thinkmarkthink

[thinkmarkthink]

The manor is sleepless. Always has been, always will be. At two in the morning, Bruce finds Clark in the kitchen, of all places, making pancakes with the kind of concentration usually reserved for emergencies. Clark explains, sheepishly, that sometimes he craves breakfast for dinner, that it’s a habit from childhood. Bruce only stares at the way Clark flips the batter—casual, practiced, domestic—as if it were an intimacy far too dangerous to witness.

He says nothing, but sits anyway, watches Clark hum tunelessly, watches butter melt and syrup pool, and thinks, traitorously: this is more dangerous than any rooftop, any battle. Because a man who could turn the night into comfort is far harder to guard against than one who could split the earth in half.

[thinkmarkthink]

The café is all sunlight and low chatter, cats like spilled shadows draped across bookshelves. Damian picked the place. He insists it’s for enrichment. And Damian refuses to go anywhere that doesn’t serve animals alongside tea. In a vegan way.

So: cat café. Pastel-painted walls, shelves staggered like jungle gyms, the smell of espresso tangled with fur.

The cats swarm Bruce immediately. He doesn’t call them, doesn’t even crouch down. They just… collect. One on his lap. One draped across his shoulders. A tabby tucked under his chin like a scarf. He simply endures the slow accumulation of fur and warmth until he resembles a throne for creatures that, apparently, find him sovereign.

Meanwhile Clark sits, hands politely folded, the picture of Midwest patience. Not a single cat approaches. One hisses when he reaches out. Another flattens its ears and bolts. He offers a hand. A calico inspects, then retreats. Another makes a low, displeased sound before springing away. He laughs, uncertain, then stops when the laughter feels too loud.

“They know,” Damian says darkly, sipping his tea.

“They know what?”

“They can smell you,” Damian says with the solemnity of science. “They know you are not of this world.”

Clark blinks. “I—what? I love cats.”

Jason smirks over his Meowcchiato. “Don’t take it personally, Big Blue. Cats don’t trust you. Probably ‘cause you smell… wrong. Alien funk or something.”

Clark blinks at him, genuinely affronted. “Excuse me? I smell incredible. I’m wearing Initio Absolute Aphrodisiac.”

He gets a Wayne look.

“It was a Secret Santa gift,” Clark mutters, defensive now.

“It smells nice, Sunshine. Tangy, but nice.” Bruce tries to reassure, patting Clark’s thigh.

Clark pouts. “Tangy? Tangy?! I paid attention to the notes. This is sophisticated. Subtle cedar, hints of vanilla, musk—”

“Gross.” Damian rolls his eyes, letting the cat lick the cream from his Hot Catolate. He tilts his teacup, eyes narrowing as a Maine Coon pads past Bruce’s lap and inspects his shoulder. “Cats prefer warmth, predictability, and low-level dominance,” Damian informs . “They recognize leadership and comfort as nonverbal signals. Bruce exhibits both, which is why they cluster.”

Clark shifts uneasily, still trying to adjust the kitten kneading his lap without disturbing it. “So… if I just, uh, act confident, they’ll…?”

“No. You will remain an anomaly,” Damian says, voice flat. “Your scent confuses their olfactory sense. You exude… interstellar ambiguity. It is instinctual. They cannot trust you.”

Before anyone can respond, the door opens. Dick steps in, arms full of tote bags, hair still damp from rain, energy uncontained. Instantly, cats erupt from every corner of the café, converging on him with zero subtlety. One leaps onto his shoulder. Another wraps around his ankle. A third attempts a climb up his back.

“This is so unfair,” Clark mutters, voice low enough that only Damian and Jason can hear. “I’m literally trying and he just… walks in and—oh no, he’s laughing! Why is he laughing?!”

“Oh no! No, no! Get off! They’re—oh God, they’re pissing on me! I can’t—somebody—help!” Dick screams. “DAD!”

[thinkmarkthink]

Steph talks when she’s nervous. Cass doesn’t mind. Words are just air. It’s the hands that matter.

“Okay,” Steph says, dragging the brush through her own hair first. “So it’s like: section, cross, hold, repeat. Try it.”

Cass nods, serious. She’s fought trained mercenaries. She’s killed men. This is harder.

The first braid is crooked. The second is tighter. The third makes Steph say, “Whoa, okay, that’s kind of incredible actually.”

Cass watches her in the mirror. Steph looks pleased, almost bashful. Like someone who has never once been handled gently but is trying to pretend it’s normal.

Cass has felt her heartbeat in battle. Now she feels it in her hands.

Steph leans back into the touch without thinking.

Cass braids again.

[thinkmarkthink]

There’s a rhythm to patrol when it’s just the two of them: the scrape of boots against rooftop gravel, the almost-silent rush of a cape catching the wind. Bruce doesn’t speak unless necessary, and Clark, who could fill every silence with warmth, respects this. But his respect is infuriating, because it’s too gentle—he adjusts his flight speed to match Bruce’s grappling arcs, hovers close enough that the air displacement rustles Bruce’s hair. It feels like attention disguised as restraint.

Bruce won’t say a word, because naming it would make it real. Clark won’t push, because he knows—he always knows—that Bruce’s silences are not empty, they are prisons, and that any key offered too quickly would only snap in the lock.

[thinkmarkthink]

The kitchen is too loud.

Dick is singing something off-key from the 2000s, flipping pancakes in a pan that he’s definitely about to burn. Damian is arguing with Tim about the correct temperature for storing eggs. Jason has just opened the fridge and declared they’re out of “the good kind” of milk, which he refuses to define.

Stephanie and Cass are painting glitter on each other’s nails at the table. Cass does not flinch when Steph spills. Duke is sitting cross-legged on the counter eating cereal out of a measuring cup.

Bruce, standing in the doorway, has not yet been noticed. He doesn’t know how to enter this scene.

He was supposed to be reviewing mission footage. He meant to be upstairs for ten minutes. The house wasn’t like this when he left it.

Now—sunlight. Laughter. Shoes on the counter. Someone left the window open and Alfred is going to be livid. There’s a trail of muddy bootprints across the tile from where Damian brought the goat in last night (long story, not relevant). It smells like cinnamon and acetone and home.

Dick catches sight of him first. “Bruce!” he beams. “Want a pancake?”

Bruce blinks.

Cass waves at him, glittery. Jason, at the sink, mutters something about “old man caffeine dependency” and slides him a mug of coffee. There is exactly one sip left in it. Bruce takes it without speaking.

There is no mission. No costume. No emergency. Just…this.

He should go.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he leans against the counter, lets the noise wash over him. Listens to Damian yell “YOU CAN’T MICROWAVE EGGS,” and Stephanie reply “It’s called innovation, baby,” and Tim mutter “we’re going to die.”

Somewhere beneath the chaos, he feels it: that ache of love that comes not all at once, but slowly. Like sunlight inching across cold stone.

It is Sunday, 11:47 a.m.

They are alive.

[thinkmarkthink]

The greenhouse is quiet. Not silent, because nothing living is ever truly silent. There’s the hum of heat lamps, the breath of humid air. Somewhere outside, one of the goats bleats. Damian adjusts the pH of the irrigation line like a surgeon rebalancing a heart.

“You’ve overwatered the arugula,” Alfred says mildly.

“I tested it,” Damian retorts. He has dirt under his fingernails and a smudge on his cheekbone, like a boy. Not a soldier.

Alfred kneels beside him anyway, thinning seedlings with a practiced hand. “And yet,” he says, “the roots disagree.”

They don’t speak for a while. Damian works. Alfred trims basil. When the silence becomes comfortable, Alfred says, “Your father never learned the difference between parsley and cilantro.”

Damian doesn’t look up, but he smiles.

[thinkmarkthink]

my dear friend just looked up from the hat she's crocheting for a very large spherical rock we found in the river and said, in a slightly haunted tone that revealed this was the first time she was having this thought, "i should make something for my cousin's real human baby"

[thinkmarkthink]

When Clark said “he’s not even a very good dog but he’s all alone and he’s probably scared so i have to go get him” I was so happy because someone in that writers room truly understands superman better than we’ve seen in a long time. This is the essence of superman - that every living being deserves kindness and empathy and love simply because they are alive. Clark is the kind of guy who’d cry when he got stung by a bee not because it hurt but because the bee died when it stung him and someone in the writers room knew that and made sure it came through.

[thinkmarkthink]

It’s 3:26 a.m. when they limp into the kitchen like survivors of a small war.

Bruce has a black eye and the kind of quiet, shell-shocked silence that means something exploded too close to his ribs.

Jason’s bleeding from the ear. Steph smells like ozone. Tim’s limping. Damian is half-hissing, half-muttering at Duke, who has a taser burn through his cape.

Cass, somehow unbothered, makes a beeline for the freezer.

Opens it. Pauses. Pulls out the cake.

The cake has been there for weeks. No one knows who started it.

It is labeled, in Tim’s handwriting, with a sticky note that reads:

DO NOT EAT unless one of us dies or Alfred says we can.

There’s only one clean fork. Steph finds it in the drawer with a victorious noise.

They pass it around like a chalice.

No plates. No dignity. Just bite, pass, bite, pass. It’s stale, but chocolate.

Alfred enters the kitchen with a dishrag and a first-aid kit. Stops short.

He stares.

“I see the apocalypse has come at last.”

Jason, mid-bite, shrugs. “Emergency protocol.”

Alfred sighs. Picks up the hydrogen peroxide. Begins dabbing at Bruce’s temple with all the gentleness of a battlefield medic who’s done this too many times.

“I could have made a fresh one,” he mutters.

“No time,” says Steph, licking chocolate off her knuckles. “Urgent morale crisis.”

Cass hands Damian the fork. He takes a cautious bite. Says nothing.

Then passes it to Duke.

Alfred finishes cleaning up Bruce, turns to Jason, and raises a brow.

“You are dripping gateau on the tile.”

“Worth it,” Jason says.

There is no arguing with them when they’re like this.

So Alfred merely shakes his head, pours himself a cup of tea, and sits.

Watches them devour cake and blood and silence and each other’s company like something holy.

Later, when they’re all bandaged and yawning, Alfred tucks the empty box away.

Just in case they need another one.

[thinkmarkthink]

The lesson was Alfred’s idea, naturally.

“One cannot evade galas forever, Master Damian,” he said, laying out the polished oak ballroom floor with the same clinical exactness he applied to bullet wounds and broken ribs. “The League may have taught you ten ways to strangle a man with piano wire, but I very much doubt you know how to lead in 3/4 time.”

So: the Batkids are being taught to waltz.

Dick is overly enthusiastic, as always, spinning Stephanie in exaggerated circles that make Cass laugh from the sidelines. Tim pretends to be above it all but corrects people’s posture anyway. Damian glares at every hand extended in his direction, as if touch were a personal insult, and Jason tries to dip Alfred, who laughs loudly.

Bruce is not participating. Which is expected.

Clark is present. Which is not.

He’s just there. Quiet in the corner in a black sweater, sipping coffee with the manner of someone who’s been invited but not necessarily welcomed, though no one’s asked him to leave. He’s watching, not in the way Bruce watches—calculating, hypervigilant—but like he’s collecting a moment he wants to remember. Which is, in some ways, worse.

Bruce doesn’t dance. Not with them. Not in public. Not when he can help it.

He did once, long ago. Cotillions, charity balls, UN receptions. The first time Clark saw him waltz was in Vienna—Bruce in a tailored suit, whispering into the ear of a war criminal’s daughter while pulling intel off a blood diamond broker. It was surgical. Elegant. Seduction as espionage.

So Clark knows Bruce can dance. He also knows he chooses not to. Especially now.

So when Alfred turns to him and says, “Master Bruce, you are hardly exempt,” it is a test, not a suggestion.

Bruce says nothing. His mouth draws into that tight, unreadable line he always uses when something hurts.

Clark watches him.

And—maybe it’s habit, or pity, or the particular brand of grief that attaches itself to old friendships—but Clark steps forward, sets down the mug, and says, without bravado:

“I’ll lead.”

It’s half-offer, half-olive branch.

Bruce does not move.

Not at first.

But then: a breath. A shift. And slowly, as if surrendering to something inevitable, he places his hand in Clark’s.

The music restarts. Something slow, formal. Chopin or Strauss, probably. Clark doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is Bruce’s hand in his—warm, calloused, very still. His shoulder under Clark’s palm, tense like a coiled spring. His chest barely moving, like he’s not breathing.

Clark leads cautiously. He’s terrified of stepping wrong, of pressing too hard. Bruce is the one person he can’t afford to misstep with. But Bruce doesn’t flinch. He lets Clark steer. One step, then another. Slowly, they begin to move. Despite Clark’s slight clumsiness.

The children go quiet.

Not mockingly—just watching.

Even Damian says nothing.

Around them, the manor hums. Rain taps the windows. The grandfather clock ticks, unrelenting. The ballroom is warm.

Clark thinks: this is the most contact Bruce has allowed in weeks.

Bruce thinks: this is the most I’ve wanted to be touched in years.

They complete one turn around the floor. Then another. Neither speaks.

Then, at last, Bruce pulls away. Carefully. The moment ends.

He leaves the room without a word.

Clark exhales, still holding the shape of him.

And Alfred—who has seen wars, weddings, and every kind of grief known to man—clears his throat, dusts his lapel, and says simply:

“Begin again, please. From the top. Miss Stephanie, lead Richard.”

[thinkmarkthink]

Screaming crying throwing up at your batfam/superbat nibbles. They're so precious 😭😭💚

Thank you very much! 😇

[thinkmarkthink]

who's viktor and why do you keep saying you want to peg him?

[thinkmarkthink]

also can you do a jeremiah fisher/Theodore (from the chipmunks) fic?

Sure!!!! 😝

[thinkmarkthink]

Damian has labeled every plant in the manor.

Latin name, care instructions, feeding schedule. If one dies, he grieves it quietly and Alfred replaces it within 48 hours. There’s a small memorial in the garden labeled “Alfred the Fern.”

[thinkmarkthink]

Cass uses body language to lie for fun.

She’s perfectly fluent in deception. If someone asks her if she saw Jason steal the Batmobile, she’ll blink innocently, tilt her head just so, and Bruce will be like “Clearly not. Case closed.”

Jason owes her five movie nights and a milkshake per false alibi.

[thinkmarkthink]

Clark Kent has no idea how many kids Bruce has.

He asks once and Bruce goes “A few.” Dick says “Seven.” Tim says “Don’t worry about it.” Jason says “Too many.”

Clark just starts sending Christmas presents to “Wayne, assorted.”

(Alfred makes sure everyone gets one. Even the Batcow.)

[thinkmarkthink]

Tim finds it first. A file labeled Kal-El buried in the Batcomputer.

Photos. Flight patterns. Heat vision signatures. Public vulnerabilities. Private ones.

And a second file. Encrypted.

Tim opens it. Inside:

• Clark’s Earth wedding vows (transcribed from memory)

• A picture from the Watchtower of Clark laughing, backlit by stars

• A single audio clip labeled Heartbeat

Tim blinks. Frowns.

Doesn’t tell anyone.

But when he passes Clark next, he says, “He cares. A lot. Even if he catalogues it like a psychopath.”

Clark smiles. Just a little.