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“He’s so beautiful,” Clark says. He’s got little Damian Peter John Kent-Wayne in his arms, and a huge smile on his face. “And perfect. Look at these ten little toes. They’re like tiny little pink peas.”
The three-month old’s face scrunches up in a scowl (which Alfred and his parents have assured Bruce he’s come by naturally - they’d shown him pictures) when Clark touches each of his toes in turn. He raises his little fists and punches at the air randomly.
“He is perfect, isn’t he?” Bruce marvels. He’s watching the way that Clark is holding their baby, supporting Damian’s neck in the crook of his elbow, eyes focused solely on Damian.
“Here, you hold him,” Clark says, and Bruce panics for a split second as Clark maneuvers their son into Bruce’s arms.
He’s awkward at this, and is stiff. He lacks all of the finesse that Clark has when handling their baby.
“Relax,” Clark says. He sits behind Bruce, and lets Bruce lean back against him. “You’re not going to break him.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Bruce says. “Do you know how many bones we have? And what if I drop him?”
Clark chuckles, and starts massaging Bruce’s neck. The muscles are tense, and Bruce hisses. He notices that Damian has gone a little tense in his arms as well, and that makes his panic increase.
“You should take him,” Bruce says.
“Bruce, you’re not going to drop him, or break one of his 270 or so bones,” Clark assures him. “We’re sitting in the middle of a king sized bed.”
That’s mildly comforting, but there are so many more things that could go wrong, and Bruce is terrified that he’s going to irreversibly damage the son they’d created together (with the aid of geneticists and a surrogate). He holds his breath and only starts breathing again when one of Damian’s wildly gyrating fists bumps into his chest.
Damian is scowling at him, and he bumps his fist into Bruce’s chest again, and Bruce feels himself start to relax (Clark’s broad hands working at the tension in his neck, shoulders and back has a lot to do with helping him to relax as well). As he relaxes, Damian relaxes, and the scowl turns into something that almost resembles a smile.
The little boy is a perfect combination of Bruce and Clark’s DNA. He’s got a thatch of dark hair on top of his head that makes Bruce think of Clark’s, it’s soft and feathery now, but Bruce knows it will grow to be thick and curly. He has blue-green eyes, Bruce’s nose, Clark’s cheekbones, and he’s inherited the shape of his surrogate mother’s mouth, and her skin tone. His cheeks are a rosy red right now.
“That’s it,” Clark whispers into Bruce’s ear. “You’ve got him, and I’ve got you. No need to panic or worry.”
“What if I mess up with him?” Bruce asks. Damian’s managed to wrap one of his hands around Bruce’s finger, and Bruce notes how tiny the baby’s fingers are, how easy they would be to crush.
“We’ll both mess up with him,” Clark says. He shrugs. “It’s part of parenting. We’re not going to be perfect parents. No one is. We just do the best that we can, and love him with everything that we have. That’s all that anyone can do.”
“What if he ends up in therapy, or becomes some kind of killer ninja, or --”
“Bruce,” Clark says, voice stern. He squeezes Bruce’s shoulders. “I love you, but shut up. We’re going to make mistakes in raising Damian, same as we’ve made mistakes with Richard, Jason and Tim. He’s going to get bumps and bruises along the way, maybe break a bone or two, but that’s part of life. We don’t have to be perfect. He doesn’t have to be perfect. And if he does end up becoming some kind of killer ninja, we won’t love him any less than we do at this moment.”
“No baby brother of mine is going to become a killer ninja,” Richard says, taking that moment to fully enter and cross the room. He climbs onto the bed and positions himself in front of Bruce. “And if you do mess up, Little D will have me and Jay and Timbo to make sure he doesn’t wind up in therapy. Right, Jay? Tim?”
The other two boys hover in the doorway until Bruce nods for them to come in. They climb onto the bed, sitting on either side of Richard.
“Still don’t know why you needed to go and get a dumb baby,” Jay says.
He frowns at Damian who gurgles and smiles at him, one of the corners of his mouth twitches upward when Damian reaches out to him with the hand that isn’t currently occupied with Bruce’s finger.
“He’s kinda cute, even if he is dumb,” Timothy says.
“He’s not dumb, guys,” Richard says. “He’s just little, and he needs us to teach him everything that we know. Don’t you, Little D?” Richard reaches out to tickle Damian’s tummy and is rewarded with a burble of laughter.
It’s the first time that Damian has laughed, and Bruce finds himself completely undone. The sound is contagious, and before he knows what’s happening, everyone is laughing, and Richard is tickling Damian’s tummy to get him to laugh again.
Damian’s giggling, and drooling all over one of his fists, his little feet are kicking at the air, and Bruce couldn’t be happier than he is in this moment. It’s then that Alfred walks into the room, and snaps a photograph (for posterity’s sake, Masters Bruce and Clark) before gently extricating Damian from Bruce’s arms so that he can sit with him in the rocking chair, giving them all time to get dressed and ready for the day.
“Did I ever tell you about the time your father thought that he could fly?” Alfred says as he carries Damian from the room.
Bruce groans.
“You thought you could fly, dad?” Timothy asks.
Bruce shakes his head. “That’s a story for another day. Right now, you all need to get ready for school.”
“But it’s Saturday,” Richard says. “And we already did all our homework last night.”
“Yeah,” Jason says.
“Then go get ready for breakfast,” Bruce tries.
“But --”
“Go,” Clark says. “Your dad will tell you the story over breakfast.”
“Like hell I will,” Bruce mutters quietly so that only Clark can hear him.
“Yes!” the boys shout, Jason and Timothy pumping fists in the air as they scramble off the bed.
“I’m not going to tell that story,” Bruce says sullenly.
He’d agreed that, with Damian on the way, they needed the space that the manor had to offer them, and had taken his parents up on the offer to move into the manor while they moved into a penthouse. Alfred had been more than happy to stay on with Bruce, Clark and the boys, and he’d been a godsend, but now Bruce is wondering if they made the right choice, because Alfred has a lot of dirt on him, and well, the boys don’t need to know everything he got up to when he was their age.
“Not even for a kiss?” Clark asks.
Bruce frowns in contemplating, turning to regard his husband. “Well, maybe for a kiss.”
Clark leans in and grips Bruce’s chin. Bruce melts into the kiss, and when they part for air, he feels sated, and more relaxed than he has been since Damian’s arrival.
Maybe he can do this parenting thing after all. He hadn’t ended up unscathed from his attempt to fly, and he’d turned out fairly decent. He hadn’t turned into some ninja warrior who skulks around in the dark of night. He wasn’t seeing a therapist, though there’s nothing wrong with that, and maybe he could benefit from seeing one about his ongoing nightmares.
“Relax,” Clark says, as though reading Bruce’s mind. “We’ve got this. Damian is going to turn out just fine.”
Just then, they hear a shout coming from one of the boys’ rooms. It’s hard to make out what the boys are fighting about, but Bruce and Clark are out in the hallway, each catching a boy in their arms as they make an attempt to race past them.
“Whoa, what’s the rush?” Clark asks Timothy, who is dangling from one of Clark’s arms.
“We’re racing to see who can hold Little D first,” Timothy says. He scowls. “Dick and Jay cheated.”
Bruce has a hold on Jason, and exchanges a look with Clark. Both of them sigh and release the boys.
“You can each take a turn holding Damian, but it has to be with either myself or your Dad present,” Clark says.
Both boys’ shoulders slump. “What about Dick?” Jason asks, jutting his chin out.
“Same goes for him,” Bruce says.
Though he has his doubts about letting any of the boys hold the baby (because if he’s afraid that he’s going to drop and break Damian, he’s terrified of what the boys will do) Clark is giving him one of his goofy, supportive, loving smiles that lets him know he’s saying the right thing. And Bruce would do or say almost anything to garner one of Clark’s silly, loving smiles.
“Fine,” Jason says. He turns to Timothy. “Race you to the den. First one there gets to tell Dickhead that he can’t hold Little D until Papa or Dad’s there.”
Both boys are off and running before either Bruce or Clark can say anything about Jason’s language, or stop them.
“Looks like we need to get our butts in gear,” Clark says.
“If we don’t, Alfred will have us by our ears and drag us down,” Bruce says, shuddering at a childhood memory. He rubs his ear, and shakes his head.
“The boys won’t break Damian either,” Clark assures him.
“I don’t know about that,” Bruce says. When Clark raises an eyebrow, he elaborates, “My best friend, Tommy, and I got into all sorts of trouble when we were kids. I broke my collarbone on a dare, and he broke his arm when we thought that riding a cart down a hill would be fun.”
“So, you’re okay with the occasional broken bone?” Clark asks.
“Someone once told me that it was part of life,” Bruce teases.
“Hmm... I wonder who that was?” Clark says.
“He’s a big windbag, kind of a know it all,” Bruce says, and then he’s off and running, Clark chasing after him.
He’s not one hundred percent certain that he won’t break or damage Damian beyond repair, there’s nightmares to thank (in part) for that, but he is certain that, with Clark, Alfred and the boys by his side, as his family, he won’t mess up their son too terribly. When Clark catches him around the waist and pulls him into a searing kiss, the rest of the tension in his body melts away. He knows that, if nothing else, growing up in this home with this family, Damian will know real love. And that is more than enough to ensure that he will not be irreparably damaged.