#the Nest introduced the kids to each other and gave them resources and the information to direct their action

[mistergreatbones]

Headcannon: After Wayne Manor is ruined, Duke picks up gardening to try and preserve Alfred’s roses.

Doug helps out and they replant them in a community garden by their apartment in the Narrows. They spend hours researching and have to completely dig up the old soil and put in new ones just so anything will grow. It’s not the most glamorous considering these roses descended from Martha Wayne’s Private Greenhouse, but Duke hopes Alfred wouldn’t mind too much. After all, this is where he found his Robins.

And yeah, maybe the Nest was a bit of a creep, but he had done more for Duke than anyone else had before that. Did the same for Bruce and the rest when he honestly should have retired a long time ago. Saved the city and saved every Batman and every kid in Robin red more times than anyone can ever truly count, asking nothing in return.

And Duke can’t quite communicate it, but his parents have done their best to accept that he’s changed. So Doug runs off in the middle of a hurricane to cover the plants and Elaine stops by on her way to work when they need just an extra bit of sun. And Duke… well he’s gotten used to hard work over these past few months, but there’s something different between punching criminals and pulling weeds, so he tries his best and he sweats and wonders how an old man managed this on his own for so long.

He doesn’t get any answers, but he does gets rosebuds.

Maybe there’s a satisfaction in that, in laboring to make everything the best it can be, so something beautiful will bloom. Maybe that’s why Alfred stuck around.

Maybe these flowers’ll be corrupted by Darryl or Ivy or the city itself, another acid buttonhole. Maybe no one will stop by their garden, no time to see what they’ve grown. Maybe all his hard work will just wilt away, unable to survive in such harsh conditions.

Or maybe they’ll be beautiful, and Alfred will be able to see them from wherever he is, and know that someone misses him.

Because rest his soul, Duke is not picking theatre to remember him by.

#leo says shit #batfam #duke thomas #elaine thomas #doug thomas #alfred pennyworth #context if you haven't read the comics: #alfred started the We Are Robin movement by recruiting various teens he thought would be good for the cause #alf used multiple disguises to hide his identity but the Robins collectively called him “the Nest” #the Nest introduced the kids to each other and gave them resources and the information to direct their action #eventually Duke and the others got fed up with Nest's vague orders and decided to work on their own before Duke made them break up #but anyways Duke did figure out that Nest was alfred pennyworth before he got fostered by bruce #probably because he had already figured out the rest of the bats identities but i digress