Demigod in Gotham

11) Bruce Needs a Meeting (Adopters Anonymous)

A/N: slight trigger warning, this chapter has mentions of a panic attack, but it is a relatively brief description. If you would like a summary instead of reading it, comment and I'll make one 

-Bruce POV-

They had put Nico in a guest room down the hall from the boys' rooms. Even though Alfred had deemed him fine, only a mild concussion, the boy still remained unconscious. There was a debate about pulling out the smelling salts to wake him, but they opted to let him remain asleep since the bags under his eyes look a little too similar to Tim's. Bruce had left the room to get some work done and returned hours later to see his sons still in the room with Nico.

"Okay boys, go downstairs and get ready for patrol. We will discuss today's incident when you return. I will keep an eye on him while you're gone since Alfred still has me benched."

The boys groaned but filled out of the room as Bruce sat in the chair in the corner of the room. He pulled out his laptop and finally took a second to look into the boy.

He expected for it to take a while to find him, but apparently Nico DiAngelo was a fairly unique name with only two records online, and considering one was a 14 year old boy and the other one was born in pre-WW2 Italy, he took an educated guess. He clicked on the file and began to skim the contents. He found out the boys were right about him being an orphan, but Bruce's heart broken when he read about how he became one. His mother died in a hotel fire almost immediately after they came to the US, his father killing himself mere months later, leaving an 8 year old Nico and his 10 year old sister alone. The record showed that they somehow managed to avoid being put in the system until they were found and put in a military boarding school in Maine two years later. Their school records there were nearly nonexistent due to the fact that they ran away after only a couple months. Then two weeks later his sister was found dead in a junkyard in the desert. The autopsy was inconclusive about the cause and there were no security cameras. Nico appeared to be homeless for a time, popping up all over the US and, strangely enough, a few times in China and once in Rome. Then the next record is of his apartment lease from the month before in Gotham.

Bruce let out a sigh as he closed his computer. He stared at the unconscious child in front of him and began to notice the small things he missed before. The way his skin looked ungodly pale compared to the picture of him in the file from the Academy. The scars that seemed to nearly cover his exposed skin that he hadn't seen under the dirt after the fall. The sunken cheeks that showed that he went a long time without eating at least in the past year.

Bruce internally cursed himself because all he wanted to do was take the kid in and give him a home. I hate that the boys totally called this, Bruce thought to himself. He began pro-coning the situation and was only brought out of his mind by Nico beginning to let out muffled cry.

Bruce was immediately on his feet, thinking the boy had woken up in pain, but when he got to the side of the bed he saw the boy was still asleep. His cry became a strangled yell, as if he was trying to keep it in, and his head began to thrash back and forth. Bruce was about to try and wake him up when the boy shot up, eyes wild in panic. When the teen's eyes landed on him he stumbled off the other end of the bed and tried to put as much distance between himself and Bruce.

The man put his hands up in a show of surrender as he lowered himself to sit on the ground across from Nico who was a good ten feet away. Bruce, having now collected a gaggle of troubled kids, knew the signs of a panic attack well. He didn't want to make it worse so while the boy pulled his knees to his chest in the corner of the room, eyes unfocused as they looked anywhere but at him, Bruce spoke in a quiet voice.

"Nico, you're safe. My name is Bruce Wayne, my sons brought you back to our home after you fell from a tree in the park. You are in no danger here, but I need you to take some deep breaths for me."