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Part 7 of Restaurant AU
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2023-09-25
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2,733
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1/1
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bigger than the whole sky

Summary:

His entire back hurt, but it was a mild, pleasant pain that came after a successful day. Bruce was sweeping the floor, clutching the broom as if it was a cane, when the bell jingled.

"I'm sorry but we're closed," he said without looking up. "Come back again tomorrow, we're releasing a new breakfast dish."

"Bummer, I was really craving some fries."
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Robin Restaurant AU where Bruce finds out about Damian before he was born.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

It was Friday night, a few minutes after closing time. It had been a busy day, so busy that Bruce let Dick skip his homework in order to help, and when Wally stopped by and offered to help, too, when he witnessed the chaos, Bruce accepted, even though Alfred seemed displeased. 

His father called it child labour. Bruce called it unofficial work experience. Besides, neither of the boys minded. They got paid and were currently upstairs having a very late dinner of leftovers and playing video games. Bruce knew he shouldn't let Dick eat deserts again, but he could allow it just this once. 

His entire back hurt, but it was a mild, pleasant pain that came after a successful day. Bruce was sweeping the floor, clutching the broom as if it was a cane, when the bell jingled. 

"I'm sorry but we're closed," he said without looking up. "Come back again tomorrow, we're releasing a new breakfast dish."

"Bummer, I was really craving some fries."

Bruce froze in place. Slowly, he peeled his eyes off the tiles and looked at the door. Two familiar green eyes were looking back at him, her half-smile smug as ever, a hand resting on her hip.

She was wearing that huge turtleneck he had gotten her last Hanukkah, and her chin was burried in it just a touch. Her hair was down, spilling down her shoulders, a little longer than what he had last seen her with. 

He had to keep it together.

"Talia," he breathed. 

She nodded. "Beloved."

"What..." He shook his head, a small, curt move. "What are you doing here?"

Talia sighed as if they had had that conversation already. "We need to talk, B."

Bruce couldn't do anything but nod, and his ex-girlfriend walked in all the way, closing the door behind her and flipping the sign to closed. 

Talia sat in one of the booths, and gestured for Bruce to follow. 

He didn't. He was nervous already, and sitting still would only make it worse. 

"I'm not done here yet," he said. "Talk, I can hear you just as well."

Talia winced. "You might want to sit down for this."

Bruce didn't say anything but kept sweeping. 

Talia sighed, deeply, probably inhaling the maximum capacity of air her lungs could hold. Bruce only got more nervous. 

"I'm pregnant."

Bruce froze for the second time that night. He vaguely heard the broom collapsing on the floor and Talia chanting his name, but it was all jumbled in a faraway noise. He only came back to himself when Talia dragged him to the booth and splashed a glass of water on his face. 

"Hey!" Bruce complained but didn't move to wipe anything off. 

Talia's entire face was clouded with concern. "Look, I came here because I thought you can handle it, but, if it's a lot, I understand."

Bruce shook his head quickly. "No, no, just..." He rested his arms on top of the table and clutched his head between his hands. "Just give me a minute."

For a few moments, the droplets hitting the surface of the table as they slid down Bruce's nose and chin was the only sound heard.

"How far along are you?" Bruce managed to ask.

"Twenty five weeks," Talia announced, and there was excitement laced with the seriousness in her voice. 

Bruce lifted his gaze to look at her. "Six months." His heart started to race. "You knew about it when you broke up with me."

Talia's face scrunched in a pained expression.

Suddenly, Bruce felt like his feet weren't touching on the ground. "You broke up with me because you knew."

Talia only blinked.

"Tals, why?" Bruce breathed. "Is it... Did you think I wouldn't want it? Because I have a kid upstairs who's eating way too much sugar and won't sleep until 4 AM and I don't mind one bit."

In fact, he kind of liked it. Dick always hung out in Bruce's room when he was too restless to sleep and he didn't even demand Bruce's full attention, just his presence. He rambled on about whatever was on his mind, from the horrible new teacher and the comics he read to questions enough to cause existential crisis to an adult (Bruce was the adult). He paced back and forth, in a handstand more ofthen than not, and snuggled next to Bruce when he decided it was time to attempt sleep. The sounds of his Nintendo and his even breaths were the best background noise in the world. 

Talia crossed her hands on the table. "Beloved, I have a confession to make."

Bruce's jaw dropped. "Another one?"

Talia smiled for a second, amused, and then pressed her lips in a straight line. 

"My father... he's not a good person."

Bruce snorted. "I know. He's a sexist pig who would thinks he can dictate your life."

Talia slid a hand farther on the table, palm up, an invitation that Bruce could never deny. Electricity ran through him when her fingers wrapped around his and squeezed. 

"My father..." Talia began again. "He's kind of... sort of... a crime lord."

Bruce thought about it for a second. "Your father is running to be the mayor."

Talia nodded. "Correct."

Bruce let out a half-hearted laugh. "Yeah, that tracks."

Talia looked apologetic. "That's why I didn't want you to meet him. He still knows everything about you, but at least he thinks you were just a fling."

"Was I?"

But he knew the answer. He was hurt when she ended things and he swore up and down that he was just her taste of an average man rather than the CEOs and lawyers she usually dated, but even then he knew it wasn't true.

She was guarded at first, and Bruce thought he didn't trust his intentions, what with her used to being viewed as a stepping stone to get to her father. He could never understand how someone could spend five minutes with her and not fall in love. 

He had fallen hard. He was constantly high on all the happy hormones, his stomach a permanent residence for restless butterflies, his heart threatening to give out every time Talia so much as laid a finger on him. Soon, his shifts began and ended with her watching him work form the far end of the bar. Soon, she was staying over sometimes and Bruce was teaching Dick that he had to knock before letting himself in his room. Soon, they were all having dinner together and watching movies, and it was a little weird when he thought about it, that his father and his son were hanging out with him and his girlfriend, but he loved it. 

Bruce shut his eyes closed. "You don't have to answer that. Sorry. It's stupid."

Talia started to rub circles on his hand with her thumb. "I'm on vacation now, as far as the tabloids are concerned. I have been for a month, in fact, because even with the sweaters, I would start to show and Ra's would rather be caught dead than with a pregnant daughter with no one of"- Talia rolled her eyes- "societal value as her official partner, at least."

Bruce huffed. "He can drop dead for all I care."

He knew he shouldn't say that to Talia. She was allowed to call her father, for a lack of a more suitable word, whatever she wanted, and she did, usually with a warm cup of coffee in her hands and Bruce behind the counter. But, for reasons he couldn't begin to understand, she held some... not exactly love, but concern for him. Maybe losing her mother did that to her. 

Maybe Bruce would have seen the virtues in abusive relatives if they had decided to adopt him. 

"How are you?" he asked, taking both her hands in his. "How are you holding up?"

Talia smiled, albeit sad. "It's weird not having a job. It's just the two cases I had before the break, and that's it. I train more, but in a different style." Bruce frowned but she gave him a look. "It's that or exploding. And um... I'm looking into adoption."

Bruce blinked. "You're not..."

Talia shook her head, and suddenly her eyes looked glassy. "I can't. It was... It was this or a shotgun wedding with one of my father's asaociates' slimey sons. And I can't just leave, Bruce. You know that."

He knew, and he knew it wasn't because of whatever affection Talia might still have had for her father. Bruce bit the inside of his lips. His heart was racing, he could hear his own blood being pumped in and out. 

"I can't get custody of them?"

Upon seeing the tears pooling in Talia's eyes, his own stinging got more intense. She reached for a napkin, then gently dabbed the corners, and nodded. 

"It's why I'm here. It's just... you have a kid, I figured you would be okay with... I was hoping you would..."

Bruce got up from his seat and rushed to her side. She scooted a bit farther into her seat, and she was leaning against him just as he was wrapping his arms around her. His body was in overdrive, trying to process it all: Talia's head on his shoulder, his lips burried in her rich brown hair, their silent tears, the baby-

"Can I?" Bruce murmured, and his hand traveled down to her stomach. 

Talia let out a wet chuckle. "Sure."

Bruce's hand was shaking as he moved it a bit farther down. His fingers spread, covering as much area as he could, and it hit him way too suddenly: under the soft fabric of the jumper, safely kept in his mother's belly, was his kid. 

He must have tensed, because Talia put her hand on top of his. The warmth grounded him. 

"Don't be scared, Beloved. I'm not made of glass."

Bruce let out a small laugh despite feeling like he would pass out any moment now. He explored the bump with Talia's guidance, and he couldn't fight the rush of excitement. It was all squishy and, realistically, he knew all he felt was skin, but somehow he could feel the baby, too. 

"Hi," he stammered, feeling awkward as he stared adoringly at the bump from over Talia's shoulder. "I'm your dad. We're all looking for to meeting you."

It came out so formal, and there were a milion things he wanted to say, but his brain felt just as squishy, a useless mass of neurons. It's okay. I'll have so many more chances to talk to them, he thought.

"Do you hear that, habibi?" Talia said, her voice sweeter than Bruce had ever heard it. 

And if he thought how it was almost just as sweet a year ago, when they were running under his jacket from the restaurant to her car with their feet swimming in their shoes, with paparazzi following them even with the rain, he kept it to himself. And if his heart warmed with the memory of her laughter when he couldn't handle the spices and the way God, I love you rolled off her breath like she'd said it a million times before, and him knowing it was true and saying it back without a hint of hesitation, he didn't say it.

But he remembered it. 

And maybe the baby could sense him, too, after all because just when Bruce was relaxing in the touch, he felt it. 

A kick.

His heart stopped for a second. 

"He likes it when I talk to him," Talia said fondly. "Even though he must have just started hearing me."

"Yeah, they start hearing outside noises at twenty seven weeks, but maybe he already could..." Bruce paused. "He's a boy."

Talia shifted so she could look at him. "Yeah, looks like it."

"I want to come to your next appointment," Bruce blurted out. "I- I'm sorry but... I've missed so many, if-if I put on a cap or something-"

Talia smiled. "We can arrange it. We'll find a way." 

"Tals, I..." I wish we could have done this together. I wish I was there for you all these months. I love you. "I want to help you, anyway I can."

Talia nodded, eyes watery all over again. Her gaze travelled to the table. "Yeah uh..." Her voice broke. "Uh... in that case, I really was craving these fries."

Bruce squeezed her shoulder. "Coming right up."

He hadn't ever cried while frying before.

Damian Wayne was born on a sunny day in late May. He was a healthy baby, with powerful lungs and his mother's striking green eyes. 

Bruce was there when his boy first saw the world. Or rather, the delivery room. There was chaos around them, but they stole a few quiet moments, just the three of them. Bruce would think about these moments a lot. 

In the back of the taxi, with Damian bundled up in bright yellow blankets and a bag full of supplies to take care of him, Bruce had never felt more unqualified but ready. He had to be. 

When the door to the apartment clicked open, fast, familiar footsteps echoed in the room. 

"He's here!" Dick announced with a smile of ten milion megawatts. "Alfred, he's here!"

Bruce couldn't help but laugh as he stepped into the living room and sat down on the couch, painfully aware of his every move. No matter how much the nurses showed him, he was scared he would miscalculate and hurt Damian.

Dick jumped next to them, and Alfred appeared right by his side. 

"I can't wait for him to grow up," Dick said, the excitement clear in his voice. "He's going to be the best little brother in the world."

"He's perfect, Bruce," the old man said.

Bruce smiled. "Yeah, he is."

And it didn't matter that in the months that followed he felt like giving up. It didn't matter that there were nights when he didn't sleep a blink, when his sweet Damian wailed for hours, even though he was bathed and clean and fed, not too warm and not too cold. It didn't matter that he cried along because he missed Talia just as much as his baby did. It didn't matter because Damian was worth it. 

Dick bad-mouthed her without shame. It was as if he forgot their time together back when. Alfred fell silent whenever, these handful of times, Bruce brought her up. Clark, Lois, and Diana listened, and Clark was the only one who gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Bruce sent her pictures. Talia neved replied. 

He had told her she could come by anytime, of course he had. She had promised she would. Not even a month later, she was abroad. Bruce didn't know if it was her choice or not. He knew that he didn't want to know. Talia Al Ghul takes over Al Ghul Enterprises, every news outlet announced a Tuesday in September. 

Damian and Dick were growing up far too fast for his liking. Before he knew it, Damian was walking and Bruce was showing Dick how to shave, for real this time and not the pretend routine his oldest followed when he wanted to be just like him. Clark and Lois had another baby of their own, and Dick was letting Conner in on all the things big brothers were supposed fo know. Damian, at three years old, was equal parts amazed by Jon and confused when he didn't reply or pay attention to his favorite cartoons.

A cold day in October, a scrawny kid with the most determined stare was at the back of the diner, balancing on a dumpster. He pushed Bruce away when he lifted him up and, even though his stomach was rumbling, it took twenty minutes to convince him to come in for a meal. Bruce never even had a chance at not loving him.

That same night, mere hours after Jason had settled in Dick's bed and Damian had stopped pestering him to play, Bruce almost had a heart attack. 

He was barely awake when he registered Talia in his room, holding a sleeping Damian tight in her arms. The glare in her eyes screamed murder. 

"They're trafficking kids. They're trafficking literal kids and he lets them," she said, her voice shaking with anger. "I will end them."

Notes:

The reason why Dick and Jason won't get along in the beginning in this universe: Damian gets attached to Jason and Dick is jealous

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