Chapter Text
As Bruce settled more fully into the chair, there was a knocking at the office door. Looking up from another stack of forms demanding his signature, he called out for whoever it was at the door. "Come in!"
He'd expected Alfred, not Colin, and surely not Colin with something suspiciously like anxiety all over his face.
"Am I interrupting?" the boy asked quietly, still hovering by the door.
"No," Bruce was quick to answer, "not at all." He took in the papers before him on the desk and then looked back over at Colin. "Just some paperwork. Nothing that can't wait."
Colin nodded seriously, his eyes dropping down to stare at the floor or his own shoes or a chair leg, anywhere but at Bruce. And while he seemed distinctly nervous, he wasn't exactly fearful, which Bruce took for a good sign.
"Colin," he finally said, after another minute passed in awkward silence, "is there something you wanted to speak to me about?" The boy's head came up and Bruce continued. "You're welcome to just sit and stay if you're looking for company, but I don't get the impression that's why you're really here." He quirked his lips at the end, trying to lighten the mood.
Colin quirked his own lips back at him and then moved forward to sit in the chair across the desk from Bruce. He was making eye contact again and his expression looked calmer, but Colin's hands were also fidgeting in his lap, although that wasn't necessarily indicative of anything. Some people always fidgeted, and with some it was only when they didn't that it was cause for concern. Perhaps Colin's hands always fidgeted. Bruce couldn't honestly say definitively one way or the other; he just didn't know the kid that well.
"I wanted to– what I came here for– I mean- " Colin started, in a tight voice and with repeated stops and corrections. "What I mean to say is, thank you," he finally got out. Color appeared on his cheeks as he blushed. Bruce tried not to look amused.
Instead, he nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging way and just waited for Colin to finish getting off his chest whatever it was that was so obviously bugging him.
"You've been really nice. You've helped us a lot, and I- I- " Colin dropped his head down again. He visibly took a deep breath and then said in a clear voice, "I've been awful to you. Back in Metropolis, you came to help, and you have, and I've just been—just a jerk." Another sigh.
Bruce waited, but Colin seemed at a standstill, so he cleared his throat to get the boy's attention. Sure enough, those eyes locked on his and Bruce tried for an easy smile. Something open.
It felt weird.
"You weren't that bad," he said, "and I understood. A lot has happened." Bruce paused, raised his eyebrows and held on to Colin's eyes. "No one expects you to be perfect or on your best behavior, certainly me least of all. You were upset; you still are. This place, this city, this house: all of it's unfamiliar and unsettling and that's putting it—mildly."
Colin smiled at that, humorlessly and bitterly, but a smile nonetheless.
"I'm still sorry though," Colin said. "You didn't deserve that, didn't- it wasn't- I didn't mean it towards you," he eventually said, quite loudly in fact, and looking somewhat shocked at the words once he'd finished, but he'd rallied again. Bruce had to hand it to him; Colin was no coward. He'd come here to apologize apparently and so far hadn't backed down, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable or even painful it must've been for him. Hell, this was weird for Bruce, and he was on the other side of things. Colin was, and always had been, right in the middle of it.
"I know you didn't," Bruce told him quietly, "and that's why no apology is necessary. Not to me."
But the boy just shook his head, seeming angry all of a sudden. "You keep saying that: 'not to me,' " he parroted back. "What's that supposed to mean? Not to you, but to someone else? Never to you? I was an ass, and the very least I can do is apologize for that—especially to you."
Colin was still looking at him, and now it was Bruce who felt the urge to look away and fidget. He wanted to break that eye contact, so he kept looking just to spite that coward inside. Bruce held Colin's eyes and for some reason quirked his lips up again in another attempt at smiling.
If the look that came over the boy's face were any indication though, the attempt failed. Colin looked equal parts confused and repulsed.
Bruce stopped smiling and settled on nodding his head instead.
"Well, then your apology is accepted," he finally stated, tired of arguing the point. "And you are most welcome to any help I can give you. It's my honor to do so."
Colin nodded and then looked away towards the window over Bruce's right shoulder. The light was getting dimmer, and when Bruce checked the clock on his desk, he saw it was already nearly six o'clock in the evening. Alfred would have dinner ready in another hour, and by now Lex and Nick were already holed up in Rick Jameson's house in Metropolis, most likely going over the details of tomorrow's custody hearing. Knowing Lex, that's probably all they'd be talking about until well into the night.
Colin was quiet across from him but made no move to leave or continue the discussion, so Bruce simply went back to his many forms and printouts. He signed and initialed and read over numerous documents for what seemed like forever but in reality was only about half an hour. And all the while there was Colin across the desk from him, sitting there with his fidgeting hands and looking out the window.
When Bruce finished his stack, he shuffled the papers and slid them into the folder. Then he looked over at his guest.
"Penny for your thoughts," Bruce offered into the silence. Colin didn't immediately look over, or respond, but his mouth quirked up again.
"Do you prefer winter or summer, Bruce?" the boy eventually asked.
"Haven't much preference for either one, really," he answered. "More of an autumn man, myself."
Colin nodded, still smiling that strange little humorless smile of his.
Feeling the question was a cue, Bruce figured turnabout was fair play. "What about you? Summer or winter?"
"Winter," was the immediate response. Colin's eyes weren't on Bruce, but this time it didn't seem due to any hesitance on his part. This time, Bruce just thought that whatever it was Colin was seeing out that window, it was simply more interesting than Bruce's face.
"The snow?" Bruce guessed, turning in his chair and noticing the fat flakes that had started to fall outside. He turned back around just in time to catch another one of those little smiles. This one looked especially bitter.
"I can count the number of times I've seen real snow on one hand, and still have fingers left over." Colin then glanced at Bruce, but went right back to staring out the window. At the snow.
Bruce swallowed. "The Centre?" he asked.
Colin nodded, distractedly. "Only had that second winter at home and part of one a few years ago. Otherwise. . . " And he let that dangle, as he shrugged.
Bruce felt cold, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of his office. He swallowed, then, summoning up some painful material of his own, said, "I recommend a snowman, in that case."
Colin's head jerked back in Bruce's direction and the look on the boy's face was, in no uncertain terms, priceless. "What?" he asked, sounding nothing so much as utterly bewildered.
"Wait until the morning," Bruce told him seriously, "and then take your brother outside and build a snowman. That's something you won't forget."