de-aged bruce wayne but he's in his training years, a young twenty-something and, and oh god, he's talking about what he'll do after. he's (comparatively) bright-eyed and his intense passion is more blazing than dark and imposing, and he wrinkles his nose in playful distaste, and he makes sly jokes, and he offers small smiles, and, and, and he believes he'll live to see an after.
dick has to put his head in his hands, after bruce tells him he wants to travel the world again, peacefully, when his job in gotham is done. tim is quick to reach for the ginger-ale for the nausea rolling in his gut as bruce is hopeful about going to med school, of saving people with gentle hands. jason finds himself in that alley after bruce describes his dream for the people of park row, not crime alley, park row. he doesn't leave for a long, long time. damian goes to spar but ends up just sitting at the mats, staring off into nothing, after bruce shyly mentions a beautiful woman he wants to settle down with. cass tries to go to sleep and forget the hope emanating from bruce, hope and conviction and (comparatively) none of the weary resolution or thick self-hatred that she and bruce knew all too well, when he speaks of the milestone that will let him know he can be stop, a soldier dreaming of a declaration of peace.
they didn't know batman was supposed to be temporary. they didn't know bruce started this with the intention of stopping, because they bruce they all knew would never stop. they didn't know he never intended to sign the rest of his life to this, this violent duty that stretched him thin between gotham and wayne charities and the justice league.
they didn't know, or perhaps just forgot, that their dad used to want more from life than just mission objectives.
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