Chapter Text
The problem is that John came to them fully grown. Mostly.
A bit of mentoring, a few words of advice, and they could safely leave him to do his own thing. John works independently, as an adult, and if he chooses to assist the Batman and the Commissioner, then it’s his choice to make.
With Dick, however...
Gordon stares when Bruce tells him he’s assumed legal guardianship of a recently orphaned circus boy.
He has his suspicions. Richard Grayson’s only thirteen years old. Bruce only became the world’s most famous recluse aged thirty. Who’s to say he didn’t end up impregnating a circus girl at some point before that?
“He looks nothing like me,” Bruce says softly, frowning reflexively over his shoulder, through the glass to where Dick is sprawled listlessly in front of the television.
Gordon bites down on the inside of his cheek and says nothing. Just watches the Gotham skyline from his place on the balcony.
Because boys at thirteen don’t look like anybody much, and both Bruce and his new ward are angular, dark-haired, light eyed and lithe. The boy is some kind of trapeze artist and he’s got musculature better than men double his age. Perfectly in accord with being the unknown son of a man who uses uncanny ninja skills to beat up criminals in dark alleys.
And Gordon really does wish Bruce would stop doing that so often.
He’s convinced that one of these days Bruce will go into a dark alley and find it’s a trap. Worse, one of these days, Bruce won’t get out of the trap alive.
They come to the mutual agreement that Dick must never learn about the Batman. For which Bruce will play the self-indulgent industrialist for a few hours longer every day, and Gordon will keep well away from the penthouse. Not that he’s been there all that much.
It’s a shock to realise he has been. Ever since Bruce came back and donned the suit again, Gordon’s dropped by every now and again to make sure his partner in crime isn’t bleeding out in the stairwell. Most of the time Bruce looks exhausted but pleased to see him, and they end up talking about the night’s work for a while.
It’s oddly comforting. In spite of the disparity of seeing the celebrity’s face spout the vigilante’s words.
Of course, conversation about criminals turns to conversation about the experience of crime, which turns to conversation about experiences in general and then turns to conversation about the world in general. Gordon talks about Chicago and his brother in the SAS, and Bruce talks about Italy and working as hired labour on an Australian farm.
It’s an ongoing conversation about life histories.
Which ends with a solid thud when Dick appears on the scene.
Then again, nothing works out like they plan – because nothing ever does – and Dick isn’t impressed by Bruce Wayne. Is convinced that Bruce only took him in to look good for the cameras, and because ‘girls love men with kids’, and he runs away.
Gordon could have told him that there are only three women Bruce has ever wanted to love him, and of those three one was his mother, two out of the three are dead, and the last on the shortlist is a world class cat burglar more emotionally damaged than he is. Gotham’s billionaire playboy has a sadder sex life that Gotham’s police commissioner. Which is saying a lot, since Gordon’s sex life has been nonexistent for some years.
Gordon doesn’t actually say any of this. Dick’s thirteen years old and doesn’t need to hear it. What the boy needs to hear is that he’s a fool for running away. Then he needs to hear that Bruce isn’t using him to buy public adulation. After which he needs to hear that it’s going to be okay.
Bruce walks into his office when he’s in the process of saying that, one hand on Dick’s shoulder, holding tight while Dick stares at the floor and pretends he’s too old to cry.
“You’re going to work it out, son,” Gordon says.
And Bruce is right there, watching the two of them, media darling mask slipped away to the seriousness he doesn’t usually allow himself in public, and maybe it’s the fact that this is a serious situation or maybe it’s the fact that Bruce is remembering what it was like to be a kid and grieving. Remembering when Gordon reached out and wrapped him in the jacket that smelled like his father and told him, in his turn, that it would be okay.
Gordon closes the office door behind him to give them both some space to work things out. By the time he reappears with terrible coffee and a soda, Bruce and Dick are having a reasonably polite conversation.
Actually, Gordon discovers, they’re negotiating.
They’re both stubborn, proud, and mistrustful, so it’s fairly interesting to watch.
What’s even more interesting to watch is the moment when Bruce shifts from polite attention to intent interest. Gordon’s never observed it from the sidelines before, though he’s been the object of it a couple of times.
“Thanks,” Bruce says in passing on his way out the door.
“That’s not necessary,” Gordon calls after him.
From the knowing look Bruce shoots him over his shoulder, they both see the old references.
The first time Gordon sees Robin, though, he almost has a heart attack. It’s the first time he ever seriously considers arresting the Batman.
John came to them fully grown but Dick has just turned fourteen. He’s still a minor, and he’s still grieving, and he can’t be expected to make a rational decision on whether or not he wants to risk his life behind a mask and a costume on the dark streets of Gotham.
“Are you nuts?” he demands, staring up from beside the cooling signal he’s only just turned off.
Batman is appropriately stoic and stony, immovable and implacable, and he gives Gordon some crap about this being good for ‘Robin’. Neither of them mention him by name, of course.
The boy in question is a kinetic ball of constant movement. He’s sarcastic and quick witted, and starts pacing back and forth across the rooftop as if he can’t bear to stay still.
But the minute Batman calls, he goes running.
Gordon mostly goes hot and cold.
He doesn’t see either of them for a couple of months. Gets Nightwing instead, which is fine. He likes John, and John, at least, doesn’t do stupid things like turn children into vigilantes. John is, in fact, pragmatic and sensible.
“I’ve talked to the kid,” John shrugs, “Made sure he knew what he was getting into. He says he gets it.”
“He’s a kid,” Gordon says severely, “What does he know?”
“Tell you what,” John sighs, “I’ll talk to the kid if you talk to the bigger idiot. We can try again, I suppose.”
They can try but it doesn’t work.
Anyway, Gordon gets busy, what with Poison Ivy turning up and trying to drug half the City with everything from highly toxic poisons to a highly potent aphrodisiac.
She manages to drug Dick with the latter, and Bruce hurriedly locks his sidekick into the tumbler and then looks at it with the gaze of a man who’s not sure he wants to know what’s going on inside his car.
“Want a ride?” Gordon asks ironically.
“I’ll manage,” Bruce says bravely, and vanishes into the tank.
Gordon doesn’t hear or see much of either of the two of them over the following days. Nightwing shrugs and says he hasn’t heard from them either.
Gordon has visions of one or both of them badly injured, or dead, or worse, this degenerating into very illegal sex. He's seen close proximity, loneliness and opportunity do worse things in his career in the police force. And he really doesn’t want to have to arrest Bruce.
When he sees Bruce again, it’s at some charity fundraiser and the man looks the same as he always does. Doesn’t look overly exhausted or debauched. And he doesn’t look guilty as he pretends to forget the Commissioner’s name and shakes his head with rueful self-mockery.
“Memory like a goldfish,” Bruce Wayne says, and looks at a spot two inches short of Gordon’s nose.
Gordon is used to this, and he’s distracted himself.
Bruce’s eyes sharpen when a pretty red-head joins the Commissioner.
“Dad,” she says, and Bruce’s head rears back a little.
Gordon feels a little smug about that. “My daughter, Barbara,” he introduces gruffly, and goes through the formality of directing a warning glare at the playboy billionaire.
Even Bruce Wayne has more sense than to flirt outrageously with a woman less than half his age in front of her father. He is polite, and pleasant, and if his eyes rest appreciatively on her face just a little too long, well, no one mentions it.
Least of all Gordon, who isn’t entirely sure which of them he wants to protect from the other.
John ambles up, looking coolly efficient as Bruce Wayne’s PA, and Barbara’s eyes latch onto him and Gordon suspects he now knows exactly where the trouble’s going to lie. He resigns himself to the inevitable and ignores Bruce’s sudden sparkle of amusement hidden behind a champagne flute that never empties.
“I really must thank you, Commissioner,” Bruce murmurs, “My ward seems a lot less angry since you spoke to him.”
“Boys that age can be difficult,” Gordon says.
“Boys at any age,” Bruce corrects drily, “I was wondering if you could do me a favour and talk to him again. He seems to like you.”
“Me?”
“You’ve had some practice with this parenting stuff,” Bruce points out.
The tone is light but the words drop like stone. Gordon feels suddenly ashamed of himself.
“Alright,” he says.
A wide, white smile is flashed at him and Bruce says, “Great! I’ll send the Rolls tomorrow evening. You’ll have dinner with us, of course. Bring Barbara. She can have a look at the library.”
Then he strides off, already accosting the next unfortunate person, and if Gordon didn’t know better he’d be caught off guard by having his life commandeered. He soothes himself with the thought that at least Bruce hasn’t held a stapler to his head this time.
He’s not especially pleased about the prospect of playing father-confessor, which is great because Dick isn’t especially pleased about the prospect either. On the other hand, Dick does seem pleased to see Barbara.
Gordon watches in mounting alarm as Dick’s interest shifts from vague to intent, and the boy proceeds to charm his daughter in a manner more suited to someone ten years older.
Bruce looks just as surprised.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he says.
“This is your fault,” Gordon says ominously, “Fix it.”
“It’s harmless. He’ll get over it.”
Gordon is too nice to point out that Bruce Wayne fell in love with Rachel Dawes when they were children, and did not, in fact, get over it. He suspects Bruce will only shrug at the age difference next.
In the end, the evening is ridiculous and the only sane person in that mausoleum of a penthouse is Alfred. Who serves them, passes a witty remark, and leaves them to get on with it.
Bruce and Gordon camp out on the balcony and watch ‘the children’, while Barbara Gordon beams down at Dick Grayson like a pretty, kindly moon.
As far as Gordon knows, that’s the last time his daughter meets Bruce Wayne’s ward.
Since this is Gotham, he is very wrong.
He recognises his daughter in spite of the mask and the costume and the terrifying bat motif worked into the suit across her chest. He recognises her even when she’s punching a villain with the kind of roundhouse action he’s seen Bruce use.
Not often, that’s true, since Bruce was broken down and remade into a fighting machine by ninjas, but every now and again the Batman lapses back into street brawling tactics. Whatever it is, his daughter is Batgirl and he’s so angry with both of them he’s ready to strangle Bruce.
Who accepts the blame with the air of a man who’s used to blaming himself for everything anyway.
Things are a little strained for a while and then John turns up in the hospital, bleeding out through a hole in his liver, and between the surgery and the shock and finding out what happened, he doesn’t consider letting the grudge get in way of making things right.
John’s an orphan, which is becoming an ongoing theme in Gordon’s life, and the only family he has is the one he’s made himself.
They all gather at the hospital like a bad joke – the billionaire, the policeman, the librarian and the circus brat – and then three of them vanish, leaving Gordon to wait alone.
John survives, because that’s what John does.
He seems a little emotionally overwrought by the cluster of people who visit him. Including the orphanage kids, who Bruce Wayne arranges buses for them with all the sangfroid of a man who doesn’t have to personally deal with swarms of excitable children running down the hospital corridors.
John actually tries to get up just to marshal the kids into some semblance of good behaviour.
Gordon hears all about it later, when he turns up and the harried nurses complain.
Bruce is utterly unrepentant.
“It took his mind off things,” he says, like that’s all that matters.
Gordon suspects that in Bruce’s world it probably does. And unfortunately, Bruce is right – John is far more cheerful, has more colour, and his eyes are clearer.
It turns out there’s a new villain in town. This worries Gordon, who’s still cleaning up Poison Ivy’s assault on the city.
The new villain takes the old adage about revenge being best served cold literally. The first guard they find frozen solid in Westerfield Mall is shocking, but when they find the second one shattered into pieces on the floor, the slow thaw leaving puddles of blood and gore scattered over dingy tile, he feels physically ill.
He never thought he’d ever have to figure out to how stand on someone’s doorstep and say he’s sorry their parent or spouse or child was snap-frozen and smashed like a bad science experiment.
The Batgirl gathers samples of blood and crystallized flesh with neat, quick movements, seemingly unaffected. Gordon finds his daughter scrubbing her hands raw the next morning, mascara dried into tear-streaks down her face.
Dick vanishes for two days and Bruce makes the decision to let his almost-sixteen year old ward fight his own battles while he goes after Mr. Freeze. Robin makes a heroic comeback at the last minute and takes his place beside Batman. Together they’re unstoppable.
The police don’t even know anything’s happening until after everything’s over. Gordon deals with the clean-up and then storms off to the penthouse at first light, furious at being kept out of the loop on what was, essentially, police business.
Alfred lets him in but Bruce is fast asleep, slumped face first over a laptop, glass half-full of protein shake sitting perilously near the edge of the desk.
Gordon sighs and shakes the man behind the mask none too gently awake.
“Go to bed,” he says shortly, “That’s going to break your back.”
Bruce is still half asleep, flushed and drowsy. His mouth curves into a gentle grin and he mutters, “Been there, done that,” before stumbling to his feet.
In all the years Gordon has known the Batman, and in the couple of years since he’s known Bruce, he never imagined he’d end up ushering the man to bed and glaring at the door for an Alfred that doesn’t appear.
“Take off your shoes,” he sighs.
And Bruce, sprawled over a bed that looks like no one’s used it in days – or nights at least – mumbles something unintelligible and doesn’t shift.
Gordon yanks off his shoes and his socks and, as an afterthought, his belt.
Bruce cants his hips a little when Gordon’s hands work around the waistband of his pants. Hazel eyes slit open, suddenly aware.
“I’m too tired right now,” Bruce rumbles, “But if you come back tomorrow night, we can try this again.”
Gordon lets go very fast, but from the look Bruce is giving him, the offer is meant in all seriousness. Gordon prefers to treat it like a joke. Which it is. About as funny as Dick Grayson developing a crush on his daughter in spite of the ten years between them.
At least Dick has the excuse of youth and inexperience. Bruce isn’t young and inexperienced, neither is Gordon, they’ve got a lot more than ten years between them, and oh God, he really isn’t prepared for the onslaught of images he’s suddenly getting.
Alfred, mercifully, appears in the doorway.
“I can come back later,” Alfred says, eyebrows lifting.
Bruce groans and throws an arm across his eyes. “Alfred,” he says, “I’ve shocked the Commissioner. I think he’d really like to leave now.”
“I’m not shocked,” Gordon corrects.
Bruce snorts from under his arm but doesn’t reply.
“But I do need to leave,” Gordon says, glancing at the window. He pats Bruce’s knee absently before feeling foolish about it and makes sure to close the bedroom door behind him when he’s done.
Alfred is kind and says nothing. Offers coffee and breakfast, if the Commissioner wants it, and the Commissioner does, though he regretfully turns down the breakfast.
Alfred looks as ancient as Gordon feels some days, and it’s awkward, being propositioned for sexual congress with a man young enough to be his son and then having coffee with the man’s former guardian.
The parallels between his life and Dick’s evident ambitions give him vertigo.
Especially when Grayson wanders in with a backpack, heavy-eyed from lack of sleep but otherwise alert, and blurts out, “What are you doing here?” in tones of deep suspicion.
“Drinking coffee,” Gordon says mildly.
Dick rolls his eyes and grabs an apple. And leaves again.
“Master Bruce sent him to bed and continued working alone last night,” Alfred says conversationally.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Gordon remarks.
They don’t reach any consensus that morning. Alfred makes small talk and coffee, and Gordon drinks and replies, and then they nod to each other and go their separate ways.