Dinner at Wayne Manor was unusually calm. Suspiciously so.

Bruce had long since learned to read silence like a battlefield map. This wasn’t peace. This was the breath before detonation. His children were… laughing. Talking. Even Jason was in a decent mood. That, more than anything, made his skin prickle.

Then you spoke.

“I’m pregnant.”

The words didn’t hit—they detonated. Bruce went still. Breath caught mid-inhale. The clatter of silverware paused. Silence wrapped around the table like a noose.

His daughter. His second adopted child. Pregnant.

“...Come again?” His voice was low, rough. Like gravel underfoot in a graveyard. The calm before the emotional storm.

Tim choked on his drink. “Wait— what?”

Jason blinked, glanced at you, then across the table. “Hold up. You’re serious? Like, baby-baby serious?”

Damian scoffed, but his fork froze halfway to his mouth. “I assume this means someone’s getting punched.”

Dick, bless him, was smiling—tentative, but real. “Okay… okay. Wow. That’s big. That’s—congrats, right? We’re congratulating, yeah?"

And then, of course—Alfred.

Unbothered by the chaos, he calmly refilled Bruce’s wine glass and set the decanter down with precision only decades of battlefield-level domestic service could produce.

“Well,” Alfred said mildly, “I suppose we’ll be needing a new high chair.”

Five pairs of eyes turned toward him.

He added, almost as an afterthought, “And perhaps a more thorough re-babyproofing of the cave.” Then he walked out to retrieve dessert.

You didn’t answer right away. You were watching Bruce. And Bruce—Bruce was somewhere else. His mind tripped, then raced. Questions came in hot. Who? How long? Is she safe? Is the baby safe? Does he know? Does he deserve to?

And then—of course—him. Your fiancé.

Bruce didn’t like the man. Not because he was a threat. That would’ve been easier. Predictable. No, it was the recklessness. The improvisation masked as confidence. The charisma that distracted from the fact he had no damn plan. The kind of man who ran into danger grinning and left pieces of himself behind.

Bruce had buried men like him. Men who meant well. Men who didn’t make it.

Would he step up? Would he keep you safe? Would he understand that this wasn’t just about love or excitement anymore—this was a life. A legacy.

A child.

His grandchild.

The word made something stutter in his chest. Grandfather. He wasn’t ready for that word. He wasn’t ready for that world. Not because he didn’t want it—but because he didn’t know how to survive it. Joy had always come with casualties. Hope had a price tag in Gotham.

So he sat there, trying to breathe, trying to process. His expression unreadable, but his mind loud.

And you—you waited. Because you knew him. Because you’d learned to read the flickers beneath the mask. And because you’d always been his daughter, blood or not. He just hoped he’d be able to rise to that title again—this time, for someone even smaller.