🐦 | A surprise after years

Summary: Batman accidentally discovers user and assumes it's the enemy's child, given its familiar features. However, after investigating the information in the Batcave, it turns out their father is Nightwing.

Please, if there are any errors in the text, please report them in the comments and leave your opinion.

The Batcave greeted Bruce Wayne with the icy silence of titanium servers and a barely perceptible hum that was always felt in the bones, not the ears. The air smelled of light dampness, steel, and old stone dust—the familiar cocktail now seemed suffocating. The DNA analysis results, displayed in stern, emotionless fonts, froze on the main screen. The percentage—98.7%—burned like a brand, scorching away familiar thought patterns, replacing them with chaotic flashes of recalculated dates, recalled images, and fragments of long-ago conversations.

Bruce stood motionless, his hood removed, revealing hard, tense features. His gloved fingers clenched into fists, his knuckles white from the pressure. He wasn't looking at the screen, but somewhere inside himself, into that archive of memory where all the mistakes, all the miscalculations, all the wounds inflicted by him and his family—intentional or not—were stored.

A child. {{user}}. Their features, so familiar and yet so alien at the same time, now took on a terrible, undeniable concreteness. They were 's own flesh and blood. A grandchild. The child of the one Bruce had always considered his firstborn, his true heir.

The quiet, almost silent creak of the cart's wheels broke the oppressive silence. Alfred Pennyworth, unperturbed as a rock in the raging ocean of Gotham's madness, approached, invading Bruce's personal space with a centuries-old privilege.

"I think it's time for a change of atmosphere, sir." His voice, measured and calm, was the one Bruce used to gauge his inner storms. "Constantly inhaling bat dust and the stress of silicon processors has a detrimental effect on mental clarity. And I imagine you desperately need it."

On the cart sat a porcelain teapot with Earl Grey tea brewed according to the rules, along with cups and a small cake. An unnaturally normal, almost provocatively mundane ritual in the midst of a technological cathedral dedicated to the night.

Bruce didn't turn around; his gaze finally focused on the screen, on the line "Richard John Grayson."

"I can't, Alfred," Batman's voice was low, smoky, lacking its usual metallic modulation, and therefore bare and tired. "This... miscalculation. Unforgivable."

"If we're talking about Mr. Grayson, then, as far as my knowledge allows, he was almost of age at the time, a passionate and, frankly, extremely impulsive young man," Alfred poured tea, a wisp of steam curling up to the cold cave ceiling. "Romantic impulses rarely lend themselves to strategic planning. And even less to calculating consequences. You are not his guardian in this matter."

"It's not about his moral character," Bruce abruptly turned away from the screen, his cape billowing like the shadow of a giant bird. "It's about a child. Lives in the slums of Cobblepot. Steals to support their mother. Thinks their father is an urban myth in a blue suit, like the one they saw on propaganda posters. And their grandfather...” he faltered, unable to find the right words for the first time in a long time. "Their grandfather just tranquilized them and stole their blood, thinking it was the child of one of his enemies, thinking he’d seen these traits somewhere, but he didn’t immediately realize the truth was right under his nose.”

Alfred sighed, placing the cup in front of Bruce. The warm, smoky aroma of the tea clashed with the scent of the cave.

“You were operating within the paradigm, sir. Paranoia, vigilance, verification. Standard protocol for an unidentified asset who has shown an unexpected interest in you. The child was not physically harmed. They got their burger and... hope that Batman was interested. That’s quite a lot.”

“It’s a hoax,” Bruce snapped, but took the cup anyway. The warmth of the porcelain burned the skin of his gloves. “And now I must continue it. Inform ? Immediately? He... he will react impulsively. He'd break loose, scaring them both. Their mother, who, by all appearances, had deliberately hidden this... Or should me remain silent? Observe? Provide safety from a distance, without interfering?"

He fell silent, and the full weight of his double life hung in the silence. Bruce Wayne, making strategic decisions about company acquisitions. And Batman, calculating the force of a blow so as not to kill. But there was no algorithm here. Here was a fragile, frightened life, bound to him by blood.

Bruce saw before him not a genetic sample, but a living child. Their quick, nervous hands. The smell of the street and cheap fast food, which clung to Bruce even in the Wayne Tower elevator. The glimmer of hope in their eyes when they spoke of Nightwing and Batman.

"They asked not to be turned in to the police," Bruce said quietly, mostly to himself. "They're afraid of the system. Afraid of being separated from their mother. Any misstep on my part will confirm their worst expectations of the world."

"Absolutely right," Alfred nodded. "So perhaps we should start not with loud revelations, but with careful... bridge-building. Laying the groundwork, as you call it. And most of all, preparing the child themselves. Let them know they can trust. At least you. Like Batman. The rest... will follow."

Suddenly, a warning flashed on one of the secondary screens. A motion sensor, disguised as a stamp on the banknote Bruce had discreetly slipped into {{user}}'s jacket pocket, had signaled. The child had left their neighborhood and was moving toward the docks—a dangerous, uncontrolled area even by Gotham's standards.

Bruce set down his cup with a dull thud. All hesitation, all self-analysis, was instantly swept away by his guard instinct. His posture straightened, his gaze sharp and focused again.

"They're moving," his voice regained its steely armor. "To the docks. Alone."

"Sir," Alfred said warningly, but it was too late.

Bruce pulled his cowl up in one movement, and Batman, the living legend, eclipsed the doubt-ridden Bruce Wayne.

"Discussion to be continued later. Right now—asset security protocol."

He stepped around the stunned Alfred, slid into the Batmobile's opening, and disappeared into its black maw. The turbines roared, drowning out any possible cry, and the car, jets belching flame, tore into the dark tunnel, leaving the butler alone in the vast, ringing silence of the cavern, with Bruce's meaningful phrase ringing in his ears and the name of an unfamiliar child glowing on the screen.

On the Batcave console, Bruce's phone blinked again, signaling a fifth missed call from Grayson, whose name glowed too brightly in the dim light and again went unanswered. Apparently, the problems were just beginning.