I just realised I never explained it.
(tw: mention of cancer. Bruce has Google-like medical knowledge. Lmk if need to add)
He is the dark knight of Gotham.
Batman is superior to mortal concepts of fear, or worrying, or anything but the cold dedication of his mission. Not even pain could stop him.
Bruce is human, even if he questioned it multiple times. Even as he uses the ways he is different, the ways he's always been different, to make people think he isn't human.
(Just like he used to think, before he found The Planet and the bunch of weirdos and a name, for once, and not feeling so alone so wrong anymore.)
Bruce is human, even if he struggles with the way others seems to think. Just because he can't name it, doesn't mean he is never consumed by the overwhelming FEELINGS, like a caged wolf. Just because his brain doesn't process pain properly, doesn't mean he isn't hurt.
And when he gets the phone call from his son kid, his little boy, it feels like he never left the abyss.
"B," the child on the phone panic. "B, am I going to die?"
No, screams the eight years old inside. No, not again.
And he's holding three pearls in his palm and he's covered in a heavy blanket cape and he keep his voice calm as he asks the dear child to describe everything that happend before he looked down and saw blood in the toilet.
"It's going to be okay, chum," he says calmly. "I promise."
(He never said this to the people he saved. He never make promises he can't fulfil himself. But this is a promise he'll keep. Come hell or high water, he'll make Constantine take him fight heaven and hell if that what it would take.)
"Did you get hurt today? Maybe something hit your kidney?" He questions the kid. "I won't be mad if you got into a fight, chum. But I need to know if we should call Leslie or an ambulance."
"Ambulance? I don't want ambulance!" The kid is now crying. "I thought it's just something that happens when you grow. What is it?"
"The medical term is Hematuria," Bruce fills him up as he think out loud. "Possible reasons are problem in your kidneys or other parts of the urinary tract, like injuries, infection, blood clot, glomerulonephritis, cancer—"
"NO! YOU TAKE THAT BACK! I DON'T WANT TO HAVE CANCER," Dickie cries on the phone. "I can't kill Tony Zucco if I have cancer."
"You can't keep kill Zucco," Bruce tries.
"Nuh-uh!" Sick stops crying. "I have cancer! You need to be nice to me because I'm going to die. And I get a wish because I have cancer. So I want to be Robin and kill Zucco and you can't tell me no!"
Bruce is pretty sure this isn't how it works.
But Dick stopped crying. So he let it be.
"I'm going to draw my costume so when you come back we can make it," the kid says and hang up on him.
But he has a kid to save.
How do one even starts looking for it?
If only there was a reliable person he can ask about raising a child. And maybe get some advices about how to prevent him from being a teen vigilante...
Someone with experience of raising a kid with unique talent, that can get out of the house no matter what...
And so the dark knight disappeared into the shadows, tracking down Superman in order to get any information contact ot the only person that could help him now:
In which we have autistic Battinson (but that's cannon), Dick is a drama queen, Alfred is not here TM
and asking Bruce about medical information is like asking Google (don't do that).
I don't know if you have/know toddlers, but where I grew up every year some parents got freaked out at their baby's first week in daycare, when they changed the diaper and saw blood in it.
Spoiler: bitterroot can make urine red/purple. (And so do some other things.)
As a new parent, I decided B has to go through this jump scare.
