A/N: Some dialogue written by writers/producers of BB: RotJ. Please do not sue. I’m not making any profit.
Chapter Two
Even with his cape smoking, his cowl half gone, and his belt missing all together, Batman strode past Mr. Terrific and J’onn at the JLA’s monitor console and headed toward the teleporters.
“Set for
Superman put a hand on his shoulder. “Bruce, please. Why don’t you take some time to rest?”
Batman shoved off the hand. “They don’t have the time.”
“Bruce, we’re
on your side, but stumbling through
“I’ve already seen the case from all angles, Diana. There’re no clues left to find. I need answers that can’t be found in a file.”
“Well, it won’t be out there if your reflexes are too slow and your mind isn’t sharp,” J’onn chastised, standing in Batman’s way. “You won’t be helping anyone.”
Batman’s eyes narrowed. “J’onn, move. Now.”
J’onn simply crossed his arms. “No.”
Just as Batman was about to lunge, Superman murmured, “Bruce…be realistic. It’s been four months without any word. You know what you’re going to find when you finally do. Why keep going this hard?”
Batman averted his eyes and stared out the monitor’s womb window at Earth below. “If it were Kara missing, would you stop?”
Superman’s eyes darkened, and he once more clasped Batman’s shoulder. “I’ll go with you. Maybe I missed something.”
Batman shook his head. “There’s a creep named Nico Valentino. He used to run with Scarecrow. He might know something that will—”
“Hey, guys!” Mr. Terrific yelled. “We have a message.”
Batman and Superman were already at the teleporters when it clicked on.
“Oh, my God. They’re making me a leave a damn message!”
Dick.
“What? Are you serious? I thought the JLA always had someone at the console.”
Tim.
“TRACE THAT!” Batman screamed from below, hurrying up the stairs.
“Already on it!” Mr. Terrific called.
“They usually do,” Dick continued, “except on an all-alert mission. It means the world is ending.”
“Oh, God.”
“I—Tim, I can override it, but…I’m not going to.”
Batman’s heart stopped. He leaned over the console, his face stoic, his eyes hard.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, no…you’re my brother, but…we put ourselves here. We knew what we were getting into when we signed on. The people the JLA are saving? They never wanted this.”
“Neither did we.”
“Yeah, I know, but…”
Batman closed his eyes at the resignation in his sons’ voices. They knew they’d blown their last lifeline. They were going to die.
“Anything?” Batman demanded.
“Hey, even the most advanced tracking devices take time. I’m on the Eastern Seaboard,” Mr. Terrific snapped.
“Superman!”
“On my way.”
“I said we should have called 911,” Tim’s voice echoed through the womb.
“And bring cops here?” Dick laughed, sad and true. Conviction ruled his voice. “I promise you, kid. You won’t die before me.”
“And leave me to suffer through this hell alone? No thanks, bro.”
“Who?” Batman pressed. “Damnit, who!”
Laughter—animal laughter.
“Dick, the hyenas!”
Batman’s muscles pulsated. “Joker.”
“I’ve got them!” Mr. Terrific announced.
“We’ll leave the connection open.” Dick’s voice was already fading.
The teleporter board was completely filled.
“No matter what,” he promised, “we’re not going down without a fight.”
When the teleporter’s light faded from Batman’s eyes, he stood in
the middle of the old funhouse at
Now, it was an empty shell, the mirrors off the side. Large clowns and plastic balloons lined the wall, and an eerie backyard set was on the left side. A barbeque grill with large jumper cables was on the fake lawn next to a gurney that had been rigged with wrist and ankle restraints. Blood soaked it and the fake grass, while on the opposite end, cable wire and steak knives were tainted crimson.
Superman scanned the scene with his x-ray vision. “The outside is lined with lead, but inside it looked they didn’t—Rao.”
He was gone in a flash as the Flash began searching the place and Zatanna knelt by the blood. Wonder Woman put her hands upon Batman’s shoulders, holding him close. “It’ll be alright,” she promised.
“No,” he replied. “It won’t be.”
He was proven right when Superman brought the mangled, bloodied, and burned body.
*^*^*
“Well, the good news is—whoever did this, didn’t want us to know who this is,” Mr. Terrific said factually, the burned body upon the gurney in front of him. “The bad news is—it still might be Nightwing. I can rule out Robin—”
“—because of the size,” Batman finished curtly. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I can find them,” Zatanna admitted. She entered the room holding a lock of black hair. “I can do a searcher’s spell, find out where Dick is since his blood is magical.”
Batman remained silent, the question outspoken,
Zatanna shook her head. “He’s part Romany, a gypsy. Magic’s in his blood, and I can trace that. The only problem is—the process takes a while. I’ll need to collect special materials.”
“Whatever you need. Do it.”
Zatanna nodded. “TAERG.”
*^*^*
The candles were lit in a circle. Other than their presence, the cave was completely dark. Batman and Zatanna stood opposite one another, the latter’s eyes lifted in a smirk.
“Ready?” she asked.
Batman nodded.
“Not yet!” a new voice called, and Batgirl stepped into the circle. “You’re not doing this without me.”
Batman never glanced her way. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Like hell it doesn’t. You’re going after my fiancée and future brother-in-law. You’re not stopping me.”
Batman nodded to Zatanna. For the first time, he didn’t argue. He didn’t know what he would be facing, but for Dick and Tim, he would take an army.
“Do it.”
“DNIF KCID!”
Blue fire engulfed them.
When they
finally arrived, Batman and Batgirl stood in the middle of Arkham.
It had closed a year after Dick returned to
“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”
Batman motioned up the stairs to the left, and old routine played well. Batgirl rushed up the case, while Batman continued to the Operating Theatre.
As he entered the large room, he saw sets of a living room and kitchen, along with a curtain leading to the main stage. Batgirl took a perch up on the balcony, looking down at the whole scene.
“Puddin’!” Harley called. “Company!”
The Joker looked out from behind his master chair, and he pulled his pipe out of his mouth. “Hello there! Welcome to our happy home!”
Batman hardly contained his rage. “Where’re Robin and Nightwing?”
The Joker’s face contorted in a confused expression. “Robin? Nightwing? We have no one here by those names, do we, Puddin;?”
“He must mean our little J.J.,” Harley offered.
“Of course! That’s it!” He motioned toward the dreaded purple curtain on the stage, and Batman eyed him suspiciously before marching forward. He could only imagine what he would discover behind the curtain, but nothing prepared him for what he would see.
Nothing could ever prepare him as the Joker shot him with ribbon rope, walked forward, and pulled the curtain open himself.
“You know, Bats. We’ve been doing this little run-a-round around for years. It’s been loads of laughs, and the sad fact is, none of us are getting any younger.”
God, no…
“That old clock’s a ticking!” Harley added.
“That’s right, poo, and Harley and I were thinking it was time to start the family. Add a Joker Jr. to our merry brew.”
Harley came forward to grab the Joker’s hand. “But rather than go through all the joy of childbirth, we decided to adopt.”
“We couldn’t do it legally,” Joker snickered and pulled a lever, bringing a gurney forward to show Batman the person upon it, “but then we remembered you always had a few spare kids hanging around.
“So we decided to borrow one.”
What Batman saw made his heart stop and his blood cold. Even from the balcony, he heard Batgirl’s horrified gasp. “My God…”
A bleached-face Tim Drake laughed fitfully as if in a trance. His clothes matched the Joker’s, save for his purple shorts. He had on a planted smile, insane and lost. When the Joker unclipped the straps, Tim bounded off the gurney and let out an evil chortle.
The Joker let out his legendary bray. “He needed a little molding, of course. What kid doesn’t? But in time, we came to love him as our own. Say hello, J.J.”
A blinding rage filled the Dark Knight, and he tore his bonds without any help from a weapon. Then, he shot toward the Joker, who jumped on the gurney and zoomed through the halls of the old asylum. Batman hardly shot a glance toward J.J., instead focusing his anger at the Joker.
The clown wouldn’t get away with it. He just wouldn’t.
*^*^*
Batgirl immediately flew down from the balcony, kicking Harley away from J.J. and seizing the boy by the shoulders desperately. “Tim, it’s Barbara. Can you hear me?”
J.J. just laughed maniacally, and Batgirl’s heart broke. This is what four months at the Joker’s hand had done to Tim Drake, one of the most confident teenagers on the planet. They’d broken him, and Dick—
They hadn’t found his body, had they? Is that what Joker and Harley did to her fiancée? She refused to believe it.
Harley was on her, and Batgirl had just enough time to cross her wrists, though it didn’t stop the kick from slamming her away from Tim. Batgirl immediately retaliated with her own attack, knocking the bazooka from Harley’s hands.
“Hands off, Bratgirl! Sweetie, get Mommy’s bazooka!”
Watching Tim race for the gun broke Batgirl’s heart, but she would deal with Tim later. Right now, Harley needed to pay for her part in this, and when the clown disappeared through the double doors, Batgirl followed her outside to the rundown and open sections of the asylum.
“How could you help Joker do it, Harley?” Batgirl demanded, her voice gutted from emotion.
“Okay, so the Joker roughed the kid up a little, but I’ll make it right,” Harley called.
“Yeah, you’re mother of the stinkin’ year.”
“Ha! You’ll see! We’ll be one, big happy family!” Harley jumped down from her perch and whistled. “Bazooka!”
Batgirl pivoted to see Tim behind her, his smaller frame carrying this massive weapon. One look at Barbara, and he hesitated
“Robin,” Batgirl eased, taking a step forward. “It’s okay. Put down the gun.”
“Give the gun to Momma!”
“Tim…Put down the gun.”
“Momma says, ‘Give me the gun!’”
Still, Tim looked torn, his frantic eyes switching from Harley to Barbara. However, his hands clenched the gun, pointing down toward his ground between his legs. At such a close range to the cliff, he would knock himself over, but he would rather die than shoot Barbara.
“Tim…” She finally placed her hand over his. “It’s okay. I promise. Give me the gun.”
Tears slowly trickled from his eyes as she pried open his hands, and as Harley dove, Batgirl turned. She wouldn’t have been fast enough to stop the clown, but Wonder Woman was, knocking her away.
“Horrid beast!”
Harley tumbled over the side of the cliff, and though Batgirl ran to the edge, Wonder Woman threw her lasso about Tim Drake. Harley wasn’t worth her time.
“Who are you?” Wonder Woman demanded.
Tim stuttered, “J—hmm!—J…”
“Who are you?”
“J--….ugh!—J!”
Each time, Wonder Woman grew louder. “WHO ARE YOU!”
Until finally, though twitching and sobbing, the boy answered, “Tim…Tim—hehehe!—D—Drake.”
Barbara rushed forward and engulfed him in a hug. “Yes, you are. Yes, you are.”
He cried into her shoulder, the paint on his face slowly coming off in his tears. Her heart broke at his sobs, and she wondered just what torture he endured to change from a steadfast, confident young man to a broken child.
Unless…Dick...
She refused to think of the body the JLA found a little over a month prior.
Harley was lucky she wasn’t still alive, Barbara mentally threatened.
And oh, would the Joker pay.
When Tim finally calmed, Barbara pulled him back but still kept a firm grip. “Tim, Batman’s fighting the Joker now, and he will get his due. But where’s Dick? Where does the Joker have him?”
“JOKER!”
Barbara checked to make sure the lasso taunt about the boy. “Yes, I know the Joker has Dick but where?”
“JOKER! He—hehehe—”
“Tim, please,” Barbara begged, hugging his shoulders. “Where’s Dick?”
Finally, Tim threw off the lasso and dashed inside the building.
*^*^*
With Batgirl, Harley, Tim, and the bazooka gone, the auditorium was eerily quiet. Along the balcony, Batman crept when a black and white film began to play on the screen.
The words, written in children’s handwriting, read, “Our Family’s Memories” and the Joker’s maniacal voice echoed off the abandoned walls.
“What’s the matter, Batman? No witty comeback? No threat? Then I’ll provide the narration.”
Upon the screen flickered a picture of Robin, attached to a gurney, struggling futilely against his bonds. “I’ll start with how I peeled back the layers of the boy’s mind.”
Dressed in an apron with a disturbing message on the front, the Joker came forward with large jumper cables. He attached them to the gurney and flicked a large switch.
“Well, he bravely tried to fight it at first.”
The lights of the gurney flashed, and even though there was no sound other than the Joker’s calm voice, Batman heard his younger son’s shrieks of pain.
“You would have been proud to see him so strong, but all too soon, the scrums and the shock took their toll, but not on little Robin.”
The film switched to Nightwing, and Batman’s jaw set. With his mask off and tears running from his eyes, Nightwing knelt upon the ground, bloodied, beaten, and utterly destroyed.
“Like a good older sibling, he couldn’t let his young, defenseless brother be harmed, and the original bird began to sing such secrets with me, secrets those which are mine alone to know.
“Bruce.”
Batman’s eyes widened.
“It’s true, Batsy. I know everything, and kinda like the kid who peeks at his Christmas present, I must admit, it’s anticlimactic. Behind all the sterm and batarangs, you’re just a little boy in a playsuit crying for his mommy and daddy. I’d be funny it wasn’t so pathetic. Oh, what the heck, I’ll laugh anyway.”
As the Joker laughed hysterically, Batman shot a line and swung toward the projector box. The Joker could find out who he was. He could have anything in the world he wanted but these two things. These two beings, Batman wouldn’t give, and Batman shattered the projector window, catching the Joker in a death grip.
The Joker attacked with a quick punch to the gut, breaking a rib and freeing himself from the grasp. Batman coughed for air. The Joker shouldn’t have been able to fight that well.
“You don’t get the joke!”
Still, Batman’s rage couldn’t be stopped, and he kicked the Joker back. “Where is he?”
“That is the ultimate punch line.”
A kick. “Where is HE?”
“Why did the big bird cross the road?” Joker snickered. “You already know the answer.”
That earned him another punch, and Batman threw the Joker through the broken window. Batman followed the Joker onto large, purple, building blocks. Snatching the Joker in a death grip, Batman growled, “I’ll break you in two.”
“Oh, Batman, if you have the guts for that kind of fun, you would have done it years ago. I, on the other hand…”
The Joker sliced with a knife faster than Batman could repel, and losing his footing, the Caped Crusader crashed to the ground twenty feet below. Groaning, Batman tried to fight past the burning in his heart as the Joker swung down next to him and crouched low.
“You’ve lost Batman. Robin is mine. The last sound you’ll hear is our laughter. And the funny part of all this?” Joker chuckled. “It’s an inside joke, and you won’t get the punch line until it’s too late.”
Trapped laughter snagged Batman’s attention, and like the nail in the coffin, there stood Tim, Diana, Batgirl, and now Superman.
Tim suddenly pulled out a weapon and pulled the trigger, popping out a stick with a “BAM!” flag out of it.
“Tim!” Batgirl screamed, but the boy shook as he leveled the gun.
“J.J., make Daddy proud. Deliver the punch line.”
The gun slowly turned until it pointed directly at Joker.
He growled. “The joke’s on you, isn’t it, kid? Go ahead. Pull the trigger.”
Batman put up a hand, stopping Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batgirl from stopping the young boy. Instead, with tears dripping from his eyes, Tim lunged at the Joker, a buzzer on his finger.
“Wait! That’s not fun—gah!”
The device hit the lunatic just behind the ear. Batman snatched Tim and held him protectively behind his cape as Joker began to sizzle as if electrocuted. Slowly, his horrific features morphed; his face was no longer that of a homicidal sociopath.
“Great Hera,” Wonder Woman gasped.
“Rao…” Superman murmured.
Tim still giggled, but his eyes watered, his body relaxed.
Dick Grayson stared back at him, tired but himself.
“Thanks, kid.”
He collapsed into Batman’s awaiting arms.
*^*^*
Bruce sat at his elder charge’s side, his mask off, his chin in need of a shave. He was lost in thought when Wonder Woman came into the room and draped her arms across his shoulders and chest.
“He’s a warrior, Bruce. He’ll pull through.”
“With how much intact?” Bruce scowled. “It’s been three weeks, and Tim can hardly form complete sentences. He still needs to be sedated at least once a day, and Dick—” He shook his head and leaned his elbows upon his thighs. “Dick hasn’t even awakened.”
“Perhaps you haven’t given him the right incentive.” She smirked, swinging around his neck to sit in his lap. “I will show you what that is.”
Her lips met him in a passionate kiss, which was promptly interrupted by a soft groaning, “Please get a room, preferably not mine.”
Wonder Woman immediately stood to let Bruce rush to Dick’s side. With his cowl off, Bruce appeared like a scare dad for not the first time, but the look upon his face broke Diana’s heart. Dick’s own features were still marred with bruises and scars from the battle that were inflicted upon him by Bruce. The man would never forgive himself, though Dick didn’t seem to hold any anger.
“Tell me my hair’s not green.”
“It’s not. How are you feeling?”
“Like shit, but that’s really nothing new.”
Diana placed a gentle hand upon Dick’s forearm. “I’ll leave you two alone. Dick, good to see you awake.”
“Thanks, Princess.”
Once she left, he struggled into a sitting position and only achieved the feat thanks to Bruce. He leaned against the back board, huffing and cradling his ribs. “Where’s Tim?”
“Recuperating. He’s…”
Dick averted his eyes. “I’m…I’m sorry. They thought he would crack before I would, so they tortured him. I—I just…I couldn’t let it happen, so I told them everything they wanted to know, and they still hurt him anyway.”
“I…I know you did your best.”
“Well, my best wasn’t good enough.” Dick laid an elbow upon the knee. “Really, how is he?”
Bruce told him, leaving out no details. The boy was currently in the Batcave under the supervision of Leslie and Alfred. They’d brought Dick up to the JLA satellite due to the extent of his injuries and the need for surgery.
“Our first priority has been to find the Joker, but that has been less than successful.”
“You won’t find him.”
“We’ll find him.”
“No, you won’t,” Dick pressed. “He’s dead.”
Bruce inhaled sharply. “What?”
His eyes focused on his wrapped fingers, Dick stumbled through.
“No matter what,” he promised.
“We’re not going down without a fight.”
“Duh,” Tim laughed.
Dick looked down at the boy as they
ran through the Hall of Mirrors. Tim had been through so much, a majority of it
just to mentally scar Dick, and yet the boy still had
a fire in him. Just how strong was this kid?
They would find out. Tired and
exhausted, they had no weapons. Even their suits were gone from the waist up,
and they still had to battle their way through the Funhouse. Thankfully, Harley
had left that steak knife too close to Dick. Sure, his arm still bled, but it
was something he could handle.
They
met two of the Joker’s goons at the end of the hall, and with a punch and a
kick a piece, Dick and Tim took them down swiftly. It was only once they met
the hyenas and two shotguns aimed at each’s head that
they froze.
Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum blocked their exit, the
night breeze teasing them through the open door. The Joker stepped inside from
behind the henchmen with the hyenas laughing on his heels.
“Well,
well, well, looks like some people were trying to runaway while Mommy and Daddy
were out.”
“You
can’t keep us here forever, Joker,” Dick replied. “Eventually we’ll escape or
Batman will find us.”
“When
you’re right, you’re right,” the Joker laughed. “Boys, looks
to me like we’ve got us some fresh meat. Why don’t you take a sampling?”
Dick’s
eyes widened at his bleeding arm. Shit. “Tim, run.”
“No
way I’m leaving you.”
“This
isn’t a discussion!”
Dick wanted to push him, throw him, do anything
to get Tim away from him, but the kid wouldn’t budge. As the hyenas stalked
forward, Dick felt his heart thunder out of his chest, but it froze as Harley’s
shrill whistle.
“Mr.
J, we can’t kill them,” she interrupted, walking behind Dick and Tim to wrap
her arms about their shoulders and ruffle their hair.
Dick
met his brother’s eyes and shrugged. They’d go with it for now.
“Harley,
they were disobeying. They need to be punished like any children.”
“Punished,
yes, but eaten alive? Puddin’, can’t we just hit them
with a rolled-up newspaper?”
The
Joker brought back his hand to slap her across the face. “I’ve made up my mind.
Don’t undermine me in front of the kids.”
Harley
caught his arm. “No! I’ve waited too long for children, and my clock is
ticking!”
“Then
I’ll get you a new watch, but I’m killing them!”
Harley
whistled once more. “BABIES!”
Dick
immediately grabbed Tim and forced the boy’s face into his shoulder.
“Dick!”
Tim struggled.
“Don’t
look,” Dick soothed, holding the boy tight. “Just don’t look.”
“Harley,
come on now,” he giggled. “Let’s talk about this. I’ll get the mallet, and you
can be the mole.”
The
hyenas closed upon him.
“Harley!
Harley, don’t make me cross the—”
Dick
screwed his own eyes shut as the hyenas attacked and the Joker’s screams became
mechanical laughter. “Now if only these were chickens!”
“Playtime’s over, Puddin’.” Harley came over to pet
Dick and Tim’s heads, though they both shuttered away. “Don’t worry,
Sweeties. Momma’s gonna take good care of you.”
“That’s when she turned me into the Joker and tortured Tim to the point of mental collapse,” Dick shuttered. “I should have—”
“There’s nothing you could have done,” Bruce affirmed, following Dick’s gaze out the window. “You kept yourself and Tim alive. That is all I would ever ask.”
Dick said nothing, his body slowly shaking. He tried to keep the images from the last however many months from his mind, but the more he thought about Tim, the more he found himself trembling. Bruce’s hand upon his shoulder calmed him briefly, and for a moment, he felt like he was eight again, having lost his parents and feeling so alone. Bruce gave him comfort then like he did now.
“There’s more you need to know,” Bruce murmured.
Dick looked over his shoulder. “Is there something wrong with Tim? Other than the obvious mental breakdown.”
“Not Tim.” Bruce wouldn’t meet Dick’s, which shot off warning bells in the younger man’s head. “The Joker used nanotechnology to splice your genetic makeup. There…There was a trigger.”
“Hence the Two-Face working my body, only the Joker was the other face.”
“Exactly.”
“So? That can be undone. You can take out that technology.” Not a question. Not a plea. A statement. “So what aren’t you telling me?”
Bruce finally pinned Dick with a raucous glare. “Harley replaced your genetic reproductive material with the Joker’s, so any children you would sire would not be biologically yours. They’d be his.”
Numbness. That was all Dick felt as he stared at Bruce. Slowly, tears seeped into his cheeks, and like the little boy he had been, he averted his eyes and tipped his head against the headboard.
“Dick—”
“I’m supposed to be getting
married,” Dick rambled. “We talked about kids. We talked about the penthouse or
her house we’d raised them…” He shook his head. “We thought we’d give them the
middle name “
“Dick—”
“Bruce, I…I just want to be alone right now…if that’s okay.”
Bruce rose from his seat and patted Dick on the shoulder. “You’ve been through worse. You’ll survive this.”
“Yeah…I know.”
He just didn’t know how.
*^*^*
“You’re going to do great,” Dick smiled and ruffled Tim’s hair. “I just can’t believe you got my old dorm room.”
“I think Bruce had something to do with it,” Tim laughed and sat down on the windowsill to see the courtyard. “You can practically jump right over the fence and take two long strands. Then you’re here.”
Dick bent
down to see the fence, and sure enough, the large metal spikes surrounding
Tim smiled somewhat sadly at Dick as the older man took a seat on his new bed. “Bruce still thinks I’m coming back to the cape and tights.”
Dick averted his eyes. “I know.”
“I’m not, though. After what happened with the Joker…” Tim trembled. “I—I can’t go through that again, Dick. I’m lucky I can talk normally again, let alone function.”
“Hey, sitting here with me is one of the great minds of the twenty-first century, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Dick chuckled and came to slap Tim on the shoulder. “You’re going to do well.”
“Hey, no one makes a sick Bat-toy better than me but physics at the college level?”
Dick rubbed both Tim’s shoulder. “You’re going to do well.”
Tim grinned upward. “Who are you trying to convince? You or me?”
“You.”
“Hey, well, what about you?” Tim now turned and smirked. “When are you finally going to get back on that horse? Marry Barbara and go back to Wayne Enterprises?”
Dick shrugged and ambled about the room. “I…I don’t know.”
“So you can’t have kids. So what? You can still have a great—”
“It’s not that easy,” Dick bemoaned. “What if Barbara becomes pregnant anyway? Condoms or not? Then what? She raises the Joker’s spawn? Has an abortion?” Dick shook his head. “I’m not going to put her or anyone else through that. I’m not going to put myself through that. I don’t know if I could live knowing…”
He let the thought weigh between them.
“But you can’t just stare at the ceiling all day,” Tim pressed. “You have to do something.”
Dick smiled gently and punched the boy’s arm. “I will, but in the meantime, you have fun here, all right? Live a little.”
“Take your own advice.”
*^*^*
Bruce didn’t turn from the Crays as Dick’s sneakers patted the rock stairs. “He’ll be back,” Dick promised. “He doesn’t know it yet, but he will be.”
“What about you?”
The stark
question took Dick unawares, but he quickly regrouped. “I don’t know yet.”
“When will you know?”
“Maybe when you stop typing and look directly at me.”
After a brief, angered pause, Bruce swiveled, allowing Dick to see his graying temples.
“I…I don’t know if I ever will.” Dick leaned against the side console and shrugged apathetically. “I’m carrying the Joker’s shooters. Barbara says she doesn’t care, but I can’t do that to her. And if the Joker’s torture proved anything, it was that I’m not half as good or half as smart as I thought I was. How you even speak to me after what I let happen to your son is beyond me.”
“Did you ever stop to think I might be grateful?”
“You?” Dick laughed dryly. “Yeah, right.”
“You kept Tim alive during that time where he might have died or came out worse.”
“I did nothing to change anything.” Dick dropped his head into his hands. “I was probably even a compliance.”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Dick…what are you talking about?”
Dick sighed and shook his head. “Nothing. You wanted to see me about a problem with the company?”
Slapping a folder down on the console next to Dick, Bruce whirled back to the computer. “Deal with this.”
“Bruce…I…I don’t know if I’m ready—”
“There is no one, including Lucius, who is more economically savvy than you.”
“…Thanks, Bruce, but—”
“I don’t say that to nurse your ego.” He never turned from the monitor. “I’m saying it because it’s fact, and I need you to deal with this.”
Dick eyed Bruce warily before reading the pages. “You can’t be serious.”
“I want it gone as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’m working with Amanda Waller. I don’t want to give you false hopes, but there might be something we can do with the old Cadmus technology.”
“That technology’s illegal.”
“So is vigilantism.”
“Point.” Dick paused. “Still, you sure you want to go this route?”
Bruce nodded. “Make the deal.”
*^*^*
The gala for some vague disease Dick didn’t even know existed was as boring as the ones he was forced to attend as a child, but this time, he had a target in mind. Apparently, he, too, was a target as a black-haired man a little older than himself came forward, a drink in his hand.
“Dick.”
“Mr. Grayson, Mr. Powers.”
“Mr. Grayson,” Derek Powers sneered. “I see you’ve finally returned to the corporate scene. A few of us thought the CFO position was too much for you to handle.”
“All work and no play makes me a dull son, Mr. Powers, and Bruce hates when I’m not laughing.” Dick took a long swig of his wine. “He also hates double-dealing and Lex Luthor.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Then why are you talking to him?”
Derek choked on his drink, and Dick laughed coolly. “Yeah, I know how to do my job, Mr. Powers. Lex doesn’t want a merger. He wants a hostile takeover, which will allow him, in turn, to have enough capital to take over Wayne Enterprises. As CFO of W.E., I can’t let that happen.”
He finally met Derek squarely and tipped his drink. “Congratulations, Mr. Powers. You’ve just gotten your Wayne-Powers Corporation.”
*^*^*
Amanda Waller walked into her office and froze. “What do you want?”
Bruce Wayne swiveled in her chair. They’d both gotten older. Amanda’s hair was completely gray; most of her weight was gone. He had graying temples and sunken eyes. They’d seen much and many times on opposite ends of the battlefield, but if there was one thing they agreed on, it was the security of the country. With that, they found common ground.
Bruce leaned forward in her seat to rest his elbows on the desk. “Tell me everything about Project: Batman Beyond.”
To Be Continued…