As a bonus for folks who visit the site or join the Batfamily Discord my coauthor and I have started, here’s a sneak peek of a one-shot I plan to release in upcoming months. It’s mostly lighthearted fluff and humor, but it also has some more serious vibes here and there.
Consciousness reached his lungs a little before his eyes, the inhalation of something rich and sweet and heady pulling him from a loud and murky gray of smog to a clean and quiet black. It didn’t take him long to orient himself, though his brain was still taking a little longer than he would’ve liked. Last he remembered was a faint vision of Gotham’s skyline, himself contemplating it and presences nearby but invisible, already hovering just beyond the edges of his vision. He couldn’t see them, but they didn’t feel dangerous. More than that, they felt right.
It was rare for his dreams to be that…peaceful, honestly.
And it felt like only minutes ago that he had stumbled over to his bed and collapsed onto the firm mattress, almost feeling too tired to bother fussing with the sheets or comforter.
His aching joints seemed to agree with this assessment as he slowly sat up, but the time blaring from his phone when he touched it told him it was well into the morning already, well past time for the average person to head to work or school. He had never known much about being average, truth be told. But he knew enough to know that 3 a.m. was not a standard bedtime.
Damian’s arrival had forced him to properly consider such things again for the first time in years. And Bruce was grateful enough for it to cry. He’d honestly dropped the ball with Tim, allowing him to manage things far too long on his own, his own grief narrowing his vision and preventing him from checking up on the boy as he should’ve.
It took longer than it should’ve for him to realize that he was the third parent to let the boy down.
But with Damian, he’d been determined to get it right—and frankly Dick wouldn’t have tolerated anything less from him—and Bruce had been strict about ensuring the boy got enough sleep and could get home from patrol early enough to make it to school on time.
Tim—well, school was a moot point now, but Bruce was trying to help him with the caffeine habit, at least. Not that he was exactly one to talk.
A yelp downstairs, followed by a suspicious stretch of utter silence, pulled him from his daily ritual of self-flagellation. Bruce snorted to himself, knowing he would be testing the patience of Alfred and Jason alike if they saw him like this, sitting in the dark while the day passed him by. While his children went on without him. It was the latter thought that raised him to his feet and forced his not-old joints to work—he wasn’t even forty, yet, damn it!—creak as they may, and ushered him into the bathroom to freshen up.
For those of you coming directly from the website, here are the links to the Discord server, my coauthor’s Ao3 profile, my own Ao3 profile, and our first released joint project:
- Sapphire’s Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Fandom_Related_Name/pseuds/A_Fandom_Related_Name
- AJ’s Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AhsokaJackson/pseuds/AhsokaJackson
- SAU Batfam Server: https://discord.gg/W3K28yPVU8
- Our Short Story, “When It Pours”: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39332946
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