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Walking through the door of your shitty one-bedroom apartment in the Narrows, you slumped against it after you closed and locked the door behind you. Everything hurt after your shift, and your nonslip shoes did nothing to help your aching feet. A second or two passed as you closed your eyes and breathed in the scent of home. You turned to put the doorstop underneath your door with your eyes closed, better safe than sorry in the Narrows, and double-check the deadlock before you turned to face your living room. Your hand came up and rubbed at your eyes before you opened them.
“Jesus H Christ and his Twelve Disciples!” You shrieked, and you pressed a hand against your heart as you tried to get your breathing back under control.
Standing next to your window across the living room was a small child dressed in red, green, and yellow. You debated your options for a second, a reprimand coming to your lips before your eyes adjusted more to the dark of the apartment. Dick’s bright blue eyes beneath the mask were becoming brighter as they started to well with tears, his shoulder slightly shaking from the repressed sobs and that’s when you remembered the date. It’s now 2:30 in the morning, which means today is the anniversary of that awful day at Haley’s Circus. It’s been two years since Dick had to watch his parents be murdered in front of him. The plan you had with Bruce was to come over for breakfast to surprise Dick and take him to their graves later today. But it seemed he needed comfort earlier than that, and although Bruce tried to help, Lord knows he wasn't the best at it.
Wordlessly, you threw your bag and blazer onto the faded blue couch separating the two of you and held your arms open. His body collided with yours seconds later, the tears finally coming down, and the ugly sobs audible in the silence of your apartment. They weren't the loud screams of a child but the silent sobs of someone too young to have experienced this sorrow. You made shushing noises as you wrapped him into you. You felt as if maybe you could take away his hurt by only pressing him as close as you could.
“I-I- I tried t-to pa-atrol but I sa-w you wal-l-ki-ng ho-o-ome.” Dick's muffled voice said into your dirty button-down shirt as an explanation to your silent question, his voice gasping for breath. You only pulled him closer, sinking to your knees on the hardwood ground and pulling him into your lap as you rocked back and forth. You rubbed his back with one hand while petting his hair with the other, and tried desperately to keep your own tears at bay. Your next question died on your lips as you glanced toward your open living room window and caught sight of the hulking black figure on the fire escape. His eyes glowed against the black backdrop as he watched the two of you.
Wordlessly, you held out your hand to beckon your lover closer to the huddled forms of his family. He silently entered through your living room window, avoiding the couch as he pulled his cowl off and threw it aside. Bruce’s hair was rumpled and still drying from sweat and the smudges of black makeup around his eyes were running down his face but that didn't seem to bother him.
He joined you on the floor, kneeling down and lifting both of you closer to him. It was uncomfortable, your knees protesting the abuse of being curled up too long, and his armor digging into your side as his arms pulled you into him. Yet the only emotions you could process was only profound grief for the life Dick could’ve had with his parents. And the guilt you felt for not truly being sorry that you got to have him as your precious child.
Bruce pressed a kiss to your hair as you rocked back and forth with him, trying to give the boy in your arms (your boy, your sweet baby boy) as much comfort as you could. There was no concept of time in that dark apartment, only the feel of the sobs subsiding as Dick slowly crept further and further into sleep. Once you were sure he was sleeping, you pulled slightly away from Bruce to look at the child sandwiched between you. His eyes were red and raw from crying, a wrinkle between his eyes showed that it wasn’t a peaceful sleep he was in, but his jaw clenched and unclenched in a way that showed he was truly asleep. He never understood how you and Bruce knew when he was feigning sleep and you had no desire to tell him of that little quirk of his.
Bruce gently grabbed Dick from your arms and stood, turning and walking over to lay him down on your couch and you’ve never been more thankful you chose the most comfortable couch at Goodwill instead of the nicer-looking one. As you stood up your knees and back protested going through a grueling shift and then subjecting yourself to kneeling on the floor for so long but that was a price you’d pay over and over again.
You kicked your shoes off by the door before you padded into your kitchen, looking over the island counter that separated the living room and kitchen, just to watch Bruce look down at his kid. There was a softness in his eyes you only ever saw when he looked at you and Dick in these moments, pure and unadulterated affection shined through his eyes as he leaned over to gently tug off Dick’s mask using the adhesive-dissolving spray. You watched him grab the large, fluffy blanket off the back of the couch and drape it over your boy. Turning around, you busied yourself with grabbing a water bottle for Bruce and a container of cantaloupe for yourself. You felt Bruce press against your back and reach around you, one hand going to your waist and the other going to grab a piece of cantaloupe from the bowl.
“Isn’t it a little late for fruit?” He asked, even as he took a bite.
“You kidding? Cantaloupe tastes best at 2 in the morning after a grueling shift.” You felt him reach out for a napkin to wipe away the juice that inevitably got on his skin, doing the same thing for you before balling it up and throwing it into the nearby trashcan. You contented yourself with closing your eyes and leaning against him, listening to the sounds of him taking a drink of water and Dick’s heavy breathing from the couch. This didn’t happen often, such domesticity only occurring once in a blue moon when your schedules lined up for sleepovers that didn’t require Dick and Bruce coming back at 4 or 5 in the morning.
“He refused to stay back tonight, said the routine would help. He was subdued and didn’t talk until we saw you walking into your apartment. Took off before I could grab him and entered your window.” Bruce's gruff voice pierced through the silence. The sound was halfway between Batman and Bruce as his vocal cords tried to accommodate the shift to normal.
You opened your eyes and turned around in his arms to look at him. You slowly reached your hand up to his cheek. You’ve long since learned it was better to project your movements when he was still trying to leave the headspace of the Dark Knight. He pressed his face into your hand once it connected, turning to nuzzle into it and press a kiss against your wrist. His eyes were still slightly haunted by his demons, but still, he tried his best to be gentle to you in these quiet moments.
“You’re always welcome honey, you and Dick can come to me whenever. Whether it be for this or because he’s super excited about the cool trick he did to subdue a robber.”
Bruce huffed out a laugh as he remembered how Dick to scare the shit out of you 2 weeks ago when he barreled through your window while you watched The Labyrinth at 1 am. Robin didn’t understand what was so bad about doing that, when Obviously you were awake, Batman, it didn’t scare her. Honestly, that was the last time you’ve even been home. More and more nights were spent at the manor, welcoming them home with Alfred after their nightly escapades. You’ve learned to stitch wounds and press kisses against bruises that made Dick giggle at your antics. He was soon going to get to the point where he wouldn’t let you do that anymore, and that thought hurt your heart. Only slightly less than how it hurt after seeing those bruises in the first place.
You pulled away from the armored man and shooed him to your bedroom as you put the cantaloupe back into the fridge and threw away his empty water bottle. He followed your orders, and you walked in moments later to see him taking off his armor.
“No more patrol tonight? It’s the third Friday, so you should be two-thirds of the way done right now.” You questioned, walking past him to your dresser where your mirror and makeup wipes were waiting.
“No. I knew we probably wouldn’t go past your apartment tonight, so we started at the Docks instead to make up for it.” He pushed his armor into the closet and shut the door, walking over to where you stood looking into the mirror to begin taking off his black makeup around his eyes. His reasoning impressed you, but honestly, you weren’t too surprised. Comes with the territory of his analytical mind.
You finished taking off your makeup first, grabbed your pajamas from the end of your bed, and disappeared into your bathroom to change and brush your teeth. You passed Bruce in the hallway on his way to do the same, and you turned off the lights in your room before getting underneath the covers. You burrowed into your pillow as the bed dipped beside you. Bruce’s arm came around you to pull you into his side, rearranging you so you were half sprawled on top of him, your head buried into the side of his neck, and his arms curled around you. You often liked to joke that you were his own personal anxiety blanket with the way he always seemed to arrange you on top of him. But truthfully, you didn’t mind in the slightest. It was comforting for you to feel him breathe, just like it probably was for him. A reminder that both of you were alive and were once again with each other. You slowly drifted off to sleep, halfway to dreaming, until you felt Bruce speak.
“Move in with me.”
The sleep quickly vanished as you popped up, head coming up to stare at him. You debated asking him to repeat himself, but you knew what he said. Thinking it over, you honestly couldn’t come up with a single excuse for why not. You had just gotten an actual paying job with the art gallery and had already put in your two weeks for the other two jobs yesterday. In the past month alone, you’d only seen the inside of your apartment maybe four times, and two of those were just to grab something you had forgotten when you were sleeping over at the manor.
“I want to be able to come home to this always, to not worry about you in your apartment while I try to sleep without you in the manor. I want to hear you and Alfred debating Downton Abbey while you drink coffee and he does the gardening. I don’t want to watch Dick try to hide his disappointment that you aren’t at breakfast in the mornings. I want you there always.”
It had taken so long to get Bruce to admit to even wanting the smallest thing from you. For him to open up like this without constant prompting from you felt like a wonderous moment, something to cherish.
“Okay.” He smiled softly down at you until you couldn’t fight the urge to lean up and kiss him slowly. It was the kind of kiss that was languid, there was no rush just the need to express how much he meant to you.
“I love you,” you whispered against his lips.
“I love you, too.”
With that, the two of you once again lay down, his arms around you, anchoring you close as sleep claimed you and pulled you under.