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Febuwhump 2023 | Day #25 | Assumed Dead
It's the strong chin that he notices first. The chin of his father and grandfather. The chin is a matching set for his own and Bruce smiles at the cheekbones that would cut their way through those chubby cheeks one day.
The boy's mouth is sagging open, sides squeezed together and Bruce can see him suckling for supper, blowing bubbles and huffing and puffing about cleaning his room.
Tiny, wrinkled hands clasp together between that mouth and chin and Bruce wonders what his bedtime prayers would be. What toys he would beg for. The lover he'd propose to.
There is a crinkle about his child's eye. It reminds Bruce of the way Talia looks when she is concentrating. He wonders what the boy was thinking, all those months inside her.
The crease in his forehead remains and Bruce is waiting for the too small fingers to flex, for the mouth to cry or close, taking the chin with it. But they don't and Bruce stares at the boy's fixed, flushed face and still chest, the color of diaper rashes and sunburn and embarrassment and acne and -
"Let me."
Bruce blinks.
His other son is there in front of him.
No, not other.
Only.
Jason is dead.
And the child in his arms, isn't his.
Never was.
The child Bruce saw - sees - when he stares down at the baby boy was never born.
Never was even given a chance to live.
Just as Jason will never get a chance to grow up.
Bruce stares at Dick.
Is he next?
Robin takes the stillborn baby from Batman's hands. Empty hands now flexing, fingers folding in on themselves for something, anything to hold onto.
Wait, that wasn't right.
Nightwing. Not Robin.
Because Robin is dead.
His son is dead.
His sons are dead.
"I'm so sorry," Nightwing is saying to man.
The widow.
The almost-father.
Because mobsters don't care about mothers when they're firing on each other in the street.
Because the paramedics haven't even arrived yet but stress-induced premature labor from a gunshot wound doesn't wait for EMTs.
Because Nightwing had been focused on the chest wound, and Batman had been delivering the baby.
Because neither of them saved their victims.
"Do you want to hold him?"
Jason had felt so very light in Bruce's arms. Maybe it was because of all the blood that had poured out of him.
Nightwing keeps talking to the mourning man.
He's not talking to Bruce. Hasn't been for awhile. They're only here together tonight out of happenstance.
Afterward, Dick will leave, again.
Is he next?
Or has Bruce already lost him?
The almost-father's face is hollow. Is that what Bruce looks like? Looked like?
All those months, probably picking out names and painting a nursery and getting used to the idea of becoming a dad. And he didn't even get to start. Didn't get to finally become the word he had been dreading since that first test strip.
Does Bruce get to use that word anymore? That title?
He's been so many things for so long now.
Vigilante, playboy, billionaire, CEO, orphan, hero, villain, son, leader - father.
But, does that fit, anymore?
It feels like it's sort of slotting out of place. Slipping out of his grasp and there's still nothing there to hold onto.
He clenches his fingers again.
Did he ever deserve the word to begin with?
More voices, lights, strangers leading almost-father away. Covering the woman. Carrying her off.
Bruce should leave.
But his hands are empty and there's nothing to hold onto and if he tries to move he might never stop drifting off.
He flexes his fingers.
And then again.
There's - resistance.
Something.
Something - there.
Bruce glances down at his hands, and other hands in his. They're tight and warm and bringing Bruce back down.
When did he float away?
Bruce lifts his gaze.
His son is there in front of him - again.
His son.
His son.
His -
"Son."
The hands squeeze.
And Bruce, holds on.