Chapter Text
When Dick hops off Diana’s invisible jet into the Watchtower, fresh off an almost month-long off-world mission and missing his family like a lost limb, he expects to see Bruce, prepping for a debriefing like the paranoid paperwork monster that he is, and Wally, impatiently waiting for him. Maybe even Barry, or the rest of the major League members, summoned for a simultaneous debrief-and-update on intergalactic politics.
What he does not expect, is to enter the Watchtower’s main hall and immediately be met with three identical screams of, “DADA!” followed by twin streaks of orange and yellow crashing into his legs, and an enthusiastic ball of blue and black cannonballing straight into his chest.
It’s only the instinctive reaction to the sound of those excited yells that allows Dick to brace himself in time, stumbling back a step but just barely able to keep his balance.
He curls his hands reflexively around Mar’i’s small body, laughing as he stands still and lets Jai and Irey cling stubbornly to a leg each.
“You were gone for so long!” Irey cries, and Mar’i nods frantically in his arms.
Arms still clinging tight around his leg, Jai echoes a resounding, “Yeah! Dada, we missed you!”
Dick’s heart swells in his chest at the way his three babies look up at him, expressions clear even behind their domino masks, and he can’t help the way he folds himself down to sit on the floor so that all three of them can clamber into his lap. He hugs them close, pressing countless kisses to their foreheads and ignoring the way they squirm away, giggling.
“I missed you guys too,” Dick tells them, tightening his hold around his kids and laughing along with them when they giggle and pretend that they’re trying to escape his grasp.
A familiar chuckle sounds in Dick’s ears, and he looks up to see Wally grinning widely at him, arms open. “What, no hug for me too?”
Dick shakes his head, scrunching up his nose. “You’ve gotta come down here, KF. Your kids aren’t going to let me up anytime soon.”
“Oh, so they’re my kids now, huh?” Wally asks, but drops down to the floor to wrap an arm around Dick anyway. “What happened to for better or for worse, hm?”
“See, I never actually said those words in my vows-”
“Yeah, because you said ‘in aster or disaster’ instead.”
Dick laughs, and presses a kiss to Wally’s cheek. “And I stand by those words.”
Wally blinks, and suddenly there are warm, chapped lips on his own, and Dick’s eyes flutter shut out of habit, one hand coming up to card through Wally’s hair and-
“Ewww dad and dada are kissing again!”
Small hands shove at Dick’s chest, and Dick lets his kids topple him backwards as they push their way in between him and Wally, laughing as he goes down.
“Okay, okay,” he says, one hand coming up to stabilise Irey when she sits herself down decisively on his chest, just beside Mar’i. Jai clambers up to join them as well, plopping down just behind his sisters, and Dick sideeyes Wally when his husband just sits there and laughs.
“I’m trapped,” he says, pouting. “By your children, and you’re just laughing at me!”
Wally shrugs. “Hey, your fault for leaving for almost a month. You should have known this was coming the moment you came back planetside.”
“Yeah!” Mar’i says.
Jai’s head bobs up and down rapidly. “You were gone too long, dada!”
“We’re trapping you here forever,” Irey declares, patting Dick’s chest assuredly.
“They get the drama from you, by the way,” Wally says.
Dick lets his head drop back to rest against the floor in a show of resignation. “Oh no, whatever shall I do-”
“Nightwing,” the low voice is a growl, but one that Dick has known for too long not to hear the fondness underneath it, and he lifts his head back up to see Bruce making his way over to him, expression unamused. “This is still the main hall of the Watchtower.”
Dick waves a careless hand. “Come on, B, I haven’t seen my kids in a month. Besides, if your concern was about the Big Secret, then you really shouldn’t have coded them into the zeta tubes. I bet everyone already knows who they are to you, hm?”
Bruce comes to a halt beside Dick, veritably looming over him since Dick is literally lying on the floor, and Mar’i smiles brightly at him. “Grandpa, look! Dada’s back!”
Dick raises an eyebrow. “Case in point.”
Bruce sighs, but there’s a twitch to the corners of his lips when he reaches down to pick up Mar’i the moment she makes grabby hands at him. “Point taken, Nightwing. Welcome back. Get Redwing and Bluejay settled, and take a seat. We’ll start the debrief in five.”
Dick laughs, then gestures at Jai and Irey. “Alright, you heard your grandpa, kiddos, time for dada to get to work.”
The twins scramble off of him, and Wally pulls Dick upright, then pulls him into a tight, no-child-interference hug. “I missed you so much, Rob.”
Dick briefly curls himself into Wally’s hold, letting himself bask in the feeling of finally being back amongst his family, his love, and presses his face into the crook of Wally’s neck. “Missed you too, Walls. I’m so glad to be back.”
When Wally lets him go, Dick finally tunes into the background buzz that had only been steadily growing louder and louder, and sees Oliver with his jaw on the ground, Hal spinning around rapidly, pointer finger raised and darting between Bruce, him, the kids, and Wally.
“You- what- he- Spooky- kids-”
“Did you break Hal?” Dick asks, turning to Wally. “You know Barry’s not gonna be happy if you broke his best friend.”
Wally shrugs, smile crooked. “It’s been a while coming- ask O for the footage of the past few weeks. He’ll be fine with more time to process.”
Dick blinks. That sentence implied that the League had already been suspicious of some part of the family's hidden or not-so-hidden relationships, which was a level of reveal that Dick hadn't expected Bruce to reach quite so quickly.
"These are the children, then?" Diana asks, drawing level with Dick as she bends slightly to meet Jai's and Irey's awestruck gazes. "Batman has mentioned them before, but I have not had the honour of meeting them prior to this."
Dick smiles, and briefly rests a hand on both Jai's and Irey's heads. "Yep. Aunt D, these are the twins. Redwing, mine and Walls' daughter, and Bluejay, our son. Nightstar is with B right now, but I'm sure she'll want to say hi later."
"Dada," Irey breathes, gaze not straying from Diana. "Dada, look, it's Wonder Woman."
"You can call me Aunt Diana," Diana says, reaching out to ruffle Irey's hair, then Jai's in turn. "That goes for you as well, little one."
Behind their little masks, both Jai's and Irey's eyes go wide, and Dick turns to share an amused look with Wally. Looks like they'd have to start looking into getting some Wonder Woman merchandise for the twins' birthday, then.
A cough, from the front of the meeting table, and Dick looks up just as Diana turns. Bruce is standing at the front of the lit up monitor, details of the off-world mission that Dick had just come back from already onscreen, and Diana shrugs.
"You must introduce me to the littlest one later," she says, ruffling the twins' hairs one more time. "But for now, your father seems to be getting rather impatient."
(And as Diana turns to take her seat at Bruce's left hand, she either doesn't, or pretends not to, notice the way Hal almost falls out of his seat with a startled, "Father?!")
"Hey," Dick murmurs after the meeting ends and he's curled against Wally's side in the Watchtower lounge. "You've been tired the whole time, what's wrong?"
Wally sighs lowly, curling his arm tighter around Dick and leaning his head against his shoulder. His eyes flutter shut slowly, and Dick lets Wally melt into his side.
"Mm," Wally hums, turning his head to nuzzle against where the collar of the Nightwing suit ends to reveal skin. "You try taking care of three meta children by yourself, and let me know how it goes."
Dick's heart aches in his chest, a pang of guilt and love both shooting through him. He shifts, letting Wally ease further into his warmth, and turns to press a kiss to those windswept red curls. "Get some sleep, Walls. Barry and B have the kids, and Diana has been clamouring to meet B's grandchildren since the day she found out he had them. They're in good hands."
"'S not so bad," Wally mumbles into Dick's skin. The words belie his actions as he sinks further into Dick's embrace. "Could've been way worse, but your dad took really good care of me."
Dick blinks. "B did what?"
"Pfft," Wally breathes softly, amusement barely a puff of air over Dick's throat. "Played favourites with me, like he does with you all the time. 'N front of the League."
Oh. Dick doesn't bother holding back the laugh, his grin bright even as his shoulders shake slightly. Man, to have been a fly on the wall when Bruce levelled his double standards on a hero supposedly unaffiliated with the Bat. Dick was certain that the League's expressions would have been priceless, maybe only beaten by the way they had reacted today, when meeting the kids.
"Dude, I would pay to see that," Dick says, still laughing.
Curled up against him, Wally lifts his head ever so slightly, green eyes blinking open lazily, then reaching out a hand to smack at Dick's chest with no strength behind it.
"Ask O for the footage," Wally says, eyes slipping shut again as his head lolls back against Dick's shoulder. "Now stop laughing, Rob, 'm trying to sleep and you're shaking my pillow."
A snort escapes Dick at that, but he obediently stills himself and reaches around and tug Wally closer instead. "Alright, alright, your perfect pillow at your service, your highness."
"That's more like it," Wally hums, and Dick blows out an amused breath in lieu of a louder laugh that would shake his shoulders. "'Night, Robbie. Wake me when the kids are ready to go home."
Dick presses a kiss to the top of Wally's head. "Sleep tight, Walls."
In the meantime, he thinks, he has a certain other redhead to contact about some footage to watch.