Thomas sat at the head of the table reading his favorite paper, the Gotham Dock Evening News, examining every word on the front-page headlines with his hawk-like gaze.
This brought back Batman's childhood memories, pretty much every morning and evening he would see Thomas engrossed in his newspaper.
Martha was at the door of the dining room, confirming the completion of the meal with Alfred. She soon came over and nodded to the others: "Dinner will start in 10 minutes, children, go call your companions. Don't let the food wait for too long."
"I bet Dick is rushing his homework again, and those two are helping him get it done before the deadline to prepare for my post-dinner check," said Thomas, without lifting his head.
The three Robins that Batman brought along took their seats one by one. Tim ran upstairs to call the other two, while Batman went over to sit across from Bruce but didn't rush to sit down.
Bruce was organizing his napkin, stretching both hands to reach the knot tied at the back of his neck. He seemed to want to untie it and retie it, but he was struggling to get a hold of it.
Then Martha walked over and helped him untie the napkin from behind his chair. Bruce turned around and gave her a smile, "Thanks, Mom."
Martha gently patted his chair back and walked away with a smile. Bruce tied the untied napkin back around his neck, his action causing Thomas to glance his way.
"Go up and see," the stern head of the house returned his gaze to the newspaper, he stated.
Bruce nodded at him, stood up to leave, but Thomas let out a sigh. "Don't take the napkin anywhere else. It's very unhygienic," he said to Bruce.
"But I just tied it."
Martha waved at Bruce. He went back to his seat, and Martha gently untied his napkin, neatly folded it and placed it on the table, "I'll re-tie it for you when you come back, go on."
Through a series of actions by Bruce, Batman deduced that he had a trick up his sleeve.
This guy probably did very well in school, Batman thought. In just two minutes, Martha and Thomas's attention was completely focused on Bruce.
Batman would bet that Thomas didn't read a single word of the paper and Martha's attention was nowhere near the kitchen though she was staring right at it.
They probably didn't even realize that they had been focusing on Bruce for minutes, only to watch whether he tied his damn napkin properly.
The culture around the dinner table is quite fascinating and usually reflects the most traditional customs of a country or region.
In Batman's childhood, the Wayne family was a rather traditional Catholic family. They inherited the lifestyle of the first group of European immigrants, in which the elder-younger order was distinct and rules were clear.
In such old aristocratic families, they value heredity and education more, so the ones who receive the most attention are, of course, the younger ones.
If it's a three-generation family, the middle generation is the most likely to be ignored. Because the elderly are busy working, having dinner together at the table is their only spare time to interact with the juniors. Naturally, they would want to understand more about the children's education and life conditions.
People from such family backgrounds often develop this kind of living habit. After they grow from the younger generation to the elder generation, they will unconsciously act according to instinct.
Martha and Thomas both come from old aristocratic families, and this lifestyle is ingrained in their genes. To begin with, they just did this instinctively.
In essence, by asking Tim to go upstairs to call the other two kids, Martha is throwing more attention to the child. Thomas is also concerned about Dick's homework.
Theoretically, after taking care of the youngest child, it should be the turn of the slightly older three Robins. But Bruce successfully attracted Thomas and Martha's attention by tying his napkin.
Batman had long observed that the knot of the napkin was just a simple slipknot. Any normal person with both hands could easily pull it open with just the minimal use of two fingers, but Bruce was wriggling and gesturing for over 20 seconds.
Moreover, you should just take it off. After taking it off, he wants to tie it again. Judging by the way he was knotting, you might think he was tying a slipknot, or even more absurdly, that he was building the Great Wall behind his neck.
Batman knew that by acting out in a regressive manner, Bruce fundamentally lured the parental instinctive response to infants.
The instinct to help, care for, and save juveniles is imprinted in the genes of the human race. This is the most important guarantee for human reproduction. Therefore, as long as certain conditions are triggered, human attention will be fully attracted.
Bruce's actions might seem childish, not sitting properly at the dinner table and playing with the napkin, taking it off and tying it back on. Essentially, it was childlike tantrums intended to attract adult attention, used to firmly fix everyone's gaze on himself.
Thomas asked him to go upstairs and take off his napkin, but his response appeared unreasonable. Just because he just put something on doesn't mean he can't take it off, even if it were a reason, an adult would respond by saying, "it's too troublesome," or "it won't get dirty."
The way Bruce expressed himself was more emotional, emphasizing "what I did". This self-oriented way of expression is often seen in children, who do not have a clear understanding of the world and do not understand the complex structure of interpersonal relationships. This leads them to emphasize their feelings.
Strong emotional expressions are more attractive because empathy in humans operates before rational thought.
Although he understood the principle, Batman still didn't understand what Bruce was trying to achieve through these actions.
Batman was aware that Bruce's reunion with Thomas and Martha couldn't be considered long-awaited, since they had already been living together for quite some time in Bruce's universe, and had plenty of time to experience family bonds.
As for Bruce, he was being unreasonable and constantly drawing attention here, that Batman didn't even know who he was targeting.
"And you plan on just standing there until Alfred brings out the meal." Thomas again turned his attack towards Batman.
Batman paused for a moment before pulling out a chair and sitting down. Then he realized he had put himself in an extremely awkward situation.
The three Robins were sitting there whispering, and Batman heard them talking about the Holmes series. They hadn't had much time and had only watched a small portion of "A Study in Scarlet", specifically the part where Dr. Watson goes house hunting and runs into a peculiar roommate.
They were discussing whether the young doctor was indeed Holmes. Batman, having seen the rest of the series, knew for sure that he was.
However, he couldn't join the Robins' discussion about it as Thomas was there. The last thing Batman wanted was for Thomas to know that he was watching "Holmes", as for Thomas, being a detective wasn't considered a respectable job.
If, after being widely recognized as the world's greatest detective, you still spent your free time watching another world's greatest detective, then Batman would want to diagnose himself with a mental disorder.
Batman knew that the content Thomas was reading in the Gotham Dock Evening News was about the ongoing construction of the Gotham Sky Island Airport. This seemed to be a good topic for dinner conversation, probably enough to fill the time until the meal was ready.
So Batman initiated: "I've heard from the news that in about six months, Gotham will have its own new airport."
The attention of the Robins was immediately attracted. Red Robin asked, "Really? An airport for landing airships?"
"I've heard so," Nightwing joined in. "Once we have the airport, we can start regular transportation to and from the ground, like delivering goods or people and stuff."
"So we're going back above the East Coast?" Red Hood asked.
"Of course, that's still Gotham," Thomas chimed in. "We can't give up our home on the ground. It will be a better New City."
"And if some people could spare three hours to seriously consider the construction situation of Sky Island, we wouldn't have to wait six months."
Facing Thomas's death stare, Batman turned his head silently. This was why he had so much spare time but didn't go to the lab. If he didn't help build the airport for Gotham but was taking out a bunch of Bat Equipment from the lab, he would have to face that stare from Thomas every day.
He wasn't helping with the construction of Gotham airport because he wasn't sure if it was a good thing for Thomas and Martha to build a New Gotham. If the ground transportation channels were opened so quickly, the two would join forces to take over the other investment groups completely.
Seeing Batman silent, Thomas looked away, shook the newspaper, and blocked his view with it, saying: "Your elbow's too far out."
Batman opened his mouth, wanting to argue back.
Because recently he noticed a large amount of money from Wayne Enterprises flowing to Mexico, he dared not imagine what Thomas was anxious about making money by developing the New City's real estate market.
Before he could figure this out, Batman couldn't let Thomas make even more money, so he preferred to stay in the mansion reading "Holmes" rather than contribute to building Gotham's airport in the lab.
Batman decided to keep playing dead.
It used to work. Martha and Thomas were not the kind of parents with strong control desires, they were open-minded, respected their child's wishes, and didn't interfere too much as long as what he did wasn't too outrageous – they wouldn't press him for details.
However, just as Batman closed his mouth, Bruce herded the three kids over. Damian had just gotten out of school and the four kids, roughly the same age, sat neatly across from Batman.
"So, we'll go on Friday afternoon." Bruce looked past Dick at Jason and said, "We must retrieve the field, we can't let them be so arrogant. Who do they think they are? The boss of Mulberry Street?"
"Of course they're not!"Jason raised his tone and said: "No offense to them, but if it wasn't for the referee blowing the unfair whistle, Bick and I would have showed them!"
"Then it's settled." Bruce turned his head to Thomas and said: "Dad, I won't be going to the lab on Friday, I'm going to play football with Jason, to get revenge for last week's match."
Thomas shook his head helplessly and said: "That was just a friendly match. Don't take it too seriously."
"You don't know how biased that referee was." Bruce tapped the table with his hand and said: "The other team had two offsides that he didn't call, and the minute Jason's team so much as lifted their feet, his whistle would be blowing. We always got the yellow card in any conflict. This home game, I need to keep an eye on the referee."
With a light hum, Thomas shook the newspaper again and said: "Go ahead, who's expecting anything from you?"
His gaze landed on Batman again.
"And what are you planning to do, just sit here without helping your mom and Alfred with their chores, not even tie your napkin, huh?"