with the two of you. Duke? Dames?”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Duke shrugged. 

Damian nodded, tightly. “I see the logic in this approach. You may proceed.”

Tim stood, ceding the coveted Best Desk Chair to Bruce. He took it immediately, before anyone else could steal it out from under him.

“Alright,” Bruce said, “it won’t take long to just compare the two of you. Go get fresh samples to work from, we want the best data possible. Dick, help them with that.”

Dick herded the two youngest boys to the med bay, where the joy of finger pricks awaited them.

“Tim.” Bruce turned to him. “Begin writing all of this in a report.”

Tim nodded and went to the mats to retrieve his tablet.

“Cassandra.” The last of his children perked up and waited for her task. “Did you leave a mess in the parlor this morning?”

She pouted. “Maybe.”

“Go clean it up, darling. That’s not fair to Alfred.”

Cass sighed, but did as requested.

Bruce turned to the computer and loaded the appropriate programs. This was definitely not what he expected to do today.

—

Jason rolled into the cave for pre-patrol prep to find nearly every member of his family crowded around the Batcomputer. Not one to be left out - unless he decided he wanted to be, thank you very much - he marched over to join them.

“Hey. What are we all staring at?”

“Hn,” said Bruce.

“Duke and Damian’s genetic comparison,” clarified Dick.

“Thanks, Bat-bastard translator. Why are we doing that?”

“Well,” Duke nervously began after a glance at Damian, “originally it was to check if he was a meta. Turns out he can see when I use my ghost vision even though no one else can?”

Jason looked at Damian appraisingly. He did not look back.

Duke continued. “He’s not, by the way. A meta, I mean. But, uh, we might be related.”

Bruce squinted harder at the computer. That ‘might be’ was almost certainly a ‘definitely are’.

The amount of shared DNA was less than one percent, around what he would expect to see with semi-distant cousins. Unexpected, but not a scientific marvel by any means.

What was mystifying them all was how that tiny percentage was nearly perfectly matching in each of them.

Humans, whether or not they cared to think of it, were constantly mutating. A frightening word for the simple fact that change was a part of life, right down to the individual chromosomes and proteins that made up their very selves. Without change and mutation, evolution would not happen.

All of that to say, the bits of DNA that Bruce was looking at right now should not be so identical. That kind of gene fidelity just didn’t happen across multiple generations down different branches of a family tree.

Dick was catching Jason up after Duke had begun flagging in his explanation.

“It’s like they share a direct relation, like, parent-level direct. Except the math on the percentages just doesn’t work out.” 

“Gilgamesh was said to be two-thirds divine and one-third mortal,” Jason offered. “Maybe the brat’s genetics work on Sumerian math.”

Tim snorted. “Sure, so does that mean that Jerry the turkey is Enkidu in this situation?”

“What?” Jason looked bewildered. “Why the fuck would Jerry be Damian’s Enkidu?”

“Because he’s a bird?”

“Tim, who the hell do you think Enkidu is?”

“The green chicken from Final Fantasy, I’m not an idiot.”

“Oh my God. Shut the fuck up.”

Bruce sent a stern look their way. “Boys. That is not helping.”

They stopped arguing quite as loudly, but blatantly kept going at it in whispers. Both their phones were out now, internet searches pulled up, and they kept shoving them in each others’ faces to show the ‘proof’ that they knew what they were talking about. 

Despite his reprimands, Bruce wasn’t actually making progress either. He grimaced internally. He knew what he had to do.

“I’m going to call Talia.”

Most of his children’s faces were some flavor of unhappy, ranging from Duke’s skepticism to Dick’s outright disgust.

Damian, however, lit up. Talia al-Ghul may be the semi-leader of an ancient malevolent eco-fascist terrorism murder cult, but she was also his mother. Even if he had wanted to, Bruce could never stop the two from loving each other deeply.

Bruce had loved her once too, after all. Maybe he even could again, one day, if only she didn’t make co-parenting so blasted difficult.

“Alright. Damian, Duke, this concerns you both. Everyone else, go get ready for patrol.” Upon seeing most wanted to argue, he added, “Respect your brothers’ privacy or I won’t be able to make them respect yours.”

They scattered. The best threats were the ones he didn’t have to fulfill himself.

Bracing himself, Bruce opened up a secure line and initiated a video call. Duke and Damian fell into a loose formation behind him.

After a few short rings, Talia’s face appeared on the monitor, as beautiful as he always remembered. Behind her was a nondescript sand-colored wall, which almost definitely meant she was actually nowhere near a desert base. Misdirection was second nature to them all.

“Beloved,” she greeted stiffly.

She raised an eyebrow at Duke. “Mr. Thomas.”

“Damian,” she smiled, “my son, how lovely to see you. Are you well?”

“Yes, Mother.” Damian was maintaining his best posture and poise, but allowed his own smile to briefly appear. “How have you been?”

“Very well, thank you. I’m heartened to know your manners remain impeccable, despite your current influences.” Her tone was pointed.

Bruce sighed heavily. “Hello, Talia. How are you?”

“That is none of your business.” She looked down her nose at him disdainfully. Bruce wished it wasn’t still an attractive expression on her. “I assume there is a reason you called me, and I do hope it explains why one of your other children is here.”

Duke’s poker face was good, but not that good. He gulped.

Bruce stepped in before Duke could feel the need to speak up. “Yes, actually. This may be easiest to explain if I send you some files. Are you able to receive them?”

Talia confirmed that she was, and Bruce sent her the results of the tests he had run earlier - with Duke’s information as heavily redacted as possible.

The others waited while Talia read through the report. She hummed thoughtfully.

“If I remember correctly, Mr. Thomas, your father is the meta-human known as Gnomen, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Duke quickly replied.

Talia shrugged. “Then everything is explained.”

Bruce wanted to slam his head on the desk. Repeatedly. Somehow, he resisted.

“Talia,” he growled, “please, assume I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “The genetic soup, Bruce. In the artificial womb? I should not have to go through this again.”

When Talia brought Damian to Gotham, she had explained to Bruce that, shortly after discovering she was pregnant, she had the embryo - which would one day be Damian - transferred to an external gestation tank. 

It sounded like a needless procedure, but Talia pointed out that being heavily pregnant while holding a leadership position in an organization of power hungry assassins was a great way to get killed. Bruce couldn’t really argue with her logic there.

She also explained that this meant that, technically, she hadn’t lied to him about the miscarriage, because she really hadn’t been pregnant anymore when she told him. Bruce was less receptive on that front.

“I remember that conversation,” Bruce said, with all the patience in his soul, “but I do not think you mentioned a ‘genetic soup’. I would like to know what that is, what it does, and how it could explain the involvement of Duke’s biological father.”

Talia looked like she was being forced to babysit a particularly stupid and sticky child. The look on her face questioned Bruce’s intellect, his education, and his common sense. It was a bit much, he thought.

“‘Genetic soup’ refers to a stabilizing fluid used to help the developing fetus adjust to its new environment. I do not know all of its contents, but Gnomen has been proclaiming his belief in his own immortality for many years, so his DNA was undoubtedly added by Father at some point.”

Ra’s al-Ghul’s methods and motives were constantly changing, adapting, and slipping in and out of a logic only the man himself could understand. Bruce hated him so much.

“Do not be concerned, Damian,” Talia continued, “it has no effect on the child.”

If Talia could keep her secrets about their son, then Bruce could keep his. She definitely did not need to know that he had the unique ability to compromise their only powered team member.

“Do you know,” Bruce said, mentally congratulating himself on keeping a cool demeanor, “who else contributed their DNA?”

“It’s a genetic soup , Bruce.” She sighed in apparent exhaustion. “No, I do not.”

She peered at the file again. “Although, I may have to recommend Gnomen be removed from the set. It should not have been able to overwrite even this much of Damian’s makeup.”

Bruce decided it was time to finish the conversation before she could start drawing any conclusions about what had made them start looking into this in the first place.

“Thank you, Talia. I appreciate the information regarding our son.” He did not put emphasis on ‘our son’, no matter how much he wanted to. “Duke, Damian, say goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Mother.”

“Bye, Mrs. Damian’s mom,” Duke said. He froze in horror. Bruce rapidly ended the call.

Duke crumpled to the ground and groaned. “Why did I say that??”

Damian looked at him with contempt. “I cannot believe we share a parent.”

That really was what was happening, wasn’t it? Duke and Damian shared a parent. Some of a parent, anyways.

“You can all come back out now,” Bruce announced.

Innocently, the rest of his children appeared from various directions. He didn’t say anything. It had already been decided that their punishment was not his responsibility, right?

Jason approached Duke and knelt next to him on the ground. He pulled the other boy into his side in a friendly embrace. “That was a real weird thing to say, man.” Duke smacked him.

The others came to stand around Bruce and Damian. Dick placed a reassuring hand on the boy’s back. Tim and Cass were looking less like comforting older siblings, and more like monsters ready to incite more chaos.

“Dames, you might be the first person ever to have three biological parents,” Tim said.

“Maybe more,” Cass added, “Talia did not know. She did not expect this.”

Bruce knew she had been faking that confidence! He definitely did.

The rest of what Cass was saying caught up to him. He began typing a message to Oracle.

“B, what are you doing?” asked Dick. His grip on Damian’s shoulder made it clear he was ready to jump to his defense.

“I’m going to run Damian’s DNA against everyone in the League of Assassin’s databanks,” Bruce said.

Damian looked uncomfortable. Dick glared at Bruce.

He backtracked. “If that is something you would like, Damian.”

Damian still looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “It would be beneficial to know.”

It would be better to have a more enthusiastic agreement, but at that moment Oracle’s response came back. The speed at which she had given him a backdoor into the LoA’s mainframe made him very suspicious about how long it had existed.

“I’ll begin the tests and have them run while we’re on patrol. Duke, it’s getting late for you, pumpkin. Go get some rest.”

Duke held up a peace sign from his position prone on the floor. He rolled around for a minute before dragging his body up to a standing position.

“Catch me up tomorrow on anything interesting?” he said, directed at Damian. Damian nodded, and the two exchanged a solemn fist bump.

Bruce turned back to the computer.

“Since you all had so much time earlier, you’re ready for patrol, right?”

The team of trained stealth experts stampeded to the lockers.

Chuckling softly to himself, he got to work. The tests would scan for matches between Damian and all persons’ whose genetic information had been recorded by the League. Each test did not take long to run, but it was a disturbingly large number of individuals. 

He removed himself and any al-Ghuls from the comparison list, but paused on Duke’s father’s name. Talia had been so certain, but there was still a chance.

Talia was not a reliable source. He left Gnomen in.

—

Batman knew the discovery from earlier was weighing on Robin’s mind. He was being much quieter than usual, something Batman would have to bring up subtly.

“You’re quiet tonight.” Well, Robin tended to appreciate directness, right?

His son stilled for a moment, then adjusted. “I am fine.”

That response was telling, considering he hadn’t actually asked.

“You know,” he began, uncertainly, “you can talk to me about what’s bothering you.”

Robin looked at him like he had grown a second head.

“Excuse me??”

Alright, apparently he didn’t know that.

Batman tried again. “I mean, that if there is something on your mind, I would like to help you by discussing your thoughts.”

Robin looked at him like he had grown a third head jutting out of the top of the second head.

“Are you ill??”

Batman sighed. This wasn’t working. 

He navigated them to a more private rooftop, and positioned Robin with his back to the external wall of a roof access staircase. Hopefully, the solid brick behind him would make him feel more secure.

Batman crouched down to be eye level with his son. “Damian.”

Robin startled, violently. 

“No names in the field!” He fumbled, panicked, with his comm. “Nightwing! Nightwing! Batman is compromised! I require immediate backup!”

“Belay that request, Nightwing,” Batman ground out behind his teeth. Robin pressed himself, hard, against the wall behind him.

“Robin? Robin! What’s happening, where are you?? Oracle, what-” 

Batman turned off his earpiece. He reached up and tugged back the cowl, causing Robin’s eyes to go wide behind his domino.

“Damian. I am not sick. I am not compromised. I am fully aware of my actions. I just wanted to talk to you.” 

Bruce mustered every ounce of sincerity he could into his face and voice, and, miraculously, it seemed to work.

Slowly, Robin settled out of the ready-to-flee posture he had assumed. “I…see. What would you care to discuss?”

“Well,” Bruce said, taking his best shot,  “maybe some of the things we discovered today. About you.”

“Right.” Robin’s shoulders hunched, slightly, discreetly. “Mother’s information was…intriguing. The tests currently running will likely reveal much about who I am, and am not.”

Bruce considered his words. Talking, truly, had never been one of his strong suits. For all that he was a father and a leader and a businessman, there was always something he couldn’t quite grasp about how to have a real conversation.

A discussion from years ago floated up in his mind. “That kid idolizes you, Bruce,” Dick of his memory says, “he clings to every word you say. Your opinion is the most important thing in the world to him - more than mine, maybe even more than Talia’s.”

“Damian,” Bruce began. He wasn’t sure he knew what needed to be said, but he did know he had to try. “No matter who the tests say contributed to your genetic makeup, you are a valued member of our team and family.”

The night was still around them. From far away, the sounds of very late traffic could just be made out. There was something delicate in the air that Bruce dared not break.

“But you-” Robin shifted, “are you not, perhaps, disappointed that I am less…”

“Less what, honey?”

Robin swallowed. “Less yours.”

Oh, no. His poor heart barely withstood such a blow. 

“Son,” he said, because he needed to make sure that was known, “nothing those tests could say would make you less mine. You are now, and always will be, my child. Not because of blood, but because I love you. The results we’re waiting on could show that we have no relation at all and it wouldn’t change a thing between us.”

There wasn’t much chance of that - he had done a paternity test when Talia first brought Damian to his doorstep, after all - but it was still true.

With a slight tremble in his hands, Robin pulled the mask away from his face. Damian’s eyes, large and wet, looked into his father’s.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I swear it.” Bruce held his hands out in invitation.

Suddenly, he had an armful of blubbering little bird. He held on as strongly as he could without crushing the boy against the hard ridges of the suit.

Bruce let himself savor this moment. This boy was his. His smallest, youngest, most yearned for surprise child. The precious life he thought had been lost to him before it could even begin. He was going to hold on until Damian began to understand just how much he was loved.

Nightwing flew down like an avenging angel and sucker-punched Bruce in the throat.

—

“I’m sorry, ok?” Dick was gripping the wheel of the Batmobile far tighter than was necessary. “What was I supposed to think, huh? Robin called for help! You were grappling with him!”

Bruce gave him the hardest glare he could. He was slouched in the passenger seat, holding one of the emergency rapid-freeze ice packs to his swollen neck.

Damian, in the back, wisely chose silence.

“It was a hug, Dick,” Bruce rasped out.

“Yeah?” Dick said. “Well that’s weird, B.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I was following your advice!”

Dick looked at him aghast. “Since when ?”

Bruce absolutely did not pout, and he also did not admit that he had used the mantra of 'What Would Dick Do?' to guide him through every social interaction for the past 20 years.

“I apologize, Richard, for sounding a false alarm,” Damian said.

Dick waved him off. “It’s fine, Dami, you did the right thing. I’d rather deal with a million fake emergencies than risk you not calling me in a real one. Right, Bruce?”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Dick. “Yes…”

Dick smirked. Damn it. Bruce was going to be dodging sneak attacks for weeks.

The Batmobile sped through backroads, through the tunnels, and into the cave. Unsurprisingly, they were the last ones back. 

Besides the fact that three of them had been slowed down by, first, his heart-to-heart with Damian, and then by a panicking Dick, Bruce knew that Jason, Cassandra, and Tim would not risk missing whatever news the computer had compiled.

When feeling charitable, he could say that this behaviour demonstrated how every member of his family was a brilliant detective whose dedication to truth and justice could not allow them to leave any stone unturned. 

Usually, he just felt that they were all nosy as hell.

Curiosity was a trait to be nurtured in children - up to the point where it became annoying. Bruce made a point of bypassing the computer entirely and going directly to the showers.

“Dad?” Cass’ sweet voice caused him to pause. “You should defend your neck better.”

—

Once everyone had stopped laughing at him, and after he had showered, and changed, and stretched, and put away his gear, and stopped thinking of delays to torture his children, Bruce unlocked the computer.

After thousands of fast-match comparisons with Damian, two connections had been found. The first, Gnomen, was expected. At least Talia hadn’t lied about that.

The second result, however?

“Holy shit, bat brat,” Jason jeered, “is Timmers your dad??”

Damian looked like he was going to throw up. Comfortingly, Cass led him to sit down on the ‘unsolved brutal murder cases’ filing cabinet. She managed to hide her silent laughter until she was out of his immediate eyeline.

Dick rubbed his face wearily. “You’re positive this was only running against the League’s databanks?”

“Hn,” Bruce confirmed. Regrettably.

“Fucking creepy old man,” Tim muttered, “gonna stink bomb his stupid evil lair.”

Ongoing feud aside - and Bruce was going to keep a close eye on Tim’s flights out of Gotham for the next few months - there was still no explanation as to why the League would have Tim’s genes in their gestation pods.

“Tim, how did your DNA get mixed in with Damian’s?” Bruce really hoped this wouldn’t require another call to Talia.

“I don’t know!” Tim insisted. “I shouldn’t have even been on the League’s radar when Damian was all…” he waved his hands wildly. “I’m pretty sure I hadn’t even figured out that Dick was Robin yet.”

Damian did not seem impressed by Tim’s pantomime of his gestation. He rose up on his knees from his seat on the filing cabinet and attempted to bean his brother with a stapler. Cass intercepted the projectile office supply in mid-air.

Dick snapped his fingers. “This just says there’s some kind of match, right? Could it have something to do with your birth parents?”

That was…a weird way to refer to Jack and Janet.

“Oh. Yeah, maybe.” Tim considered. “I didn’t think of that at all. I really do forget about that sometimes.”

Bruce was definitely missing information.

“Forget what, Tim?” Bruce asked.

“That I’m adopted.”

Bruce stilled as he tried to parse what that meant.

Jason smacked the back of Tim’s head. “We’re all adopted, dumbass.”

“No, Jason,” Dick sighed, “Tim’s first adoption, with the Drakes.”

“Wait, for real? That’s insane.” Jason said. “Not the double adoption thing, that’s fine. What I mean is how the fuck do you forget about that you little weirdo?”

Unperturbed, Tim shrugged. “Mom and Dad got me when I was like, a baby-baby, you know? Literally don’t have any memories from before that, and it doesn’t come up that often.”

Damian seemed surprised, but Cass was nodding like she already had this information. Why did Cass and Dick know, but Bruce didn’t? Was he a terrible father? He was going to pretend he already knew.

Dick glared at Bruce. “You didn’t know about this, did you?”

Damn it, Dick, of course he didn’t. If he had known sooner then maybe he could have gotten custody from Jack Drake when he first woke up from his coma. Buried the man in paperwork, threats, and bribes until he agreed to let Tim come back home with them.

No, no, that was not a productive line of thinking. Tim loved his parents, and he had been the one who insisted he should stay with Jack until the man passed away. 

Besides, the whole idea was very unfair of Bruce. If anyone tried to take away his own adopted children, he would almost certainly start calling in favors from Diana.

“I did not know,” Bruce admitted. It was physically painful. “I never thought about it. They didn’t seem the type to adopt.”

“Seriously, B?” Tim laughed. “Can you actually picture Janet Drake dealing with a pregnancy?”

Honestly, he could not. Janet enjoyed her job, her travels, and her figure. Mostly he was surprised that, at some point, the Drakes had wanted to be parents badly enough to go through the long process of adopting an infant.

Hm. Actually, they probably just threw money at an agency until they got what they wanted. Never mind, this was all making sense now.

Damian, unsurprisingly, was the one who brought them back on track. “So, the most likely explanation is that Timothy and I have some shared ancestor? Possibly someone who was involved with the League?”

“Hmm.” Tim frowned. “Yeah, I guess they would be, right? Or at least someone who got their attention long enough to get tossed in the soup.”

“Tim, is there anything at all you know about your birth parents?” Dick asked.

“No, sorry,” Tim shook his head, “I didn’t need to know about them. The adoption was never a secret, so, it just never felt like some big mystery to be curious about.”

Jason scoffed. “Now that’s a damn lie. Come on Tim, no way you left that alone.”

Tim glared at Jason. “Fine. It was a closed adoption, and all the leads were major dead ends. I decided to drop it, and just accept not knowing. Happy?”

“Yeah, that’s more like the damn know-it-all I was expecting.” Jason didn’t apologize for pushing, but he did bump his shoulder gently against Tim’s.

“Hn.” Bruce began setting the computer to run its more complete comparison test. “Tim, Damian, if we look at your information together directly it should tell us the degree of relation. We can track down more answers from there.”

Both boys nodded, but Damian was clearly beginning to get tired of seeing his own genetic code get processed over and over.

Dick pulled him down from his seat. “Come on Damian, help me restock gear while that runs.”

Standing around watching nothing didn’t seem appealing to the others either. They broke off to do their own activities.

Once everything had been initiated, Bruce set an alert to sound when the results were ready. He stood up and felt at least half his joints pop. Damn, he was getting old.

He rubbed at his throat, which still hurt. That was definitely going to look bad tomorrow. It had probably been long enough to ice again, and the computer alert would work as a good cutoff. 

Slowly, he began his shuffle towards his true home - the medical bay.

—

When the alert had sounded, everyone’s rush back to the computer had been frantic. Now, they were all motionless.

Bruce did his best to process what he was looking at.

Beside him, Tim’s breathing had begun to accelerate.

“Bruce,” Tim choked out, “you need to run-”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Bruce said. His hands flew across the keyboard, not completely thinking about the steps but making it work all the same.

He couldn’t say for sure whether the results popped up instantly or if he lost time standing there. All he knew was that it was exactly the outcome he expected, and also nothing he had ever considered before tonight.

Whispers from Dick and Jason could be heard clearly behind them. “Did you know about this??” “No! Of course I didn’t- how would I!” 

Damian had looked at the screen, looked at Bruce and Tim, and gone to sit back down.

Tim was pale. He began pacing, shaking his hands as if to dispel his own nervous energy.

“Ok, ok,” Tim said. “That’s- yeah. Ok. Ok. Got it.” His path had gotten so tight that he was essentially just spinning in place. “It’s uh. Yeah. But, well. Hmm.”

Behind him, Cass looked torn on whether or not to intercede.

“But, if you’re my biological father, then why-” Tim stopped walking and looked up at him with such a desolate expression that Bruce’s breath caught in his chest. 

Because that was his baby looking at him like that. His sweet, smart, stubborn boy. The child he didn’t ask for and didn’t deserve. The one who saved him more than once and held his family together with an iron grip. 

Because Bruce could already hear all the possible questions his son was about to ask.

Why didn’t you come get me?

Why didn’t you fight for me?

Why didn’t you love me sooner?

Why did you let me go back to them?

Why was I not wanted?

Bruce swallowed, hard, past the lump in his throat. “Tim, sweetheart, I-” 

Tim cut him off with the side of his clenched fist pounding on Bruce’s chest. Not angry, or combative, but the sad and desperate hit of a child in turmoil.

“ Why.” Tim started again, throwing another weak hit with his fist, tears beginning to well up in his eyes and breaking Bruce’s heart with every second. “Why, if you’re my biological father, am I. So. Short!”

The room froze. Bruce blinked.

An incredulous laugh burst out of someone - Jason, he realized - and activity started back up around them. Tim pressed his face into his chest, sniffling, and reflexively Bruce’s arms came up to hold his - his! - son.

“Tim.” Bruce spoke softly, not quite a whisper, trying to impart the sincerity of his words. “You have every right to be upset with me. I swear I didn’t know, but I should have, and I’m sorry.”

Tim pushed him away and sent him a look that screamed ‘You’re so stupid’. It was the second time tonight Bruce had gotten that look. It was going to start to hurt his ego soon.

“Ugh, B, no.” Tim rolled his eyes and dropped into the computer chair. “I know you didn’t know, don’t freak out about that.”

“How could you-”

Dick cut in. “Bruce, you didn’t see your face a minute ago. I was halfway to calling Leslie to come treat you for a stroke.”

“Please do not call Leslie if I have a stroke, we aren’t equipped to handle that here. That sort of problem would require a hospital stay.”

“That’s not the point, Bruce,” Tim said. He kicked off the wall to make the chair spin while he moped. “I don’t understand what kind of rotten luck with genetics happened to me here! You can’t tell me that all of that,” and here he gestured at Damian, waving his hand as if to encompass the whole of him, “came from Talia!”

Damian smirked from his position sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. While he hadn’t caught up to Tim just yet, he was maxing out the height chart for his age and his appetite was threatening another growth spurt soon. Everyone knew he was going to eventually eclipse them all, except possibly Bruce himself.

“Yet another way you are inferior to me, Timothy, and without even the excuse of your parentage holding you back.”

Bruce looked at Damian, considering. He had handled his connection to Duke, sure, but that had been gaining an extra parent, not being forced to share an existing one. This could be a big problem.

“Damian. I understand this must be a shock, but you will not be attacking Tim over this, are we clear?”

His youngest son turned towards him, and, ouch. There was the look again. It was officially hurtful.

“I rather think we are past all of that, Father.” His expression was just like Talia’s, but that sentence? Pure Alfred. God help them all.

Tim snorted. “Yeah, B. He knows he can’t attack me, I’m the person with the power to boot him out of the Titans’ Minecraft server.”

Bruce had no idea what that meant.

“The only person who should be booted out,” Damian snarled, “is your idiot speedster friend.”

“Hey! Be nice to Bart!”

“He rode one of my horses into a chasm!”

“You don’t need that many horses, you brat!”

“I am building a farm, you imbecile!”

As far as Bruce knew, no horses had appeared on his property. If this had something to do with the Kent farm, well, Clark could handle it, right? He was just going to ignore this. It was how he had gotten through Tim’s Young Justice days, after all. Oh. Tim and Damian really were related.

Cass had jumped onto the back of Tim’s chair and was perching like a bird above him. Dick was the only other person with the balance to pull that off, and it had been years since he was small enough not to tip the whole thing over.

“Poor Timmy.” Cass patted his head, but it didn’t seem to mollify Tim at all. “We are both small. Is that so bad?”

“Hmph. Maybe.” Tim pouted, and Cass flicked his head. “Ow! Fine! You’re right!”

She preened, then scratched her nails gently against the spot where she had hit him.

“Maybe you just have a tiny mom, Timmers.” Jason stood next to the chair and leaned over to use Tim’s head like an armrest. Irritated, Cass maintained her balance by shooting her elbow into Jason’s shoulder.

“That’s a good point,” Dick said. He looked at Bruce judgmentally. “Who’d you knock up this time, B?”

All of Bruce’s children were evil.

He sighed. “I’m not sure. No one fitting the timeline ever approached me about a pregnancy. I’ll have to run Tim’s DNA against the possibilities.”

“I mean…” Tim shrugged. “You don’t have to? I was serious about not needing to know. Whoever it was didn’t want to be my parent, and I don’t really need more information than that.”

Knowing Tim would not appreciate any pity regarding that statement, Bruce forced his emotions down and brought more Batman out in his voice.

“You may not care about knowing, Tim, but this also concerns my own personal life. I want to know who kept this from me. I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

Dick shot him a dirty look. Apparently that was, in fact, too much Batman. 

Bruce took a breath and tried again. “But that’s nothing you need to be worried about. I want to know, for my own peace of mind, nothing more. If you don’t want me to tell you what I find out then I won’t. It never needs to come up again.” 

Dick was nodding. Excellent. 

Tim contemplated for a minute before sighing and sliding farther down in the chair. Jason’s arm fell off his head, upsetting the balance again, and Cass jumped on his shoulders in retaliation. The ensuing scuffle took them past Dick, who stuck his foot out to trip them. 

“If you’re going to find out, then I want to know,” Tim said. “It’d just be weird for you to know without me, especially if you decide to go all Batman on them about it.”

Damian snickered at that, the traitor. Forget him attacking Tim, now Bruce was going to have to worry about them ganging up on him.

“Alright. I’ll run the tests.” He looked at the time and winced. “I will run the tests in the morning. Everyone, upstairs. Bed.”

Affronted noises came from his four oldest.

“I have my own apartment-”

“You can’t make me stay here-”

“Babs is expecting me home-”

“Don’t want to share the bathroom-”

Bruce cut them all off. “If you stay for breakfast you’ll get to see me explain to Alfred how I missed another biological child.”

The promise of violence against their father satisfied them. Evil children.

Tim stood up and began the ascent, pulling Damian along. Dick’s face was smushed into the floor of the cave after, apparently, Jason and Cass had at some point teamed up against him. The three of them untangled to follow their siblings.

Nonchalantly, Bruce busied himself with picking up papers around the Batcomputer. Once the study clock had closed and he was alone, he sat and began typing.

The results of Tim’s maternity test were not time sensitive, and could wait until the morning. However, there was no harm in setting it up now and letting it run overnight. The answer would be waiting for them tomorrow.

Also, hopefully this way none of them would see the list of potential mothers he was having to assemble. If the length wasn’t bad enough, some of the names… Bruce winced. If they saw this, his children would never listen to his advice on their relationships again.

—

While dinners in the Wayne household were still held in Martha’s favorite dining room, as was proper, breakfast had migrated to the kitchen years ago. 

It was one of Bruce’s favorite times of the day. Having his loved ones, his family, close by in the heart of the house to share a meal - it just made the entire day better. The exceedingly rare occasion that all his children were present? A gift, truly.

“No way,” Duke said. “You’re messing with me.” He put his fork down incredulously. Apparently breakfast was on pause.

“Nope!” Dick was gleeful while relaying the story. “B did the nasty with a mystery lady and she popped out a Timmy.”

Beside him, Damian groaned. “Richard, must you phrase it that way?”

Duke was trying to look at Tim to get confirmation, but he and Cassandra were both nodding off above their food. He tried instead to check with Damian, who rolled his eyes, and then Jason, who cackled alongside Dick and refused to help.

“Alfred, you would tell me if they were messing with me, right?”

Alfred was distributing food with more force than usual. Bruce winced as a spoonful of eggs slammed into his plate.

“Indeed I would, Master Duke, but they all appear to be telling the truth.”

Duke started shaking, and Bruce nearly lept up in alarm before realizing he was quietly laughing. Great. Not an ounce of compassion to be found.

Jason leaned around the table to get a better angle to look Bruce directly in the eye. “Yeah, no joke, Tim really is Bruce’s kid. Now we know where he gets all his worst qualities.”

Dick and Duke both were laughing again. Tim looked blearily at Jason, knowing that he was somehow being insulted, before giving up. He began attempting valiantly to eat toast in his sleep.

“Well,” Alfred huffed, “I certainly hope he did not in fact inherit all of Master Bruce’s…faults.”

Bruce leaned his arm on the table and propped up his head with a hand on the side of his face. “Alfred, please.”

His butler-father-friend-role model turned an icy gaze on him. “Master Bruce. When you dropped out of medical school, I assumed it was due to a lack of interest. Not because you were so incompetent as to not know how babies are made.”

Damian barely covered his laughter with his napkin and Jason didn’t bother.

Bruce poked at his eggs. “I thought you liked having grandkids.”

“I do,” Alfred said, “I love them all very much. Which brings me to my next point. If you had properly followed up with your partners then we would have had the joy of having at least two of the children in the manor sooner.”

At that, Bruce did actually wince. 

“So, uh,” Duke said, “are we going to find out who the mystery mom is or is that a secret?”

“I will be going to the cave shortly to determine that. Tim is coming with me, if he still wants to. The rest of you will have to ask his permission.”

Four pairs of pleading eyes turned on Tim. He looked up at them, startled. He nudged Cass awake for backup.

“Um, I don’t really care either way?” He shrugged. “Whatever you all want is fine.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Cass. She squinted sleepily at him, then turned to Tim and poked his cheek. He shoved her finger out of his face.

Cass nodded at the rest of them. “He wants us to come for support.”

Excited voices quickly fell silent as each of them tried to inhale their meal. All too quickly they were racing out of the kitchen, leaving only Alfred, Bruce, and a still barely aware Tim.

Bruce finished his food. He put down his fork. He folded his napkin. He rose decisively from his seat. There was no point in delaying this further.

Footsteps heavy, to make sure he was heard, he walked around the table and crouched next to Tim. His son looked at him, face blank, but Bruce knew him well enough to see the anxiety behind the mask.

“Tim. I promise. Everything is going to be alright. I’ll make sure of it. ”

Tim rolled his eyes at him, but they lost a bit of their fear. “Bruce, you don’t even know what you’re promising here.”

“Maybe not,” Bruce smiled, “but I’m doing it anyway.”

Tim scoffed, but smiled back. Congratulating himself on successfully reassuring at least one child, Bruce stood back up and straightened to his full height.

“There is, however, one more thing I need to tell you.”

For half a second he felt bad about the tension that statement brought back to Tim. 

“You see, I did more research, and I was able to find the answer to your question.” He looked at Tim solemnly. “I know why you’re short.”

Tim’s forehead scrunched. “Wait, what?”

“I put forth my best scientific inquiries and was able to determine that you are short for one very important reason: so that I can do this.” 

Without warning, he pulled Tim fully out of his seat and propped him on his hip like a child, ignoring the indignant squawks coming from his adult son.

Truthfully, it was awkward. Despite his worries, Tim was a perfectly average height, and weighed down with densely packed muscle. Being in a family of giants may make him look small, but this was still a grown man Bruce was holding.

Still, he wasn’t going to let go. Tim gave up trying to escape and laid his head on Bruce’s shoulder in resignation. 

“Alfred,” Bruce said, turning to the man in question, “are you coming with us?”

Alfred shook his head and began gathering up the plates from the table. “No, Master Bruce, someone needs to clean up here. Besides, I would like to be able to go on pretending you still qualify for priesthood.”

Tim laughed into his poor father’s shirt. Just for that, Bruce was going to carry him the whole way down.

—

Bruce stared at the result on the screen. Hmm. Honestly, it could have been worse.

Cass was dancing in a circle around Tim, chanting ‘brother’ over and over and knocking her hands together in the corresponding sign. 

Duke and Damian looked at Bruce in surprise. Dick just looked at him in disappointment.

Jason had his fingers up in the shape of a rectangle, holding them out in front of him and swapping between framing Cass and Tim, as if cataloging the similarities in their appearance. 

As for Tim himself, he was back in the desk chair, having claimed it the moment they got downstairs. His hands were steepled in front of his chin and he had his thinking face on. Whatever his opinion on the matter, they were going to have to wait to hear it.

“So. Bruce.” Dick’s arms were folded across his chest and he was staring disdainfully. Where had Dick learned such a mean look? Certainly not from Bruce. “I’m beginning to see a pattern. Seems like villainous women who can kick your ass really do it for you, huh?”

Damian looked like he wanted to refute that statement but couldn’t. Duke looked like he was enjoying this.

Once again regretting waking up this morning, Bruce sighed. “Two data points don’t make a pattern, Dick.”

“Yeah, sure, ok. I’ll just wait and re-evaluate when Selina rocks up to the house with a kid.”

“Not going to happen.” Bruce glared sullenly at Dick. He was 90% certain that there had never been an opportunity for Selina to be pregnant without his knowledge. 75% certain. 60%. He was going to call her later.

“Do you think she knew?”

All heads whipped around to look at Tim.

“What do you mean, Tim?” Dick asked.

“When she trained me, do you think she knew who I was?” Tim was unfolding his hands now and gesturing emphatically. “I mean, it was an accident that we met, right? Except what if it wasn’t, and she knew who I was and had been keeping tabs on me. It would make more sense than her deciding to train some random kid.”

Sound logic. Bruce wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse about the debacle that was Tim’s European training trip.

“It would also explain why she was so disappointed that I refused to kill,” Tim said softly.

Cass tilted her head in thought for a moment, then nodded. “She wanted someone who would kill, and be strong. Strong enough to kill her. She needed one of us to fulfill her death wish.”

Jason snorted. “Death wish, huh? Guess it makes sense with what a self-sacrificial idiot Tim is. Lucky you avoided that shit, yeah Cassie?”

Cass very carefully avoided looking at Bruce. In turn, he politely pretended he wasn’t remembering all the times at the beginning of her Batgirl career where he had lectured her on the value of her own life.

“It’s pretty funny, actually,” Jason continued, “that Shiva ended up as your bio mom, Timmers. When I learned she had been involved with Willis, I put her on the short list for being my own mom, but I guess I was just one Robin off.”

Tim’s head snapped up to stare at Jason. Cass took a moment to study Tim, then tensed. She turned and stared at Jason too.

Tim held his fingers up, copying the framing gesture Jason had been doing earlier. He flipped between Jason and Cass quickly, then froze.

“Cass. Get his blood.”

Cass lept into action and tackled Jason to the floor.

“Hey, whoa, what do you mean get his blood what are you- Ow! Cass! The fuck!”

—

The Batcomputer’s DNA analysis programs were getting a workout. This was the second time in as many days it was confirming two individuals’ shared paternal genetics.

Cass had resumed her ‘brother’ chant, but this time was swinging off of Jason’s arm. He looked annoyed, but made no move to dislodge her.

Tim had migrated to sit on the steps with Damian, and the two were cheerily chatting. Tim seemed relieved to have the spotlight off of him. Damian seemed to just be happy that this time it wasn’t his own father being outed as an irresponsible deadbeat.

Somehow, Dick was still looking at Bruce with judgement. “B, seriously? You never actually checked if Cass was related to David Cain?”

“No, Dick, I did not. Contrary to what you may believe, I am not so paranoid as to DNA sequence every single person I come into contact with.”

Everyone looked at him in disbelief. Rude.

“Maybe you should!” Duke laughed. “Seems like it would’ve been a good idea.”

It would also be an extreme invasion of privacy. More importantly, the Batcomputer couldn’t handle the strain.

Jason twisted his mouth unpleasantly. “Damn. Sorry you got such a shitty sperm donor, Cass.”

“No, I’m not upset.” She stopped climbing on him and put both feet back on the ground. “He is not Cain.”

“Yeah, ok, but he still sucked.”

Cass narrowed her eyes and poked Jason pointedly in the chest. “Not. Cain.”

Jason’s jaw clenched. He pushed aside the collar of his shirt. “Cigarette burns.”

Cass pulled up her pants leg. “Exit wounds.”

“Cassandra. Jason.” Bruce hung his head in his hands. “Please stop competing over who was more abused as a child.”

They stopped, but neither looked happy about it. Was he imagining that the frowns on their faces and the furrows of their brows were identical? Hard to say.

“Whelp!” Dick stretched his arms above his head, then bent into a back stretch that looked painful to anyone with bones. “This has been fun and weird, but I need to be heading out. Anyone object to me catching Babs up on all this?”

Shrugs, indifferent hand-waves, and ‘nah’s answered him.

“Great! See you all for patrol.” He headed back upstairs, presumably to collect his belongings and leave from a civilian exit.

Duke looked at his phone. “Oh, crap. Dami, we gotta go! I can’t take another tardy in chem!”

“Wait, what do you mean? Another?” Bruce asked, concerned.

“Sorry B, no time to talk!” Duke and Damian raced up the stairs just a bit too quickly.

Tim didn’t bother with waiting until they were gone, and blatantly laughed at his younger brothers’ panic. He stood, and did a much more subdued version of Dick’s stretches.

“Well, I’m going back to bed. B, is it cool if I come and work in your study later?”

Bruce nodded his assent. Tim shot him two thumbs up and left.

All at once, Jason and Cass were the last of his children still remaining in the cave. They seemed to have left their earlier argument behind and quietly watched everyone else’s departures.

Bruce shifted awkwardly. This also required a conversation, didn’t it? Almost certainly. 

“Ahmph.” He cleared his throat. “Cass, can I speak with you for a moment?”

Cass’ sunny smile settled something inside him. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t find the right words for her, Cass would appreciate his intent more than anything.

Jason straightened and clapped his hands together loudly. “Ok! You two have fun with that. I’m just gonna…” He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and strode off in the direction of the parking area of the cave.

When he was out of sight, Cass glided to Bruce and wrapped around him in a firm hug. He returned it gratefully.

After a few moments, Cass pulled away from the embrace. She retrieved the Batcomputer chair where it had been abandoned, and pushed it towards Bruce. He settled in the seat and Cass lifted herself onto the desk in front of him.

“Cassandra.” Bruce looked at his daughter. “I wanted to ask how you were feeling about this.”

She beamed. “Two of my brothers are even more my brothers. I am very happy.”

Good, wonderful, that was excellent. Bruce hadn’t really doubted it, with the way she was celebrating Tim and Jason earlier, but it was always good to verify.

“I’m very glad, darling. I think they’re happy about it too.”

Cass nodded, but rocked her hand in a so-so gesture. “They are happy with me, but still thinking about Shiva and Willis. It has been a lot to learn.”

“That’s true, it has. It’s a lot for you, too. I know you told Jason you were that happy Cain isn’t your biological father, but, well…” He trailed off, unsure how to phrase his question. 

Cass had always had a difficult relationship with the man who raised her. Everything about the person she had been when she arrived in Gotham was due to his influence, something she treasured and resented in equal measure.

“Cain loved me.” She said this with certainty. “He loved me like a tool, like a weapon. Not like a girl, not like a child. But he did still love me.” 

Brow furrowed, she gazed down at her hands, opening and closing them into fists. “He made me who I am. I loved him for that. But he should have loved me better.”

Bruce sat silently. This was Cass’ time to talk now, and she needed him to let her have the stage.

“Family is not only blood.” She raised her head and gave him a smile. “We are not related, but you are my father. I am your daughter. David Cain was not related to me, but he was my father. I was not his daughter. I was his project.”

“Cain was a murderer. He killed many people, and had no guilt. I thought…” She shifted, uncomfortable. “If their blood was on his hands, it must be on mine too. Blood from their veins, to his, to mine.”

Sins of the father. Bruce struggled not to interrupt with his own opinion on the concept.

Cass’ hands clenched and she looked straight at him with a determined tilt to her jaw. “His blood is not in my veins. He was my teacher, but I left. Never responsible for his choices.”

Bruce wanted to say that that had always been true, that those deaths had never been on her head. He would need to message Barbara later; she would want to know the weight her protege had been carrying.

Cass released her hands and spread them out in front of her. “So, I am happy. I am happy to let him go. No more connections left between us.” She let her body relax where she was seated. Truly, she did look…lighter, somehow.

Patiently, Bruce waited for a moment to see if she would go on unprompted, but she seemed to have said her piece.

“What are your thoughts regarding your biological father?”

“Hmm.” Cass picked at a nail. “Not much. Will never know him. Jason speaks of him with anger, but there is love too. Maybe Willis would have been better than Cain. But I loved Cain, maybe like Jason loved Willis. So maybe it would have been the same.”

She shrugged. “Jason will tell me about him, or he won’t. It will not change who I am.”

“That is very pragmatic, Cass,” Bruce chuckled.

She smiled at his laughter and swung her legs back and forth. It was a childish motion, lighthearted and free.

“Do you have plans for the day?” 

She nodded. “Meeting Steph at the mall. We are going to eat bad food. Do not tell Alfred.”

“Of course. Not a word.”

Cass hopped off the desk. One last parting hug and then she was gone, silently slipping back into the manor.

—

Bruce cracked his fingers and settled in to update several of his childrens’ files. It wasn’t really pressing, but the longer he stayed in the cave, the longer he could put off replying to his upstairs emails.

Should he have made his Brucie Wayne persona even stupider? Would that get him out of any actual work for his company? More likely, he would have been forcibly ousted years ago. Pity.

He blamed the excitement of the past day for not noticing the footsteps approaching him. When he finally spotted the figure in his periphery, he had to actively tamp down any sign of his surprise.

“Jason?” Bruce blinked. “I thought you left.”

Jason scowled. “Yeah, well, you never actually said I had to leave, did you? It’s your own fault for assuming shit.”

It was only years of practice that let Bruce hold in a retort. Jason was trying to start a fight, which meant he was uncomfortable. 

Did he need to discuss Cass’ parentage with Jason, too? Well, he had attempted to discuss Tim’s with Damian, so if he was treating the situations fairly, he should, right? But also that decision earlier got him The Look. How was he supposed to know when to talk and when to not?

“Jason.” Good, strong start. “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

Jason scoffed and kicked his heel against a step, but didn’t say anything.

“Cass was fairly effusive about her opinion on your newfound relationship, but I didn’t get a chance to see how you were feeling.” That was fine, right? Not singling Jason out, not demanding an answer, just a statement of fact.

“Me? I’m fine with it, it’s whatever.” 

Bruce waited. For Cass, he had to be silent to give her time, because words were difficult. For Jason, he had to be silent because words were all too easy. 

Any comment from Bruce, any perceived slight to latch onto, and Jason would be deflecting so thoroughly that Bruce wouldn’t remember the original topic of conversation for days.

Jason shuffled some more. “Seriously, it’s cool. Cassie’s great. Still think it sucks that she got stuck with Willis, but, whatever. I wouldn’t want Cain either, so.” He shrugged.

Should he agree? Should he not? Bruce was well aware that he had gotten lucky with two loving, attentive parents. Could he offer any opinion that didn’t make him look painfully out of touch?

Not worth the risk. Maintain silence. Deploy thoughtful but open facial expressions.

With no interruptions from Bruce coming his way, Jason eventually continued. “This whole situation has just got me thinking. About, like, bio parents and stuff. Remember when I went to find Sheila? That was wild, right?”

Bruce’s eye twitched. There was no safe response to that.

“Anyways.” Jason turned his face to the ceiling. “I was just wondering, because we never actually checked, right? Like, she fit the criteria and said she was my mom, but we didn’t do any tests.”

This was not where Bruce had expected the conversation to go. “That’s true, we didn’t. Those events happened...quickly. The technology surrounding DNA testing was much slower than what we have today.”

“Yeah, yeah, true.” Jason breathed deeply. “So could we do it now?”

Bruce considered. Would he? Certainly. He had no right to refuse his son those answers. Could he?

“Well,” he said, carefully, “it isn’t necessarily impossible. Sheila’s DNA may or may not be in any database, but it’s likely at least some distant relatives’ could be found.”

Jason nodded. “Right. Ok. And that would give us an answer?”

“With some degree of certainty, yes. The program would give us an exact statistical measurement.”

“Ok.” Jason looked determined. “Do it. Please.”

How often did Jason say please? Not like this, not for important things. This wasn’t something Bruce could fail at.

“I’ll get started right now.” True to his word, Bruce began diving into research. “It won’t be fast. There‘s a lot of data to sort through, and the analysis will be slower.”

“Mmm.” Jason hummed his agreement but made no move to leave.

Bruce was eternally grateful that his and Jason’s relationship had gotten to the point where they could share comfortable silences again. It wasn’t unusual anymore for the two of them to end up simply existing in each others’ space without any ulterior motives. Those moments were precious, and Bruce treasured each one.

This, however, was not one of those.

Going as far back as when they had first met, Jason didn’t like to linger after emotional conversations. He would stick through it to the end, sure, but as soon as they were done he would retreat and regroup in private. 

Bruce slowed his typing and considered his next words. What might still be bothering his son that he needed to address?

“You know,” Bruce said, “Willis’ DNA would probably be fairly simple to find. Blackgate has gathered that information on their inmates’ for years. We could run that test as well, if you’d like.”

Again, Jason shrugged. “Yeah, sure, while you’re at it. For Cass’ sake at least. It’d be cool if we could find her a better bio dad.”

Right, for Cass, of course. 

“I’ll add it to the list.”

Still, the thread of unease didn’t dissipate, and Jason didn’t leave.

Bruce tried once more. “Jason. If it would be alright for me to ask. What are you hoping the results will be?”

Like a switch had been flipped from calm to furious, Jason snarled. “No, it would not be alright for you to ask!” He kicked the wall and walked away in a huff. About twenty feet away, he paced heavily in a circle for a few minutes, stomped his boots angrily against the floor, then came back.

Finally, he dropped his tension and sagged against the desk. “I don’t know, ok?”

Once again, Bruce found himself holding his tongue.

“It’s just-” Jason stuttered. “It’s just, well, ok. Willis? I don’t care, really. Doesn’t matter. Not worried about that.”

Bruce nodded. He thought it very much did matter, but that was not the most important thing to point out.

“Sheila, though,” Jason continued, “That- she- it matters, maybe. Like, if she wasn’t actually my mom, that’d be great. Because then it would mean that the woman who birthed me didn’t sell me out to die.” 

He furrowed his brow. “But. It would also mean that I chased after her for nothing. That there was no reason for me to be there. That I died, and it wasn’t because I trusted my mother, but because I just fucked up.”

Bruce was struggling. Jason’s death was never going to be something he could easily talk about. From everything he had read on the subject, a child’s death was something no parent recovered from quickly. 

However, there was no information out there about what to do when said child miraculously came back and, suddenly, you were no longer the primary martyr of the worst day of your life.

“Jaylad,” he stated, as calmly as he could, “there is no circumstance in which what happened to you could have been your fault. The actions of others, regardless of their relation to you, is not your responsibility.”

Hadn’t he just had this conversation with Cass? Was this something the two of them shared because of Willis, or did the failure lie with him?

Jason’s eyes were closed and his breathing had become very purposeful. A moment passed, then another.

Eventually, he let out a large breath and rolled his head around his shoulders, cracking his neck. “Right, well, I’ve been stuck down here too long. Gotta go talk to a guy about a thing.”

There it was - the retreat. He’d be gone any second now.

“Jay, lad, thank you for talking to me about your worries, I appreciate-”

“Nope, no, stop, don’t do that.” Jason cut him off and began power-walking to the exit. “Lemme know when you get the results old man, later!”

Bruce resolutely did not laugh at his son’s predictable behaviour. At the very least, he could hold it together until Jason was gone.

He pulled up the video feed for the cave entrance and watched as, this time, Jason actually left. Now, Bruce was alone.

Chuckling, he returned to the research he had just promised to complete. The faster it was finished, the sooner he could alleviate at least some of the anxiety Jason was feeling.

If it further delayed him responding to those damn emails, well, no one could fault him for being a good father.

—

It was hours later - and yet still too soon - when he emerged into the manor once more. 

Noon had passed without a visit from Alfred determined to drag him to lunch. Either Bruce was in his very good graces, or he was still upset about Tim.

There was no wrapped plate left for him in the fridge. Still upset about Tim it was, then.

Sighing, Bruce began making himself a sandwich. He made extra sure to be as neat as possible, and double checked he hadn’t missed any crumbs when he cleaned after himself.

Alfred came into the kitchen when Bruce was mostly finished eating. He looked at the counter suspiciously, but didn’t seem to find anything to fault. Small mercies.

Silently, Alfred sat at the table across from Bruce. There were few who could best the Dark Knight in a battle of wills, but unfortunately this was one of them.

“Alfred,” Bruce began, “How much have you been told?”

Alfred began counting off on his fingers. “Master Duke’s parentage is as we knew it to be, Master Damian has acquired an extra parent to share with him, Master Tim was never related to either of the Drakes but instead is a result of your and Lady Shiva’s youthful misadventures, and Miss Cassandra was not in fact sired by that dreadful Cain man but is instead the paternal sibling of our own Master Jason.” 

He raised his eyebrow. “Is that everything, Master Bruce?”

“Yes, Alfred, I believe it is.” Bruce rubbed his face. Said in quick succession like that only drove home what an exhausting roller coaster of discovery the past day had been.

Alfred, once again, sat silently. Ah, right. He was upset. Bruce was going to have to, yet again, have a difficult conversation.

“I- I realize.” Bruce started, then stopped. What exactly was he even apologizing for this time? “I realize that my actions were irresponsible.”

Alfred, still, sat silently.

“I should have exercised more care and caution. Additionally, as you said, I should have checked in on my past partners more than I did,” Bruce said.

Yet, still, Alfred sat silently.

Bruce gulped. “And- and, I should have looked into the childrens’ families more thoroughly? It was an oversight which, with hindsight, was honestly just unacceptable and-”

Alfred began laughing. Bruce’s heart stopped, then started up again, determinedly pushing a flush across his face.

“Alfred,” Bruce whined, “Don’t tell me you weren’t actually angry! Am I a joke to you?”

Chuckling still, Alfred dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. “I apologize, my dear boy, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s not only the children who enjoy pulling your leg from time to time.”

Beset on all sides. No reprieve from any quarter. Truly, Bruce was alone in this world.

“Still,” Alfred sighed, “I do wish we had known these things earlier. I do not blame you, Master Bruce. This is simply one of those regrets we must live with.”

The sound of the front door opening and closing echoed down the hall, followed by the sound of two sets of sneakers against marble.

Alfred rose with a smile. “It seems Masters Duke and Damian have returned home. Shall you be joining them for their after-school snack?”

Bruce recognized forgiveness. He accepted the invitation happily.

—

By the time everyone had returned to the cave again, Jason’s tests had finished.

While the others suited up, Bruce waited by the computer. It was not long before Jason approached.

“So, uh,” Jason scratched the back of his head, “any news?”

Bruce nodded. “I have the results. Both of them.”

Jason said nothing.

“Would you like to see them?” Bruce offered, neutrally. 

Sighing, Jason affirmed. “Yeah, yeah, just show me.”

Bruce opened the test results to display on the monitor. For a long moment, Jason said nothing.

Finally, he shrugged. “Whelp. What I expected, I guess.” He trailed a finger down the lines of the report. “So, we got a pretty high accuracy on Sheila?”

“I found a maternal aunt,” Bruce confirmed.

“Mitochondria and shit, yeah?” Jason said. There was no doubt in Bruce’s mind that Jason could easily explain the entire mechanical and chemical process of mtDNA inheritance, but why bother when ‘and shit’ summed it up quite nicely? 

“Hn,” he grunted, not sure what else could be said.

“So,” Jason said, crossing his arms, “You don’t seem surprised. With everyone else getting wild revelations about their families, you didn’t think I would?”

Bruce gave a tight nod. “This was what I was expecting. There was no reason to believe the original investigation into your biological mother was flawed.”

“That confident, huh?” Jason scowled.

“It was your case, Jason. Of course it was solved correctly.”

What he said was just the truth; it wasn’t until Jason froze and stared at him that Bruce realized the positive implications of his statement. Should he…keep going? Was this a good opportunity to praise Jason? Would he find it disingenuous when it wasn’t said accidentally?

Thankfully, he was saved by one of his children yet again. Cass, halfway dressed in her uniform, chose that moment to walk over. She slipped under Jason’s arm and peered at the screen.

“Definitely Willis?” She directed her question at Jason.

He nodded. “Yep. Congrats, kid, you’re a Gotham girl.”

Cass shoved Jason with her hip. “Older than you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jason said, shoving her back, “but I’m taller.”

She glared at him for just a second. Then she ran towards the wall, kicking off and flipping overhead. She landed triumphantly on top of the server rack.

Bruce sighed, and prayed she didn’t knock anything over.

“I’m taller now,” Cass crowed, “Sorry, tiny brother.”

Jason snarled. “You little- I’m getting my grapple, stay right there!” He ran off to, presumably, do just that.

Bruce looked up at Cass. She laughed from her position above him, then winked. Bruce relaxed. 

“Would you please move your distraction somewhere less valuable, darling?” Bruce asked.

Cassandra sighed, put upon. Still, she lept from the servers to a shallow stone shelf on the cave wall, then began jumping further away. A few minutes later, Bruce could hear the shouts as Jason took up the chase.

—

It was with a light heart that Bruce reached the lower level of the cave. A light heart and heavy bones. And a sore throat, still. He walked to stand next to the literal pain in his neck, Dick.

Bruce clapped a hand on Dick’s shoulder, and his son leaned into the touch. He hoped that Dick would understand the love behind it, because Bruce was completely out of words for the next week or so.

Finally, everyone had put on their suit (or pajamas, in Duke’s case) and had gathered to receive the updated patrol notes. Bruce passed the proverbial baton on to Tim, and thanked the universe for small mercies when his son only glared at him a little bit for the inconvenience.

A mundane brief promised a mundane patrol. Probably. Well, it was Gotham, so really nothing could ever be taken for granted. Either way, before things could be wrapped up, Cassandra raised her hand.

“Yeah, Cass?” Tim asked.

“Dick didn’t get a turn,” Cass said, pointing.

Said individual startled out of what he would definitely call a ‘meditative state’ and not ‘dozing off I promise Timmy I’m paying attention’. It was very similar to the state he often entered when he was paying attention to Bruce. 

“Uh, my turn?” Dick looked confused. To be fair, everyone else did too.

“For the DNA testing,” Cass said. She turned to Bruce. “Dad, Dick didn’t get a turn.”

That…was true? Oh no. Bruce had messed up again. Of course he couldn’t leave one child out of an opportunity the rest of his siblings got! This was why Dick was always so angry with him.

“Uh, Cass, no.” Dick said. “I don’t want a turn.”

Apparently this was not why Dick was always angry with him. Bruce would have to keep investigating.

Like the sharks they were, the rest of the group sensed blood in the water.

“Why not, Richard?” Damian asked.

“Worried about some scandals coming to light? Think your mom may’ve gotten a little extra attention from a fan?” Jason waggled his eyebrows. Cass kicked the back of his knee.

“No,” Dick rolled his eyes, “Nothing would be ‘coming to light’.”

Duke narrowed his expression. “That- that wasn’t really the denial I was expecting.”

The others began rethinking what Dick had said and seemed to be reaching a similar conclusion. Shortly, every younger bat was staring intensely at their oldest brother.

Bruce kept silent and did not change his position. If he was very careful, those piercing little eyes would stay on target and not involve him.

Dick sighed, then averted his gaze. “I already know one of my parents wasn’t biologically mine.”

This was clearly news to everyone; Bruce could at least feel better that this time he wasn’t alone in being in the dark.

“You think your mom actually was stepping out on your dad?” Jason asked, surprised despite his earlier teasing. Cass kicked him again.

“No! No, uh, my Papi was definitely my father. No cheating or anything, just, that’s not, uh…” Dick trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished.

Duke picked up the thread. “Ok. Your dad was your bio dad, but your mom wasn’t?”

Dick nodded, but didn’t elaborate. He seemed unsure how to handle this conversation. Bruce did not feel any vindication about that, really. You would never get him to admit anything.

“Was it anything like with my mom, like a lifestyle issue? Pregnant trapeze sounds....bad.” Tim screwed his face up, undoubtedly imagining just such a thing.

Dick shook his head. “No, not that. They tried, but Mami couldn’t have kids. I know they were looking into adoption at one point, but then they didn’t need to anymore. Pop Haly got them money so they could use a surrogate.” 

He frowned. “It was a big gift, and I still don’t really understand why he’d bother.”

Bruce did. The Court of Owls would have wanted to ensure the continuation of the Grayson line.

He knew better than to bring it up with Dick. There were too many questions, too many answers that no one alive could give him. Things like, how much did John and Mary know about the fate the Court had planned for their son? How much did anyone at the circus know? Were they all in the dark? Did they have any idea? And, worst of all, did they support it?

If Dick ever asked, Bruce would discuss all of it with him. Until then, best to not dwell.

Did Dick think about it every time he felt the empty space in his mouth where that poison tooth had sat?

“Alright,” Duke said, “so, the surrogate was your birth mom. Do you know who it was?”

“No, I don’t,” Dick said. “Sometimes they talked about her. Not much, just little things, like, how I was gonna be so smart, because my birth mom was a med student.”

Tim seemed to put something together. His face froze, but his eyes flicked back and forth between Dick and Jason. For a moment he opened his mouth as if to say something, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he grabbed Duke’s arm and pulled them both away from their older brothers.

Of course, Tim wasn’t the only detective present. Jason inhaled sharply. “You, uh, said she was a med student?” He swallowed. “Maybe one who needed extra cash?”

Some very important facts about Sheila Haywood suddenly stuck out in Bruce’s mind. He turned to his eldest son. “Chum?” 

The cave was silent. Or, well, it would be, if it wasn’t filled with millions of dollars of whirring hardware and several hundred live bats.

“Everyone’s always commented on how similar Jason and I look,” Dick said. His face was pale.

—

At this point, the group migration to the Batcomputer was dreadfully familiar. Investigating their own was turning out to not be as fun as investigating rogues. Hopefully one of them would break out of Arkham soon and put an end to all this.

Keeping his expression as neutral as he could, Bruce began running another test. That maternal aunt was coming in handy.

This time, no one left as the computer did its work. Even Duke, who really should be in bed, made no indication that he was going to leave. Bruce didn’t have it in him to scold.

Finally, the program dinged. Bruce’s two oldest sons knocked him aside in their race to look at the screen.

Dick dropped his face into his arms and laid, whining, across the desk. His response clearly told the rest of the room what the results were.

“Wow, Sheila actually made a habit of selling her kids, huh?” Jason snickered, then glowered. “What the hell, Dickface? Isn’t there a single goddamn thing I can do that you didn’t get to first?”

Lifting his head, Dick turned a wicked eye on his brother. His smile was sharp and still a bit despairing when he said, “Sure there is, Jay. You made it to the grave before any of us.”

With an outraged roar, Jason tackled him to the floor and the two began trying their best to murder each other. In a nice, brotherly way.

Cass was clearly considering jumping into the fray, but whether it was to join in or break it up they had no way of knowing. Duke laid a hand on her arm and shook his head. 

Bruce had been a father for a long time. He knew that, sometimes, siblings needed to work things out on their own. Also, his throat still hurt, and he didn’t want to get punched again.

Doing his best to ignore the bloodshed, Bruce began to, hopefully, put in the last bio parent update to the Batcomputer’s files. Tim and Damian came to stand behind him.

“Did you know of their shared heritage when you adopted Jason, Father?” Damian asked.

“No, of course not,” Bruce sighed. Why did everyone keep expecting him to know these things?

Tim snickered. “Geez, B. You were missing your first kid so much that you hunted down his actual brother. Are you a bat or a bloodhound?”

“That’s not how bloodhounds work, Tim.” Bruce said.

“Tt. Avoiding the question, Father.” Damian was smirking. “You are not actually a bat, either, but we all allow you your fantasies.”

Bruce wished he was a bat. Creepy little things with their teeth and rabies. It would be a cursed existence but it would be better than this.

The friendly brotherly argument was beginning to get dangerously close to one of the many cave drop offs. Bruce sighed. “Stop harassing me and go save Jason.”

“Hey!” Jason’s head popped up out of the scuffle. “What the hell do you mean save-” An ankle around his throat threw Jason to the ground.

Bruce’s head hurt. Bruce’s throat hurt. Bruce’s back hurt. His back had been hurting for years but it was still relevant.

“I’m staying in tonight.”

All of Bruce’s children were suddenly solely focused on him. Well, at least it stopped the fighting.

“You’re what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is Alfred making you?”

“Are you hurt?”

“What I am,” Bruce forced out between gritted teeth, “Is tired .”

Everyone still looked skeptical. Bruce tried to force his shoulders down and the tension out of his voice. “Go. Protect the city. Don’t kill each other.”

Thankfully, they all began to do just that. One son headed safe to bed, and the rest of his children out into the night to punch criminals in the face.

If he wasn’t going to fix that particular failure as a father, he could at least follow through with what he had learned today and have one last discussion.

Bruce caught Dick by the shoulder. “Chum. I’d like to speak with you before you-” He was cut off by Dick’s hand over his mouth.

“No.” Dick looked pained. “Please no. You are officially excused from that conversation.”

Words could never express how much Bruce loved this boy. His first child and oldest partner. Love swelled up in his heart.

Dick shoved him. “You’re getting sappy! I can see it in your eyes! Ugh!” 

Holding his hands up, Bruce backed away placatingly. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Dick glared at it.

“Stop that,” he hissed, “Go brood or something. I have to go take care of your kids and your city.”

‘And me’, Bruce didn’t say. An exchange of nods, and Dick was off. Hopefully to intercept Damian where the literal child was trying to get behind the wheel of the Batmobile.

Tires squealed as a small army of vigilantes sped out of the cave. On bikes.

—

Bruce stared at the computer and the one person’s genetic code that was still open. The only one that hadn’t been checked for wayward parents.

Part of him couldn’t help but wonder. 

There had never been a moment of his life that Bruce had doubted who his mother and father were. He had always been told he was the perfect mix of them both, and any parts of them he didn’t see in himself he instead saw in Damian, and, now that he knew what to look for, in Tim.

Right?

One minute stretched into five, then ten, as he contemplated the screen in front of him. The cursor hovered over his selection, and he took a deep breath. Then, he closed the file. 

Even the World’s Best Detective knew that not all mysteries needed to be solved.