“Preservation”

Chapter Six

“You know what the funny part of all this is?” Dick asked, chucking his empty beer bottle into the center of the table to be with its relatives. “Dad was right. The trench coat—so not cool. ”

“Don’t you hate it when the Bat’s right?” Roy Harper handed his half-drunken bottle to Dick, who hiccupped.

“More than you know, and trust me, I know.”

Wally smiled cheekily. “Makes you wanna have listened earlier in life, huh?”

Dick looked up from his sodden bangs, his sharp eyes catching Wally’s. “If I’d have listened, I’d still be wearing short pants.”

“There would have been a sight.”

Dick snorted and leaned back in his hair. “And sitting on the Board of Directors for Wayne Enterprises.”

“If I remember correctly, weren’t you going to after hitting law school?” Wally asked.

“No shit!” Roy exclaimed “You were heading back to the big house?”

“Well, actually, Bruce was giving him the stables.”

“All right, all right.” Dick swallowed hard and waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, I was moving back to Gotham and into the stables, but look, I did what I wanted. Yeah, I might have been a bartender and a cop and a curator and a gym trainer and whatnot, but I did it my way. I didn’t need Bruce’s money.”

“Much,” Wally laughed. “I’m sure those bat thingies you throw around cost a pretty penny.”

“And you’ll always need Bruce.” Roy’s thumb wiped the neck of the bottle thoughtfully. “Trust me. That I know.”

Dick closed his eyes as Ollie’s funeral replayed in his mind.

“Yeah,” Wally claimed lowly. “So do I.”

There was no funeral for Barry. Memorial, though, and just as sad, if not as much closure. There was always that smidge of hope, which can eat a person alive.

Dick sighed and leaned his head against his propped up fist as he remembered seeing Bruce in the wheelchair as well as the weeks following the JLA’s supposed death. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me. Neither one of you had your mentors-slash-fathers ask you to save their asses and Atlantis’s and the planet’s, so go cry on someone else’s shoulders. Tonight, I get the pity party.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Roy waved to the waitress behind the bar. “Another run for the table, hon!”

“Make it two,” Dick yelled. “In fact, make it three!

“Don’t you think you should slow down just a little?” Wally asked, a hand out on Dick’s forearm.

“This? Coming from you? Oh, great. Now I’ve heard it all.” Dick whisked his bottle around before finding his mouth again. “And no, I can’t slow down. There’re so many things I wanted to do. So many things I thought there would be time to do, and now—hell, I supposedly got less than four freakin’ months. And by end, I’ll be confined to bed rest, unable to lift my head.”

“Dude, you just can’t fly,” Roy insisted.

“Can’t do anything ‘super’ anymore. Can’t fly, can’t run fast, can’t leap tall buildings with a single bound or outrun bullets. Might be super str…strr-ong. Maysbe…”

Roy laughed and slammed Dick on the back again, though Wally only hissed, “Roy!”

“Laugh,” Dick insisted.

It should have been funny, Dick knew. Wally would have laughed hysterically if not for the cause of the outing and his drunkenness.

A snort sounded behind Roy as a certain purple-eyed, black-haired man sauntered into the room. Every woman trained her eye on his sculpted body as he passed, cocked her head to see the way his butt filled out his pants. Even his scars upon his face were seen more as a decoration or a war wound than a blemish.

A slap followed the snort, and like Garth had taken the attention of every woman, Donna Troy stole the attention of every man. She wore nothing more than the tightest jeans imaginable, and combined with the simple tank top, she looked like the Amazon goddess Dick knew she was.

Both took a seat at the round table in the middle of the seedy bar, and thus the five original Titans sat, perhaps for the last time.

Awkward silence met the group, and only after Dick snorted and took another sip, did he finally venture to break it. “So, let’s count, shall we? How many people have died and come back to life?”

“Dick!” Donna chastised.

Dick’s glare sharpened. “Oh, no. You don’t get to do that. I pity myself enough. No need you to do it for me.”

“So…it’s true, huh?” Garth asked lowly. “Franklin Madison’s dead?”

“Yup, and with him goes the rest of my life.” He downed the rest of Roy’s second drink with one gulp and slammed the bottle down to the table. “Sooo, who’s getting leadership?”

Roy hitched an elbow on his chair. “Well, duh. It has to be me.”

It was Dick’s turn to laugh. “Oh, please, Harper. That’s all I need, you notching arrows and the female Titan members.”

“So, what you’re saying is: I can have Kory, huh?”

“Hey, if she’ll go for it,” Dick clicked Roy’s bottle neck with his own, “and you live through it, be my guest.”

“How can you talk like this?” Garth demanded. “It’s…sickening.”

“How else am I going to talk about it?” Dick growled back, putting his feet upon the table. They’d run up enough of a tab for the bartenders and waitresses to let it pass. “It’s over, Garth. I’m done denying it and worrying about it and fighting it. I have something not everyone has—four months to get my life in order, to make sure that after I’m gone, everyone I love is going to be okay.”

Donna took the bottle placed down in front of her and snapped off the top with her bare hand. “Dick, no matter what happens in the next few months, it doesn’t change the fact that there will be a void in all our lives.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she fought hard to keep them from his sights.

Trained by the Batman, he didn’t miss them.

“You gave me away at my wedding.”

“Doll—” Roy.

“You were my son’s godfather.”

“Donna—”

“You helped save me from my own husband—”

“Troia!”

Donna’s glistening eyes snapped to Roy. “Make it good, Harper.”

“The man’s already told you. He doesn’t need your pity party!” Roy hollered. “This isn’t about us and how we feel about Dick, all right? This is about him tonight. So, grab a beer, suck it up, and get drunk like the rest of us.”

Dick, who had averted his eyes and watched the bucking bronco, sighed and put up a hand. Roy high-fived it. When he spoke, his low voice scraped his throat.

“Guys, listen to me. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t matter. The world is gonna go on. It’s gonna turn like it has for the last however many billions of years, and other than Bruce, Tim, Alfred, the four of you, a few Leaguers, a few Titans, and one pretty redhead in Platinum Fields, no one’s even going to remember Dick Grayson. No one’s even going to care, and that’s the way it should be. And hey, you know what? It’ll hurt for a little while, sure. You might even cry or think of me when you take your kids to the circus, but eventually, I’ll be nothing more than a wax figure in the Tower and a costume case in the Batcave.”

No tears welled in his eyes. What crying there was he finished a long time ago, and he let out a shivering breath. Counting to five, he knew by ten they would all be gone, and he could relax with Jack.

And Bud.

And maybe José.

Roy grabbed the waitress’s attention. “Hey, honey. Do us a favor, huh? Bring the Tequila around. Fast.”

“That’s a lie, y’know,” Wally offered softly. “Even if just for a moment, the world will stop, and I won’t be able to outrun that second’s end.”

“Paradise will no longer exist,” Donna added.

Garth shook the table with his glass. “The warm current will no longer soothe me.”

“And my kid will cry,” Roy insisted, “which means sometime between now and then, I’ll have to kick your ass. No one makes my kid cry and gets away with it.”

Garth laughed. “That’s ditto for me.”

Wally’s punched Dick in the shoulder. “Oh, totally.”

Donna fell silent, and Dick’s ghost of a smile fed into her own as he extended his hand halfway across the table. “I’ll look after him, Donna. I promise.”

“I know,” she muttered and met his hand, “but am I a bad mother not to want you to have to?”

“No. It just means you’re a good friend.” Dick let go to sit up in his chair, even though his shoulders remained hunched over. “So, who gets the Titans’ leadership?”

“Aren’t you part of the League now?” Donna asked, gulping down a brew possibly faster than Wally.

“Yeah, but let’s be honest. No matter how high we fly or how far we travel, we’ll always be Titans. Titans together—”

“—Titans forever,” the four replied, and each put a bottle to his/her mouth.

Dick let out a hiccup.

Silence cut through the cacophony of the bar’s band, the hollering matches, and the pool tables before Wally, Donna, Garth, and Roy broke out laughing, and Dick grinned. Even though they assembled for the worst of circumstances—a death in their family—they were together once more, and that always made Dick smile.

“Oh, God. Who would ever think we’d see Short Pants drunk?”

“Please, just as much as we’d see Harper with a kid.”

“Hey! I used protection!”

“And I’m not drunk—yet…”

“Yeah, but what kind of protection is there from Cheshire?”

“Give it time, Robbie.”

“How did that even work? I mean, doesn’t she have those nails that—”

“Boys!”

“Who needs protection when you have powers?”

“What powers?”

“No, not your powers.”

“Do you even know all your powers yet?”

A bottle of Tequila finally made it to the table, and Roy placed it in the very middle. “All right, guys. I have Hal on speed dial, so he can transport us when we’re done, and Ollie’s watching my kid. So, ready?”

Dick arched an eyebrow. It always paid to be suspicious with Roy Harper. “Ready for what?”

An evil smirk twisted the redhead’s face. “Ollie. He died and came back from the dead.”

“Hal Jordan,” Donna eased with a warm smile.

“Superman,” Garth supplied.

“Oh, sure, go with the easy one.”

Wally grinned widely. “Barry.”

Roy shook his head. “What? No way. Doesn’t count. I think I would have noticed a third Flash zipping around here.”

“Well, not yet, but he will. Hey, if Ollie can, who can’t?”

Donna flicked her hand. “No way, Fleet Feet. Chug!”

“Chug! Chug! Chug!” Garth and Roy chanted, causing Wally to pinch his nose close, grab the bottle, and swig. He grimaced less than a second later.

“Oh, that burns, Harper!”

“Then kick your metabolism into speed and get over it,” Roy spat and looked over at the quiet Dick. “Your turn, Grayson.”

Dick traced the top of his bottle with his finger, his touch light and his eyes distracted. “…Hope.”

Garth eyed Dick carefully. “I don’t remember any hero named ‘Hope.’ There was Faith, right?”

“I think Robbie made her up because he wants to get a taste of this lovely year,” Wally said, offering the bottle.

“Hope,” he murmured, ducking his head, “is the greatest hero there is. It’s unconditional. It gives without taking. It persists when all else fails, when the world seems too dark and too ominous for us to bear. It graces us with the power to stand, to meet the next challenge, the next world disaster, the next sunrise. It gives us a reason to go on.

“But when Hope dies…” He seemed to shrink in the chair as he put a hand to the bridge of his nose and cringed. “When I received the news from Star Labs, I knew I was going to die. I felt…nothing. I knew nothing other than the fact that people depend on me. Bruce—he’s lost one person after another, and Tim—God!—Tim is going to self-destruct. He will, and I needed to stop it. I thought—I’d hoped…but I didn’t. I didn’t hope. I accepted what was to come, and I forged ahead not for me but for them, because I couldn’t let what Luthor did to me happen to them. And then, Bruce and Ollie and you guys—you all said I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t give up Hope because if I did, I’d be giving into my greatest fear—failing all of you. You all resurrected my hope, but…

“But when Hope dies, all that’s left is to surrender.”

Dick didn’t look up, couldn’t meet their faces. Hope had lived through his ordeal, only for it to die in Star Labs. His family had brought it back to life, only for Hope to leave him once more. There was no more Hope. There was no more fight. He might as well jump off the next bridge; it would less painful than what was in store for him.

The tears masked Donna’s voice, but it was as strong as he ever heard it. “Dick Grayson.”

Garth slammed a fist to the table. “Dick Grayson.”

“Absolutely.” Wally slid the bottle back into the center of the table. “Dick Grayson.”

“Hey, if anyone can do it, it’s Robbie here,” Roy urged and slapped his back, “and let’s be honest. Will the flying rat let you go that easily? Hell no.”

Dick raised his head reticently, shocked to see the tears glistening even in Roy’s eyes. “Even after everything, you guys won’t give up on me.”

Garth shrugged with a sheepish smile. “Would you give up on anyone of us, Fearless Leader?”

“Never.”

“Then you have our answer,” Donna proclaimed and wiped the tears from her eyes. “You’ve got us to grab onto, honey, and there is no way we’re letting you go.”

“Hey, did you guys say ‘Dick Grayson’?”

Dick froze instantly, though the man, a bald elderly man with a gray goatee, wobbled over to the table.

Garth’s purple eyes narrowed, and for a second, Dick actually thought a laser was going to burn off the rest of the balding man’s hair. “May we help you?”

“I thought you said ‘Dick Grayson.’ What, with his adoptive father being the Bat and all, the whole bar is having a pool to see if the kids are vigilantes, too?” He smirked and met each Titan’s eyes. “You want in?”

Dick dropped his head to the table.

*^*^

“Run it again.”

Barbara’s demoralized voice crackled through the speakers. “I already did—four times. There is no changing the facts, Batman.”

“Ugh! …please...”

“Run it again.” Batman redirected his attention to the bleeding mass in his hands. “You no longer have anything reason to hide any information you have.”

Sean Madison’s bottom lip quivered, and he tried to pry the Batman’s fingers apart. He only received another pound to his face.

“Run it again, Oracle.”

“No.”

“Run. It—”

“Ugh! Stop it! I only met Luthor at the lab! I don’t know—”

“Batman, stop!” Barbara screamed desperately. “No one wants this person not to be Franklin Madison more than me, okay? But it’s not going to make a difference if I run it four times or five times. It will always come out the same.”

The man in his hair sniffled and looked up at Batman with his badly beaten face. “D—Dad’s…dead?”

“Run it again.” Batman growled once more and grabbed the man with both his hands. He shoved Sean back into the wall. “If you don’t want to join him, I suggest you TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!”

The doors behind him swooshed open, but Batman never turned to the new voice. “Enough!”

A flash of green light separated Batman from Sean, and the boy scrambled backwards until he reached the corner of his tiny cell.

Batman brought his cape about his body as the original Leaguers who were now current members dashed into the room. Diana immediately fell to Sean’s side and tilted up his chin. “Bruce, this boy needs medical attention.”

“After I’m done with him,” Batman remonstrated.

Superman hovered a few feet off the ground and shook his head. “Let’s discuss this elsewhere.”

“No. Not until he tells me what I want to know.”

“You’re done now.”

Batman loathed super speed, especially once he found himself in the hallway outside the cell. Pivoting, he pushed both of his hands into Superman’s chest and forced the man back. “You have no conception of what is occurring, do you?”

“No matter how many times you press Oracle, the facts will not change,” Green Lantern said.

“And that boy knows nothing more than the lab location, which you have already investigated,” Diana revealed as she walked out of the cell and shut the door behind her. Her rope hung loosely from her hand. “You wanted to know the truth, all you needed to do was ask.”

Batman clenched his fists under his cape. “I didn’t want your help. I knew you would give pity to that bast—”

“Pity?” Green Lantern repeated. “Bruce, that boy—”

“—tortured Nightwing,” Batman completed and strode toward the cell again. “I’m working. Leave.”

“Working?” Dinah rebuked. “You’re torturing a prisoner.”

“Interrogating.”

“You’re obsessing, like always,” Superman chuckled. “There’s a difference.”

“There isn’t anything funny about this situation, Clark,” Batman grated. “I have work to do, and you’re distracting me.”

A feather light, tender hand clasped his shoulder, rubbing the tense muscles back and forth. “You’re still working on shock. Rest, Bruce. Your work will be here when you wake up.”

“That’s what bothers me, Diana.”

“Then it’s time to face reality,” Dinah eased, her tone pitched to soothe. “You have to learn how to—”

“No,” he cut her off. “If you cannot leave me alone, then I will come back. I have other avenues I need to address.”

A green fence erected across the hallway, keeping him from the sanctuary of silence. “We just want to talk, Bruce.”

“I don’t have time to talk. Ask me in a few months. I’ll give you a minute. Less for you, Hal.”

“Bruce, please. We’re all worried about you,” Diana interjected. “I know this is hard. You’ve already lost one son and to lose another—”

“I’m not losing Dick,” he replied. “I just have yet to find a solution.”

Dinah stepped forward. “Denial doesn’t help. You have to finally accept what is fact, Bruce.”

“I don’t take situations at face value, and if I gave up as easily as you wish me to, then I wouldn’t be here today. Neither would any of my sons or many of you.”

“I get the willpower thing,” Hal said. “I get the whole ‘I will conquer this’ mentality. It’s admirable, but…you’ve been running since this whole fiasco began almost a year ago, and you have yet to see the truth.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Batman dismissed and narrowed his eyes. “Drop your power, Jordan.”

“No. Not until you talk to us.”

Batman turned to see the original members of the Justice League of America and balled his fists. They were his trusted allies and his few friends. “I know you are attempting to help me in some misguided and self-indulgent need to make me act and feel differently to meet your unrealistic ideals of my relationship with my son, but at this time, though obvious to not one of you, I actually have work that needs to be done. I have to determine that Franklin Madison is actually dead, and until I do—”

“Stop,” Dinah ordered, putting a hand on Batman’s shoulder. “Stop doing this to yourself, Bruce. You did not fail that boy, and by overcompensating and denying the truth—”

“I found three bodies with the DNA of my sons, each of whom is still alive,” he snapped, his eyes blazing under his cowl. “Do not come to conclusions before all evidence has reached it futility.”

“And see what is there! Your boy is dying!”

“I will save him.”

“And if you can’t?” Diana asked.

“There is no ‘can’t’,” Batman countered. “I will do what I must.”

“Bruce, for God’s sake!” Superman deliberately walked across the room instead of flying. “You are only human!”

“That’s not a damn excuse!” Batman hollered. “I don’t accept that, and neither should you! I have fought against what civilians would call unfathomable odds. I have cheated death numerous times, have known enemies and friends who have physically died and come back to life, and when all said it couldn’t be done, I have found ways to succeed. Now is not the time I will find my limitations, Clark. If I have to go to hell and back, then I will do so for my boy, but do not stand here and tell me that this where I should finally accept the possible when you, yourself, have achieved the impossible. What right do you have or Dinah, who once lost her husband, or Diana, who lost a sister, or Hal, who lost his own life, have to deny me my son? Who are you tell me to stop pursuing every avenue in attempt to save his life? I have already lost him once, and I will not allow you or anyone else to stand in my way from preventing that from happening again.”

“I don’t. I’m just…” Superman exhaled. “I’m just saying that you have to be prepared for all outcomes.”

Batman finally averted his eyes. “Trust me, Clark. No one is more prepared for every possible outcome of this than me.” He turned his back to the group, but it wasn’t quick enough to hide the glistening upon his cheeks. He stared at the green fence. “Drop it.”

Green Lantern obeyed.

*^*^*

A soft knock sounded on his door, and Tim whirled from his computer. “Hey you. I figured you’d be out of it for at least the rest of the day.”

“Not so loud,” Dick whined as he entered the boy’s new room at Wayne Manor the Sequel or so they’d begun to call it. He grimaced as he flopped down on Tim’s bed and crossed his legs. He patted the space across him. “Join me.”

“Okay,” Tim murmured with a chuckle and ran up, jumped, and bounced onto the bed. The sudden jerking caused Dick to grab his head, and he swatted at the boy’s head.

“Thanks a lot for understanding.”

“No problem! I figure it’s best I keep things the way they have been, y’know?”

Dick nodded. “Yeah, I know, but sometimes, you just have to keep moving on. Sometimes, it’s the only thing you can do.”

Tim eyed Dick warily. “Bro, what are you saying?”

He wasn’t sure himself, but Dick knew he had to say something. “I know you and Damian didn’t start out on the right foot.”

“Uh, maybe you forgot this little fact, so let me repeat it for you.” Tim paused to lean forward and shout, “He tried to kill me!”

“Do the words ‘hang over’ mean anything to you?” Dick moaned and winced, touching his head lightly.

Tim shrugged. “Not really. Never had one.”

A hair tousle. “Good kid. Look, I know whatever I say won’t make you happy when I talk about Damian.”

“Well, maybe not anything…”

“Tim!”

“Hey, demon boy is your brother, too.”

“Not for very long…” Dick muttered before reaching out to clasp Tim’s shoulder. “I need you to do something for me. It’s not going to be easy, but I needed to do this for Bruce. Trust me. It’ll work out, and if it doesn’t and you can’t take it, I’ve already talked to Roy about giving you a place to stay just in case.”

“Can’t take—what? Staying with Roy? What the—” Tim asked, his breathing increasing. “Bro, what did you do?”

Slumping, Dick told him.

*^*^*

The camp looked no different from the one Bruce had visited years ago when he was still a boy. It looked no different from the one he’d found Leslie in after the Gotham Gang War, but his purpose for finding her was different.

He entered her tent as swiftly as he entered Commissioner Gordon’s office, yet unlike Jim, she heard. She always heard.

“Hello, Bruce. I didn’t think you would ever come back here.” She swiveled in her chair. “At least you didn’t wear the suit.”

Leslie sat at a makeshift computer desk not too far away. The machine on top was ancient by normal people’s standards, archaic by Bat ones. She, however, never changed. No matter how much she aged, the warm feeling he had when he saw her filled his bruised body once more, and now he knew why he never lost those feelings.

When she met his eyes, cold and unforgiving, he proceeded. “I need your help, Leslie.”

“This coming from the man who threatened to have me arrested if I ever stepped foot in America again?”

A person entered the tent, a girl with blonde hair and sharp brown eyes carrying a few files. She stopped short when she saw the towering figure.

Bruce granted her a tiny nod. “Hello, Stephanie.”

“Y—You’re Bruce Wayne,” she stuttered, and the papers whisked through her numb hands.

“Yes, but you knew me as a different person.” Picking put the files, the edge in his voice returned even though he wore khaki pants and a dress shirt. He looked at Leslie. “I know the truth now.”

Stephanie’s eyes never left his face as realization dawned in her eyes. Leslie quickly came to side and ushering the girl out of the tent. “Why don’t you check with Dr. Paterson, and I’ll meet you in a minute.”

“But—But—”

When the tent flapped closed, Leslie crossed her arms. “What do you want, Bruce? Something for your cape-and-cowl crusade?”

He handed her his own file. “No, for Dick. I need a second opinion.”

*^*^*

Christmas in Bermuda. Something just wasn’t right about it, Dick mused as he sat upon the beach with his father’s and his own Justice League comm. units between his legs. He hoped for a disaster and then felt guilty about it. It was Christmas. There should be peace on Earth, and all he wanted was a distraction.

Even though they only ventured off the island every so often for supplies—mostly Dick and Selina—he was shocked by the amount of decorations Alfred had acquired somewhere to light up the manor. A brightly lit tree—a real Balsam fir—almost brushed against the living room ceiling, while garland twirled down each stairwell. Mistletoe hung low from a few archways, and though Selina and Bruce seemed to enjoy them, Dick averted his eyes every time he saw one.

The Gordons were supposed to come over for Christmas dinner. Jim was supposed to know The Secret officially by then.

Exhaling, Dick fought the urge to grab more eggnog and instead slumped in the sand, discontent to watch the waves crash into the shore.

It was night.

The cold air should have been teasing his hair as he jumped from one building to another. The snow should have been making it more dangerous than usual, but he was good at what he did, which included bugging Bruce to stop patrolling for one minute. He should have been annoying as hell to his father, telling Bruce there was no point. Christmas was Christmas for most Gothamites. There should be no problems on the streets.

This year he got his wish. The Titans and Justice League looked over Gotham, and Bruce was home, sitting on the couch watching a movie with Selina, Tim, and Alfred. Yet all Dick wanted was to be in Gotham, bugging his father to go home because he knew the reason Bruce was home. It was more than just the Bruce Wayne Reveal. It was because this was most likely Dick’s last Christmas.

Huh. Where was that eggnog again?

“What’d you do to get solitary confinement?”

Dick dropped his head into his hands. “Do you have to watch everything?”

“That’s relative. When it looks like you’re about to take the big drink, yes, I have to. If you’re getting out of your swimming trunks and into those Bermuda shorts, no, I don’t have to. I just wanted to. Hey, what can I say? It’s the ass.”

A hint of a smile parted his lips. “So, where are you?”

“Everywhere,” she said, though her voice sounded right next to him, like she sat in the sand with him. That, however, was impossible. Of course, with Oracle, it was just possible, too. “It…It will be a beautiful wedding.”

“It would have been a beautiful wedding.”

“Dick—”

“Barbara.”

Yes, he used that tone. He needed to. He wouldn’t go through this. Not now.

Well, she always was a spitfire. “Richard.” She could mimic the tone, too, if not perfectly, but she certainly could channel the Batman.

Not today. His hands cupped the sides of his head, his elbows propped on his knees. “Babs, please. I can’t do this, okay? The world is going to crash down upon me in a matter of hours, and I can’t argue with you and Bruce on the same day. I’ll be exhausted when he pounces, and I can’t take it. So will you just let me be this once?”

Silence greeted him for several moments, and he relaxed into the sand, watching as the stars began their migratory path across the sky. Was she watching the same stars?

“I’m not going to let you go that easily.”

Damn. “Barbara, cut through all the shit. What do you want from me?”

Another pause, followed by, “I just want you to know that when you finally come to your senses and decide you made a horrendous mistake and come crawling back to me, I’ll at least listen to your pleas.”

“I won’t make you a widow,” he repeated.

She sighed. “Then make me a wife, Gray—” The doorbell chimed loud enough for Dick to hear, but he didn’t move. He didn’t have to. He knew who was at the door even before Barbara did, though he was surprised he hadn’t heard the silent helicopter. “Oh my God. Dick, do you know—”

“Master Damian!” Alfred’s shocked voice carried, and Dick picked up the JLA comm. unit.

“Ring, damnit! Ring!”

“Dick?” Barbara asked. “What’s going on? Why are you—”

At least this time, the wish he wanted he received.

*^*^*

As soon as Alfred yelled, Bruce’s head perked up. The simple thought of Damian being here, of knowing where to come, alarmed Bruce, and he hurried into the foyer. His eyes fell upon the boy he hadn’t seen since his mother knocked him out, and his heart warmed, despite the different appearance. Instead of wearing a ninja outfit of some sort—or even a Robin uniform—Damian wore a simple red jacket over a black undershirt with jeans and sneakers. He already had handed his luggage, one duffle, to Alfred and walked up Bruce before bowing.

“We meet again, Father. I have been awaiting our reunion.”

Bruce regarded the boy for a moment, his heart fluttering. He’d wanted to see his son again, hoped that he would be able to find the boy eventually, but this was wrong. He knew it. Making a sweeping glance about the area, he noticed Selina stood in the doorway behind him, watching with attention. Alfred looked pleased, even though the boy wasn’t always the best of company, and Tim and Dick were nowhere to be found.

Damn.

Bruce hesitated before putting a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Damian, what are you doing here?”

“I came to be with you, Father,” the boy said with youthful enthusiasm.

“Why?”

The boy looked hurt before mumbling, “I do not know. Mother just said I should come and stay with you for a while. She would send for me when the time came.”

Bruce shot a glare over Selina’s shoulder into the living room to see Tim fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “Alfred, will you please escort Damian to one of the bedrooms upstairs, preferably one not next to Tim’s, and help him unpack?”

Alfred nodded and patted Damian’s shoulder. “Of course, Master Bruce. Come along, Master Damian.”

“…wait.”

Damian stopped before the bottom stair, and Bruce gave into his impulse. If these last few months had taught him anything, it was not to let family go for granted. He reached forward and drew the small being into his arms. His heart melted; the boy hardly reached his chest, just like Dick when he was the boy’s age. There were so many similarities, especially lately.

When Damian began to squirm—he was more like his father than his brother—Bruce released him.

Damian cocked his head to the side. “Have you grown weak in my absence, Father?”

“Unpack, then come downstairs. We have much to discuss,” Bruce commanded, and the boy nodded once obediently.

Selina waited for Damian to head down the upstairs hallway before coming over to hold her partner’s hand. “He’s wrong. You’ve become stronger.”

“But sloppy apparently,” Bruce growled under his breath. “Would you mind retrieving Dick? I think this applies to him.”

In one fluid motion, he turned and treaded into the living room, where Tim glanced at him before once more looking at the television. Bruce snatched the remote off the couch and clicked it off. “What do you know about this?”

Tim shrugged. “Know about what?”

“Tim, don’t lie to me.” Bruce’s voice sharpened until it included The Voice, and he jerked Tim’s chin so the boy had to meet his eyes. “If Damian came under normal circumstances, you would have already attacked him or at least threatened him, and yet here you sit, frustrated but calm.”

“He’s your son, too,” Tim resigned with a distraught sigh and slumped back on the couch. “I’m just going to have to deal with it.”

“Bruce?” Selina called from the doorway before he could retort. When he turned, Bruce already knew her answer just by the worried look upon her face. “He wasn’t out there. I did find this, though.”

She handed him one JLA comm. unit, which still blinked to indicate an alert.

Damnit.

Bruce snatched it and glared down at Tim. “If you know something about this, now’s the time to tell me.”

Fear flashed in Tim’s eyes before he redirected them. Rubbing the back of his neck, he leaned forward to mutter, “I don’t know much. Dick didn’t tell me the whole thing…”

*^*^*

“Someone sure likes their Christmas lights and just couldn’t wait to light up some more,” Nightwing quipped as he stood at the mainframe, clicking off buttons. The control room was fairly big and led to the missile silos behind him, where the rest of the Leaguers currently battled. “Missile Silo Two is under siege—or so I’m guessing from the blown-in door. Silo One’s missile is currently being tampered with to launch to North Korea. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.”

“Someone’s in rare form—ugh!—tonight,” Red Arrow called through the channel.

Black Canary’s voice steeled. “Can you tamper with it, possibly turn it off?”

“Why do I constantly get the hard jobs?” Nightwing sighed with mock exasperation and began to type away. He wasn’t as good with computers as Tim or Barbara, but he could make due when need be. His fingers flew across the keys before he heard the steps behind him.

“I know you’re there, Batman. You can cut the stealth stuff, and if you want to help before chewing my ass off, you might want to check out Missile Silo Three with Superman. There’s no noise from that one, and that’s what worries me.”

“Sorry, kid. Not the Bat.”

The malicious voice perked up Nightwing’s head just in time, and he dove out of the way as the sword came down and tore through the metal mainframe. By the time Nightwing pivoted into a defensive fighting style, Deathstroke had already freed his sword and cocked his head to the side.

“Oh, I hope I didn’t just ruin your project.”

Nightwing’s eyes narrowed, and his fists shook. “Slade.”

“Oh, still holding a little grudge there, huh?” Deathstroke sauntered forward. “I told you before, kid. It was nothing too personal.”

As Deathstroke rushed forward with his sword pierced to strike, Nightwing ducked and hit on his comm. unit. “Requesting back-up; unsure if mission compromised.”

“So formal!” Deathstroke grunted as he kicked upward, and Nightwing barely avoided the appendage with a flip.

“Status?” Superman asked.

Nightwing leapt over Deathstroke’s head and kicked back, smacking the man in the tail before rushing toward the computer. “Fifty seconds for Silo One’s launch—grr!”

Grasping his shoulder, Nightwing didn’t need to look to know there would be blood. If he hadn’t moved a step to the left, he would’ve lost a head.

“Your status?” Superman shouted.

Vaulting off the mainframe, Nightwing kicked upward to hit Deathstroke in the chin and force him back. “I’m fine! Get the missile. When you’re done, just come.”

“Who’re you fighting?” Flash demanded, sounding breathless.

Nightwing blocked a punch and clapped his hands together to still the sword. “Oh, just an old friend.”

Calling for back-up was the smart thing, but he did so only so Superman knew to stop the missile. He really wanted this—needed this. Deathstroke had been the person to take his life away, and yeah, he wanted a little vengeance. Just a little. Okay, maybe a lot.

Yet Deathstroke was the World’s Deadliest Assassin, and one didn’t attain that title without being good at fighting.

Nightwing grunted as his body slammed against the wall, and he flopped to the ground. He wiped the blood from his mouth and used the mainframe to stand, but that was the least of his worries. His comm. screamed to life as the Leaguers battled the Society.

“You can’t get away?” Wonder Woman yelled. “We only have a few seconds before it launches.”

“I can catch it in air and send into space,” Superman assured.

“As long as you can get free by then,” Black Canary shouted. “Hal—”

“It’s yellow-based! No can do!”

Black Lightning grunted, exhausted. “Don’t talk at me. I already tried frying its wires. Damn thing’s insulated.”

“Nightwing, can you—”

Nightwing glanced at the mainframe, his resolve firmed. He knew what would happen if he turned his back on Slade Wilson for a second, but that was the price for being there, for accepting the role, for fighting the good fight.

At least this way he wouldn’t have to suffer the next few months.

“On it!” he yelled and surveyed his surroundings. A few large pipes ran overhead, and he followed them for as long as his eyes could tell. They led straight into the silos, and he had no doubt as to what they were.

Deathstroke sauntered toward him. “On it? Well, we just can’t have that, now can we?”

As Deathstroke lunched, Nightwing jumped up and slashed through the pipes with a batarang. He pushed off the wall to fly over Deathstroke’s head and his swiping sword before landing hard on his hands. He used his momentum to tuck into a roll and came up to the mainframe. Taking out his handheld, he shoved a connector into the USB port and immediately began countermeasures even as the freezing cold water flushed through the room. It would stun Deathstroke for only a handful of seconds, and with any luck, it would be enough.

His thumbs felt went numb as he heard the sloshes of water behind him. The breaths burst from the person’s mouth, and Nightwing knew he wouldn’t be lucky enough for that to be Batman.

“I know you, Grayson, sometimes I think you’re even better than the Bat.” Wilson’s voice warned, and its tenderness sent shivers down Nightwing’s back. The sword’s blade brushed against his spine, and Nightwing battled his nerves to continue scanning the files. Only twenty seconds left before North Korea got a make-over.

“I know what you did for Daddy, but you didn’t do it for him, did you?”

The blade crept up Nightwing’s back to rub ever so gently upon his neck, and Nightwing fought the trembling. Not now. Don’t think about it. Stay focused. Millions of people depend upon you.

Fifteen seconds.

“You did it because you’re scared shitless.”

Ten seconds. He had the code!

“If you die, then you’ll have to come to terms with the fact you weren’t good enough. That you failed him, and rather than facing that little fact at the end, you’re giving up. This way, you chose not to succeed rather than actually discovering you just didn’t have it.”

Five seconds. He was in the programming. He just had to administer the code—

“But don’t worry, kid. I’ll help you.” Deathstroke leaned forward to run a hand through the boy’s hair. “It’s all over now.”

Even as Nightwing punched in the numbers, a hand jerked his head back, and he closed his eyes.

Bruce, I’m sorry…

“I told you to stay away from my kid!”

“Countdown halted,” flashed up onto his handheld, and Nightwing whirled to see Batman swing down from the pipes and thrust his feet into Deathstroke’s chest. The mercenary flew backwards and crashed into the wall. Before he managed to stand, Batman was upon him once more, slamming his hand across Deathstroke’s face, and the mercenary slumped back into the water.

Nightwing let out a loud sigh and leaned against the mainframe. “Crisis diverted here, people. How’s it going on your end?”
A second passed as Batman tied Deathstroke’s limbs together. “Actually, you’re not going to believe this,” Flash huffed through the comm.

“Believe wha—ack!”

His father’s hand upon his shoulder tugged him back, while the second fisted in the front of his suit. Before he could struggle, Batman flung him into the wall. So, that was what it felt like to be one of the criminals. Totally not cool. He hardly had enough strength to remain standing through the pain bucking his knees.

“What did you do?” Batman demanded, his tone even deeper and more menacing than The Voice. He’d done it this time, but Nightwing knew that when he originally conceived the idea.

Of course, maybe he and Batman were thinking of two different things.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nightwing managed to wheeze through his constricted throat.

If anything, that seemed to fuel Batman’s anger even more, and he raised his fist to press into Nightwing’s neck. “Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m not—”

The door behind the Batman flew open, and in rushed Red Arrow, Black Canary, and Wonder Woman.

Red Arrow immediately notched an arrow. “It finally happened! The Bat’s snapped!”

“Wait!” Black Canary ordered, putting a hand on Red Arrow’s shoulder. “T—This looks vaguely familiar.”

“What!”

Nightwing’s reprieve lasted as long as it took Batman to realize Red Arrow would not shoot before he shoved his son back into the wall. “Barbara said you met with Talia, and then Damian comes to live with us.”

Nightwing struggled to smile, struggled to speak, struggled to breathe. “Coin... cidence…?”

He flinched when the hand hit the metal wall next to his head, and Batman was in his face again. “Tim said you talked to him about Damian, said it was for the best.”

“Damn…can’t tell that kid anything…”

“You saw an opportunity. Talia gave you a deal, and you cut it. What was it?”

Nightwing’s eyes narrowed, and other than that, he gave no other indication of the punch he managed to throw. Batman easily caught it with a hand, twisted the wrist, and slammed his protégé face-first into the wall. Nightwing grunted at the stinging in his cheek and stomach and attempted to snake his arm through Batman’s impervious hold.

Attempted.

“Damn…you’re good…”

Wonder Woman’s brief smile quickly dissipated to a frown as she turned on her heel.

“Let them be,” Black Canary advised her own son with a pat on the shoulder. “They’re just working out family issues.”

Still watching the scene with skeptical eyes, Red Arrow followed her reluctantly. “Looks to me like the Bat’s using Dick as a punching bag.”

“Kid deserves it.”

“Yeah, how you figure that?”

She hit up the boy’s chin playfully with a fist. “Because it’s the exact same thing I did when you were on heroine.”

Once the door shut again, Nightwing squirmed at the feeling of his father’s voice near his ear. “Tell me what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

The hands upon wrist flexed, searing pain up Nightwing’s arm like liquid fire. “Don’t lie to me again.”

Nightwing pressed his forehead into the cool, saturated wall, and allowed its water to cover his sweat. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s done.”

Another twist, another round of agony, but when he attempted to elbow Batman’s stomach with his free arm, a hand slammed it into the wall. A knee bent into the small of his back and forced his pelvis into the wall, preventing him from kicking back. Batman had effectively restrained him. Damn those files. His father even had one on him.

“Tell me.”

“Batman, stop it.”

“Tell me!”

“God, Bruce, stop! You’re hurting me…”

The arms fled his own, and the weight upon his back eased. His body still smarted, especially his shoulder, and he quickly moved away from the wall like it was an accessory in his pain. Batman stood a few feet away, his cape closed, his eyes back upon the unconscious Slade Wilson.

“I’m…I’m sorry. I never want to hurt you.”

Nightwing rotated his shoulder. “It’s all right. I—I can’t say I shouldn’t have done what I did, but—”

“What did you do, Dick?”

Nightwing let out a sigh and raked his fingers through his sodden hair. “Are you going to slam me into the wall again if I don’t tell you?”

The answer was instantaneous. “Yes.”

Oh. In that case… “Ra’s stops going after Jason and Tim, and you have two years with Damian. I figure that’ll give you more than enough time to infect him with that altruism you did the rest of us, and he’ll be loyal to you forever. ” He chuckled slightly. “Great. Now I’m even making us sound like your dogs.”

The humor, of course, was lost on Batman. “For what in return?”

Nightwing exhale loudly. Oh, this would hurt. “You know what.”

Before Nightwing could even blink, Batman fisted his hands in Nightwing’s suit and lifted him up, so they were eye-to-eye. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“That I was dying anyway. That we have no foreseeable cure, and now it’s inevitable. Franklin Madison is dead, and I’ll follow him. Might as well make my death mean something.”

Batman’s face scrunched into a horrible scowl, and he moved to throw Nightwing into the wall but stopped just before doing so. “How could I have raised such an idiot?”

Something broke in Nightwing’s chest, as Batman continued, “How could you think that Damian could ever fill the void that you will leave?”

Nightwing gulped. “It’s not just Damian. I’m saving Tim and Jason’s lives, too, y’know. Would you rather Ra’s still be after them? This way, Ra’s’s only after me, and I’ll give myself to him. For Tim and Jason and hell, even Damian, I’m willing make to that sacrifice.”

Batman’s fist came back, and Nightwing saw the desperation saturating Batman’s face, tainting Batman’s once steel eyes, shaking his once firm fist. He’d seen the look and the body posture only a hand full of times during his time as a partner and son. Batman could be wary, even guarded, but now, he was terrified.

Instead of releasing the fist, Batman lowered Nightwing to the ground and as he turned toward the door, glanced over his shoulder.

“I’m not.”

Nightwing wiped the blood from his mouth and leaned against the mainframe for the longest time, simply staring at the door through which Batman exited.

Eventually, the door opened again, and a shadow cast over him. When he looked up, Batman held out a hand. After a moment, Nightwing took it and was pulled into a strong embrace.

“I’m still not sorry,” he murmured.

Batman said nothing. He simply curled the cape about Nightwing’s body and held him close, as if he could shield the boy from the rest of the world.

*^*^*

“Leslie?”

The elderly woman kept turned toward the computer, her hair blocking any view from her face. Slowly, Batman approached her and clasped his hands upon her shoulders.

“Leslie, please…”

She patted one of his hands and whispered, “All of this is above my comprehension, Bruce.”

The weakness in her voice, the emotion within her eyes, were more of an answer than her words.

“Then, there is nothing…?” he asked.

She stood them and turned, revealing the tears coursing down her cheeks. Her hands grabbing his face, she muttered, “From as far as I can, nothing can stop the progression. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

He averted his eyes. “Clark was right. This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t—”

“Perhaps, but that doesn’t change the facts. You must focus on the here and now. What are you going to do about this?”

“…You won’t approve, Leslie.”

Swallowing a sob, she reached for him and pulled him into a tight hug. “I—I don’t believe I’m going to say this, but Bruce?”

He returned the embrace as strongly as she gave it. “Leslie, please—”

“Make the bastards pay.”

*^*^*

The high bar was one of the hardest routines in the world of gymnastics. Sure, one could break one’s neck by tumbling wrong, but the high bar added the extra ten feet or so. One wouldn’t just crack one’s head open; one would probably spew brains all over the mat, too. Alfred would definitely not like to clean that up.

Which was why it shocked Dick when he heard the batarangs coming toward him while he performed at handstand. He immediately dropped with the momentum to miss the first one, twisted into a corkscrew to avoid the second, and slapped the third between his hands as he landed. Tossing it to the side, he glared up at the person standing on the Crays’ platform of the new cave.

“You know, you just could’ve called out, Dad.”

Bruce, dressed in a hiking vest, black calf-high boots, and a turtleneck, gestured toward the pack left for Dick on the Crays’ mainframe. “Get dressed and prep the jet. We’re going on a trip.”

“Sure, fine. Thanks for asking if I had anything going,” Dick replied as he snatched his water bottle. “Can it wait until I at least take a—you’re gone already, aren’t you?”

No one answered him.

*^*^*

“You know, when you said ‘trip,’ I thought somewhere relaxing—maybe Acapulco. Perhaps Aspen.” Dick reaffirmed his grip on the little sliver of mountain. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s great being back in Gotham, but it’s not the vacation I thought of.”

“You want a vacation from Bermuda?” Bruce asked skeptically.

“Well…when you put it that way, you make me sound ungrateful.”

As they climbed down the cliffs behind where Wayne Manor had stood, a cold gust of winter air blindsided his body, and Dick thanked Alfred for leaving him his warmest turtleneck to wear. His vest helped to warm his heart, which needed the heat the most, while his arms had to fend for themselves. After all, Bruce had only taken one backpack and said they wouldn’t need any other supplies. Guess they weren’t staying the night. “So, mind telling me why the hell we’re here?”

Bruce glanced up from his position below but didn’t look the boy in the eyes. “Hell must have frozen over.”

Dick’s gloved hand decided at that moment to give way, and if not for the traction of his boots and his other hand, he would have tumbled ten feet until the cord connecting his harness to Bruce caught. Of course, first a lot pain would have been administered.

“Okay, Dad, really not a good time to be making jokes. I don’t want to die before I’m supposed to.”

Bruce’s usual mask of grief and turmoil overcame the Dark Knight, and silence reigned. Dick immediately wished to kick himself, and he would’ve if he’d been on solid ground. Now, as it was, he hung a few hundred feet from anything solid to stand on, and though he loved to skydive, there was a different between skydiving and air-plunging.

Luckily, they didn’t have far left to go. From what Dick could tell, the entrance to some sort of cave was below, and when Bruce took refuge inside, he reached down to give Dick the same opportunity. The younger man took hold of Bruce’s wrist and allowed his father to swing him into the dry and slightly warmer area. He collapsed to the ground, while Bruce fought to his feet to continue.

“Y’know, we could take a breather, maybe make some tea, warm my frost-bitten ass.”

“Not now.”

“Why not?”

Cursing under his breath when Bruce’s harness began to tug him off the ground, Dick fought to untie the knot while Bruce fought to pull him along, and only once Dick freed himself did he stagger to his feet. “Okay, something’s wrong. You’re being…a dad. A normal dad, and it’s creeping me out.” As he came to Bruce’s side, he sent the older man a sideways expression. “You all right?”

Bruce shook his head, apparently short on words—not for the first time, Dick thought—and ruffled Dick’s hair before heading deeper into the cave. Dick watched him go a few feet and then looked at his bangs before staring incredulously at Bruce’s back. Something was wrong here, and he felt like he was going deeper into Hell with every step he took.

Dick followed not far behind, watching as Bruce came seemingly to a dead end with a flat rock wall in front. “Dad, just where are we going?”

Bruce’s hand flattened against a small bulge in the wall, and the rock underneath his fingers lightened from brown to red, and a yellow horizontal line lowered from the top of his middle finger to below his palm. After a moment of silence, the ground underneath their feet began to rumble, and the wall retracted to allow their passage. A rounded corridor led deeper into a dark abyss, and Bruce snatched a torch off the wall.

“Unknown DNA signature,” a computerized Alfred voice declared.

“Computer: Permit ‘Nightwing,’ DNA signature on file.”

“Very good, sir.”

“You locked me out of something? Really?” Dick asked, but Bruce already continued onward.

Dick hated the pit forming in his gut, the same gut Bruce always taught him to trust. “Dad, did you have an auxiliary cave I didn’t know about? Is this where you hung during that time you were accused of murder? Would’ve been nice to know about when Tim, Alfred, and I were getting shot at.”

Bruce treaded on as if he never heard Dick, and slowly—and against his better judgment—Dick followed.

Bruce seemed oblivious to any of Dick’s hesitation, which made the younger man’s skin crawl. Bruce had been unnerving silent—even for him—on the jet ride with intermittent commands here and there. He never even looked Dick in the eyes—still had yet to.

Dick observed silently as Bruce’s limp hand began to shake, and he fisted it in attempt to hide that fact.

It didn’t slip past Dick.

“What the hell are we doing here—wherever the hell here is?”

“Is that your favorite swear?”

Dick blinked at the abrupt question and quickened his pace to catch up with Bruce. “No, I can’t tell you my favorite swear because it’s so bad, and that’s not the point anyway. What’re we doing here? Where are we?”

The dark path led to an open cavern, where a raging river ran the chasm and separated the duo from the rest of the journey.

Bruce never turned toward Dick as he stared at the river below. “I want you to know that no matter what has happened or how we disconnected in the past, I have always been proud of you.”

A snort. “Please. You were proud of me when I quit college? When I joined the police force? When I let a woman kill another person for me?”

“I do not always agree with your decisions, but I am always proud of you. I—” Bruce faltered for a moment, but he did not heed. “I never thought when I started this crusade I would ever be…able to have the feelings to which I have grown accustomed. I thought all I would ever feel would be the void of my parents’ deaths, but you changed that. Without me knowing, you had somehow worked your way into my life and forged a bond that I relied far too much upon.” He shook his head. “But I always knew, always feared, that eventually what happened to my parents would happen to you. If…If I loved you and allowed myself to…enjoy the feeling of another reciprocating that love, I would lose you.”

“Bruce…” Dick ventured forward to lay a hand on Bruce’s forearm. “…what are you trying to say?”

Bruce handed the torch over to Dick before taking out a Bat-line. Whirling it fast, he finally let it go, where it buried in a stalactite. “I should have been there when the Justice League took on the Society. Deathstroke should never have been that close to you.”

“It was my own doing.”

“Still, Deathstroke should never have taken you the first time. You should never have been in that position.” Bruce’s voice fell to a whisper. “I never should have adopted you.”

Dick couldn’t say that didn’t hurt. “You mean take me in or actually adopt me?”

“Both.”

“Well, this is a great conversation. Something for me to remember in my final few months. Thanks, Pop.”

A painfully strong hand snatched Dick’s arm before he could leave. “Please don’t misunderstand. You know how I feel about you. This is—I don’t know why there is a curse, but you can see it with Tim and Jason and now you. I—I just wish I could have spared you from this. I would have done anything to spare you and the boys from this.”

“So, in your rationale, I would not have been in his predicament if you had never brought me into your life?” Dick freed his arm with one tug. “I told Clark, and I’m telling you. If you wouldn’t have taken me in, I would have died or killed or did something else to end my life. I’m not normal, Bruce. We’re not normal. If I were, I wouldn’t be standing next to the freakin’ Batman.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Dick.”

“It’s the truth, whether you wish to believe it or not.”

“The truth is not an easy thing to confront or accept.” Bruce refused to meet his son’s eyes and instead, stuffed a line from his sack into Dick’s hand and swung across the chasm. There, he lit another torch, allowing Dick to drop the first one in the river. “You were too afraid of my reaction to your deal with Talia, and instead of confronting it, you chose to run. You have been running since the beginning of entire situation.”

Dick sighed and threw the line, following his father across the ravine. “Yeah, well, I know I’ve been using this excuse, but it’s not easy knowing you’re going to die.”

“So, instead you made a deal with the Daughter of the Demon,” Bruce grated, turning and continuing onward.

Dick realized Bruce knew now. Talia had been after his adopted sons, not Ra’s. “You said you didn’t always agree with my decisions.”

“I—I don’t want to lose you, Dick, not to this deal, to this disease, or to the family curse.”

Dick crossed his arms and looked away, even as a dull green glow reflected against the rock walkway. “It’s like you said. The truth isn’t an easy thing to confront. I’m…sorry, but there’s nothing you can do this time. You have to accept this.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. There is something I can do, even if you’ll never forgive me.”

The words, tinged with desperation, fright, and worst of all, resolve, scared Dick as he rounded a bend behind Bruce. He halted as his boots touched the marble tiles. Columns held up the thirty-foot ceiling, while stairs climbed led down to the shore of a rather large pool of green liquid.

The Lazarus Pit.

How the hell Bruce had one, Dick wasn’t even to able acknowledge now.

“You—” Dick took a step back, his hands unconsciously rising in a defensive position. “You cannot be thinking what I know your thinking.”

“Talia told you there wasn’t much time before even Dr. Madison could do anything.”

How Bruce knew that, Dick didn’t even want to know.

“If she and her father killed Madison, it means there isn’t anything left to do—except this.”

Fear clutched Dick’s heart and speeding up his breathing. “You want me to bathe in that? You’ve got to be crazy!”

“The Fountain of Essence helped to save me and even reversed my age in Nanda Parbat, and even Dinah reclaimed her Canary’s Call from its powers.”

Bruce’s voice remained ever unemotional. Too bad Dick couldn’t say the same for his.

“Bruce, listen to me. Even if I do bathe in…in…that, there’s no guarantee it will restore my body before. As far as we know, it could just give me back Superman’s powers, and the disease will still progress.”

“And no doubt you will not continue to use its benefits.” Bruce touched the tip of his torch against a marble column, and the flame rushed upward to light about the top. It quickly spread to the others, illuminating the entire cavern. “There is only one way for sure to know that your body will be restored to its natural form.”

Dick’s breath caught in his throat as Bruce’s thinking began suddenly clear.

The pit cleaned people in its own perverted way. It cured disease, and it brought the dead back to life.

But only after the person died.

God, that’s why Bruce couldn’t look him in the eyes.

Shaking his head in denial, Dick staggered away from his father as the realization of why Bruce brought him to the pit struck him full force and almost dragged him to his knees. Bruce finally raised his eyes to meet Dick’s, truth glistening in their resignation.

“Dick…I’m sorry,” his father whispered.

And Bruce lunged.

To Be Continued…