It takes a few days for the thought to crystallize, past the unsteadiness of shock. For his normally brilliant mind to start making connections again. Chaotic. Fae-like. His⌠His Father was unchanged. A man forever trapped in time, yet free from that terrible alleyway in a way Bruce still isnât. But the CHILD?
It brings to mind the old tales of changeling. Fae children left where human children were taken from. Or perhaps, like cuckoo birds, fae children who steal a human childâs place. It was⌠It was seeing himself replaced. His father laughing, playing, unknowing in his adoration of what he believed was his son. The child in Bruce had screamed in horror.
The man in Bruce knows his Father is not unknowing.
At least⌠he desperately hopes so. It is impossible to tell yet what the ghost of Thomas Wayne is actually SEEING. The world as it is? As it was? Something else, beyond Bruceâs human sight? Heâll need Constantineâs help. Everything in him is trying to fight calling him.
It takes all his strength just to say the words out loud. To ask Clark for help, all the way over in Metropolis City, but Bruce⌠he canât. He canât. He searches the city for signs of his Mother. Like everyone else looking finds nothing. Was she not worthy of a return? Did she not earn some impossible goodbye?
What God would separate his parents? Would cruelly tear them from each otherâs arms? Is his Father looking for her? For him? He found him. Is it now his wife he searches the streets for? Imagining her around the next street corner, some function or charity, a dear friends house for a chat?
Or was he pulled back by the Fae Child. Yanked from his rightful sleep, to play house, by the willful demands of a magically powerful child? Did he stand above his grave and wonder where he was? One moment trying desperately to protect his family, the next a graveyard? The world changed. The endless questions haunt Bruce.
Ha. âHauntâ. Heâs begun to hate that word. Trapped. His Father isnât âhauntingâ anything. His Father has been TRAPPED by this city and a child that Shape-shifts like water flows. Has Gotham not asked enough from his parents? Did they not already pay, for the crime of caring, in blood? Behind him Damian is less practicing his stances, as he is wrathfully hacking away at a training dummy.
Bruce continues to type at the bat-computer, gives him his privacy as he works through his emotions. The disrespect to his grandfatherâs spirit. The lose and hurt he is feeling. Damian has never gotten to even meet Thomas Wayne. Known him only as stories and other peopleâs memories. Paintings upon walls. Old journals.
Beautiful but empty things.
The spaces outlining where a man once stood. A great man. A kind one. One who would have loved him fiercely and been endlessly proud to call him his grandson. One he now sees played a puppet along the filthy streets he died on. Sees at the mercy of forces unknown, to ends unknowable.
Who sees it hurting his family.
Alfred is nearly a ghost himself these days. He has caught him staring at his parentâs portrait so many times. A truly lost expression on the manâs face. When he had thought it a hoax he had been offended but now that it⌠it is likely REAL? There were so many things left unsaid. Things they wished they could share with his parents.
His Father⌠He had told him he had done a good job. The look on his face excited and melancholy like he was remembering the escapades of Bruceâs youth. When mastering something meant then turning around to show off to his parentâs. Was he proud? Is he?
Bruce is afraid to ask. Afraid to know.
But he will not let his Father be trapped in the city that killed him. Cursed to wander the city of curses. For all he loved this city, Thomas Wayne earned a peaceful rest. Deserved to sleep along side the wife who he loves and loves him more than anything but their son. To dream of dancing and stars and peaceful afternoons, in whatever comes after. Not this. His Father does not deserve this. And Bruce?
He is going to make this right.
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