“Preservation”
Epilogue
The bat’s
shriek would have jostled him from the calm, warm blanket of unconsciousness if
he wasn’t already awake, and after so many years awaking in the Batcave after a
free-for-all by the super villains of
The only thing that really piqued his interest was the fact that the Bermuda Batcave had no bats.
His bloodshot eyes opened ever so slowly to take in his surroundings, and he thanked whoever had the sense to keep the light above his bed off. Normally waking up from the dead was hard enough without having a spotlight coaxing you toward the light.
Light.
Ugh.
Why was his conscious again? Couldn’t he go back to unconsciousness?
“You can sleep again soon enough,” a rather hoarse but amused voice stole him from precious sleep as did the gentle hand brushing his bangs back from his forehead. “But you have to talk to me for a few minutes and prove you’re off the high wire.”
Oh, circus jokes. Not funny.
“Uh-nuh,” he managed to grumble and would have moved on his side if not for the tenderness radiating from his dressed wounds.
“You know I don’t take disobedience well.”
That was an understatement if Dick ever heard one and a verbal jab at his Robin firing cajoled him to open his eyes. It might have worked if his eyelids weren’t so heavy and his head didn’t pound like he had attended a dance club the night before.
“You might as well give up your rebellion. I’m not going to let you go back to sleep until you talk to me, and I always get my way. You know that.”
Yeah, fathers were like that.
Groaning, Dick pushed pass his exhaustion to focus his blurred vision upon the person leaning over his bed, Bruce’s two hands clasping the side of the medical bed. As his vision cleared, his father’s stern frown came into sight, and he fought the urge to close his eyes again.
Of course, as he looked about the
cave, he realized
Bruce followed his gaze and let a
half-smirk contour his lips. “You approve?
“H—Home—guk!” Dick rasped before his chest protested with violent hacks. The soreness of his chest only eased when Bruce helped to prop him up and gave him a few sips of water. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, Bruce seemed to indulge himself by playing with Dick’s hair.
Dick allowed the small smile to curve his face at the feeling, reveling in the affection he’d wanted through most of his adulthood. If he’d only known that it would take his father’s arch enemy kidnapping, mutating his body and trying to take it for himself, well, he might have tried that when he turned eighteen.
“What’s so funny?” Bruce asked, but Dick simply shook his head. “W—What…now?” Well, his chest still heaved from the exertion of talking, but he could almost make full sentences.
Bruce’s face hardened a pinch, and Dick doubted anyone but he and Alfred would have noticed.
Possibly Tim…and Jason…and maybe Damian, depending on how much the kid was actually starting to learn.
Hey, for that matter…“Where’re…*huff* the kids?”
Kid brothers really. Even Jason was five years younger than he.
Bruce averted his eyes, sadness
creeping into his gaze. “Jason never came here. As soon as he received medical
attention, he left. Tim’s still at school, while Damian is receiving lessons
from Alfred. I honestly don’t believe
Wait. He must have heard that wrong. “Tim’s at school?”
“It was hard prying him away from you, but after Dr. Mid-Nite promised him a second time you’d be okay, he asked that you forgive him and went.”
Not his point, and by the lightness upon Bruce’s face, he knew it, too.
“Hal spoke to the current Spectre, who was able to give us back our secret identities like Hal had done for Wally. Though some people remember, it’s mainly just us and a few choice friends and colleagues.”
“But…” Dick hesitated for only a moment. “Mind-wiping…you…” hate it, went through it.
Bruce shrugged. “After I saw what Dr. Light did to you, I…I realized there are—certain—advantages to mind-wiping.” He cupped Dick’s cheek. “I finally understood how Ralph felt.”
Dick blinked. “Wha…?”
Bruce pursed his lips. “Your pants’ string was undone. Light was going to do to you what he did to Sue Dibny, wasn’t he?”
Dick avoided Bruce’s gaze and what he feared to tell his father for two years slipped through his gritted teeth. “It already happened….once. After…Blockbuster…Catalina…”
“I know,” Bruce saved him from confessing, clasping his son’s hand and squeezing hard to feel the heat. “I…I just…no matter what Tarantula did, it would pale in comparison to what Light could contrive for you. For Tim, Jason, Damian, even Barbara and Cassandra. I wasn’t going to let him.”
Dick turned his head and held Bruce’s gaze for a long moment before finally nodding. “…Thanks.”
Bruce returned the nod and ran a hand through his son’s hair. He heaved his weight off the bed gently, so as not to rock it and cause more pain for Dick. “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll wake you a little later, maybe get something in your stomach.”
“…Dad?” Dick called a moment later.
“Yes, Dick?”
Dick pressed his cheek into the pillow to see Bruce before losing his edge and closing his eyes. “Thanks…for…catching me…”
Bruce placed his hands upon Dick’s shoulders. “Thank you.”
“What do you…*huff*… have to thank me for?”
The Dark Knight released his son to see the younger man’s eyes. “For granting me my greatest wish.”
Dick cocked his head to the side. “What?”
“More time.”
*^*^*
“Sir, dinner is ready,” Alfred whispered as he came to Bruce’s side.
Still sitting next to Dick, some four hours later, Bruce never looked from the boy’s pale face, while between his fingers he rolled a rather jagged piece of blue crystal, the same one he’d stolen from Ra’s’s cold fingers a month prior.
“I’ll take it down here, Alfred,” Bruce finally said.
Alfred nodded. “I did not suspect otherwise, but Masters Timothy and Damian have expressed their desire to join you.”
“If they will keep their kibitzing to a minimum so as not to wake Dick, I see no issue.”
Alfred allowed a small smile. “Very good, sir.”
“Oh, and Alfred?”
The valet stopped and turned. “Yes, sir?”
Bruce lifted up the blue crystal. “File this and the other shards with the close-call bullets.”
Alfred plucked it with his white gloves. “Of course, Master Bruce.”
As Bruce and Alfred would later agree in private, this one was too close.
*^*^*
He heard her wheels squeak, even against the rock floor. He inhaled the familiar scent of her alluring perfume, drawing him from a recovering sleep. Opening his eyes, he smiled at the tears welling in her sparkling green eyes and drew her hand into his.
Her warm touch upon his skin had been absent too long.
“I came back,” he murmured.
She replied with a slap upside the head.
“OW!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Another slap. “You go off to God-Knows-Where!” Slap! “Join up with only the deadliest psychopath on Earth!”
“OW! Babs—”
Slap! “Oh, don’t ‘Babs’ me! Do you seriously have some sort of mental illness you can pass down through generations? Because I want to know before we—mmph!”
Despite his injuries and her attacks, he managed to work himself into a sitting position and cradle the back of her head, forcing his lips onto hers. It only took three seconds for her punches upon his shoulder to wane and her lips to devour his. The taste upon her lips of too much ginseng mixing with his protein drink diet was unusual but oddly familiar, comforting—as was even the primeval, carnivorous force behind the embrace.
Only once they ran out of oxygen did he pull away and detour south to her neck. “I missed you.”
She giggled as he lifted her up and on top of him, his calloused, rough hands rubbing against her pristine skin “Oh, yeah, you did.”
“Marry me, babe?”
“Maybe—but that’s not really begging.”
He never lifted his face from the crick between her chin and her chest. “Please?”
She did, her emerald eyes meeting his radiant blue. “With an offer like that, how can I refuse?”
At the Crays, Tim looked up at Batman. “The hitting stopped. You think—”
“—we should get out on patrol,” Batman said, standing in one movement.
“Really?” Tim snatched his mask off the desk to become the Boy Wonder. His eyes began to move toward the medical wing. “I thought Barbara might have pulled his stitches or—hey!”
Batman’s glove slipped over Robin’s eyes. “I think we should get on patrol.”
When Robin freed himself from Batman’s grasp, his face paled several shades as different noises became louder, and he hurried toward the hanger. “I am never sitting on that bed again!"
*^*^*
Even though they were in the JLA infirmary, Dick’s untrusting gaze still followed Dr. Madison’s every movement, the only betrayal to his angered front. He tried to hide it, tried to pass it off as loathing the cuffs upon his wrists to keep him held to the table for his own protection, but he knew the person to his right knew the difference.
A hand clasped his own. “Relax.”
“Right. You know you’re going to go through torture beyond belief, not be able to walk for a few days, let alone lift your head, and then we’ll see what you do when I say, ‘Relax.’”
Batman said nothing, simply crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
Dick, of course, deflated and shook his head. “I’m…I’m scared.”
“It’s okay to be scared.”
“I’m going to cry, too, really horribly, and it’s going to be embarrassing, and…”
“Only Dr. Madison and I will be here.”
“And that makes me feel better how?”
Now standing behind Dick at the head of the table, Bruce pulled off his cowl and placed both hands on his son’s shoulders. “Because this time, you won’t be alone. This time, you don’t have to worry about what will come from this other than your and Barbara’s children.”
Dick arched his neck to glare at his father. “You really want grandchildren, don’t you?”
“You would be the last original Titan to have children.”
Dick snorted and laid back. “Talk to Barbara.”
“I already have.”
“WHAT!”
Dr. Madison came forward. “Are you ready to start?”
*^*^*
“No, Roy. Just no.”
“Oh, come on. It’s tradition.”
“Ollie didn’t have them,” Wally inserted.
“Which is why we need to have them at Dick’s.”
“No.”
“Oh, don’t Bat-Voice me. That gets really old really fast, and fine, if you don’t want them, then I’ll just have to go behind your back and get them anyway.”
That stopped Dick two steps from
their target room to Bat Glare Red Arrow’s way. “Oh, sure,
In mid-speech, the doors to the conference room housing the JLA Round Table decided to open, booming Dick’s proclamation for the entire Justice League plus two unfortunate guests to hear.
Red Arrow smirked. “My sentiments exactly. After all, weren’t you sixteen when you lost your virginity?”
“You have no shame, do you?”
“Hey, even I was eighteen.”
Dick, dressed only in a T-shirt and jeans, scowled as he walked into the room, his duffle bag hanging over his shoulder. Contrarily to the belief of many a Leaguer, it wasn’t filled with the supplies he’d brought to recoup from the procedure.
He was, however, mildly alarmed that Batman hadn’t made him change immediately into his uniform once rising from his bed, but he knew his father understood just how much Dick wanted to finish this.
The younger of the two men rose from the chair that was once Dick’s, but now only had a white covering on the back, his insignia removed. The man’s blonde hair gently lay across his shoulders, while the green eyes glimmered like daggers of kryptonite when they finally settled upon Dick. His face was pale and languid, just like Dick’s after the procedure, but it was his. That was all that mattered.
Sean Madison was himself again.
“Grayson.”
Dick narrowed his own sapphire
knives. “
They said nothing else as Franklin Madison took his son by the shoulder and started to lead him out of the room. With Luthor and Ra’s both dead—again—at the moment, they would be safe in their own lives.
However, as they began to pass, Dick put out his hand. “Thank you…for what you did. At the end.”
Sean eyed the hand suspiciously before taking it in a firm shake. “Just do me a favor. Don’t ask for my help again, all right?”
“Don’t torture me, and I won’t.”
They split at that. “Deal.”
“So, I guess this is it, huh? Thanks for the ride. It was…eventful, to say the least.”
Flash was at his side again in a second. “Wait, what? You’re not staying?”
Dick shrugged. “Why would I? You’ve got Batman. You don’t need me for that type of stuff, and the only reason I joined was for one last hurrah before I died, which, thankfully, I didn’t.”
“Hey, kid, that’s not how it works. You know that,” Black Lightning spat coming about the table to clasp Dick on the shoulder. “You get an invite, you’re always welcome.”
“Even by you, Jeff? I let a hundred thousand eighty-six people die, remember?”
Black Lightning shook Dick’s shoulder. “You just saved six billion. I’d say that qualifies you for JLA status, and…no sane person would ever join the Secret Society as a cape.”
“Yeah, well.” Dick looked away for a moment. “I wasn’t doing a lot of things that you could qualify as sane, especially after…y’know.”
“Yeah, we all know.”
Taking a step back toward the exit, he nodded. “But this—it was good for a time. Now, it’s time to move on.”
“Jeff’s right, Dick,” Superman said as he floated over the table to Dick’s seat and pulled back the white covering to reveal the Nightwing insignia, blue and black without a hint of the scratching it received from Ra’s. “If the last mission proved anything, it’s that this belongs here.”
Dick looked
to Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and finally Black Canary, the chairperson. She
differed to Wonder Woman, who came forward first and narrowed her eyes in an
appraising glare. Then, she reached out to cup his cheek. “You do know that we voted you into the
Justice League when we were originally forming it, don’t you?
With a contented smile, Dick used Red Arrow’s shoulder as a vault and launched over Wonder Woman to drop his duffle by his seat and flip forward. He landed in a crouch on the edge of the table just before Batman’s seat, where his father stood. His face was inches from Batman’s, though Batman didn’t even lean back.
“Can you handle this? Because if I’m going to stay on this team, I’m not going to take the scout missions and the backburner anymore, and as tactician of the JLA, you’re going to have to send me into situations that will be dangerous, potentially fatal. You know I’m good, and you said you trust my abilities, so you and I both know that’s not what this is about. You’re concerned. Hell, I’d go with worried, but I’m not going to push it. And if you can’t let go of that, then I have no problem going back to my Titans and doing dangerous missions without you knowing, but I’m not going to be on the sidelines, Dad. I’ve never lived on the sidelines, and I’m going to start now.”
Batman held Dick’s stare without pretense, though his shoulders tensed and under his cape, his hands fisted. “If you are asking me to potentially put aside possibly irrational fears during missions of questionable merit, I might be able to overlook certain aforementioned concerns to allow you some semblance of active duty. However, you have no right to demand that I allow the son I almost just lost to enter situations I deem dangerous by even our standards or send him to his death.”
Dick’s face remained neutral, though a hint of a smirk could be seen in his eyes. “You propose a compromise.”
“Yes,” Batman agreed with a stringent nod. “A compromise.”
“That—” A full-blown grin parted Dick’s lips, and he flipped backwards. Using his hand as a plant, he flowed into a corkscrew spin, though due to his injuries it was not as fluent as it should have been. He still managed to land in his chair with his feet crossed at the ankles on the JLA table. “—I can do.”
Batman crossed his own arms. “Then why aren’t you in uniform?”
Dick tipped his head back against the headrest. “Ugh! I knew you were going to bring that up!”
*^*^*
It took a
while, especially since he left so suddenly, but Dick eventually found the
small hut in the middle of
After five days of stomping through the last remaining rainforests on the planet, Dick came upon the little village nestled by the side of a mountain, where the natives collected their water supply from a plunging fall. Dick spotted his prey not too far away, sitting on a little piece of rock jutting out of the mountainside by the waterfall—a diving board of sorts.
The person didn’t move as he climbed the mountain, using only the jutting rocks to increase his height. When he finally reached the edge, he wiped the sweat and dirt from his face in the front of tank top, which already collected his filth from the last few days. A silver chain dug into his tanned neck, a crystal hidden underneath his shirt, and he dropped his hand to keep it covered. He dusted them off on his jeans—sure, not the greatest hiking clothes—and dropped his knapsack to the ground. Huffing, he stuck his hands in jeans’ pockets and bridged the distance between he and Jason easily, his balance upon the small slither of rock never wavering. Born on a high wire he was.
“I like it out here. Really rural. Bummer I can’t get cell phone reception though.”
Jason Todd, dressed in only tattered shorts, didn’t turn from his cross-legged position. “You found me.”
“You had to know I would.”
“…yeah, I guess.”
Crouching down next to Jason, Dick took a deep, refreshing breath. “You left in such a rush. Did you even say hi to Alfred?”
“If I did, I would never have left. He has this way of making one feel guilty.”
“Don’t I know it? Y’know, Bruce had a conniption.”
Jason let
out a sigh and leaned back on his hands, relaxing in Dick’s presence. “Yeah,
well, I’m surprised he didn’t join you and drag me back to
Dick laughed. “Took a lot of talking, a lot of convincing, but he finally realized I was the better of the two of us to do any convincing since I had, y’know, convinced him.” Walking around Jason, he sat down in front of his little brother, his back on the very edge of the rock diving board. “Why’d you leave, Jase? We had just gotten our family back together, and then you—”
“I—” The boy ducked his head and arched his shoulders in an obvious nervous gesture. “I don’t know who I am.”
Dick reached over to ruffle the boy’s hair. “I do.”
“No! No...” Jason raked a frustrated hand over his hair and finally met Dick’s gaze. “I thought I knew who I was or at least remembered from before…y’know, but…” He averted his eyes and fisted his hands in his hair. “God, Dick, I killed him! I just killed Ra’s without a second thought! How could I have done that? How could I have—”
Dick snorted. “Get in line.”
The nonchalance of his voice coupled with the flippant remark uncurled Jason’s hands from his hair, and he cocked his head slightly to the side. “Wuh—What?”
“Look, you know what I allowed Tarantula to do to Blockbuster, and…” Dick moved nervously himself, rubbing the back of his neck. “I, uh, once thought the Joker had killed Tim, and after you…I just couldn’t let it happen again. So, I…I beat him to death.”
“You! You beat the Joker to death?” Jason spouted incredulously. “No way.”
“Yepper. Bruce gave him CPR, but he only did it for me, so I wouldn’t have his death on my conscience. And you know he almost did it once himself. Jim Gordon stopped him, grazed him with one shot and knocked an ear off his cowl.”
Jason looked away. “Doesn’t make it right.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t, though sometimes I wonder why. I mean, the Joker has killed time and time again, including present company, and yet he just keeps getting away with it. Aren’t we guilty for those deaths if we don’t do something about it?”
Jason laughed lowly. “ ‘Dad’ would say you lost sight of the value of the Joker’s life.”
“His life ever had value?”
“…”
Dick sighed and leaned over the edge of the rock to scoop some water into his mouth before washing off his face.
“Then, if you don’t see any value in the Joker’s life, why don’t you do anything about it?” Jason finally inquired.
Shaking his wet hair, Dick shrugged. “Because the law doesn’t work that way.”
“We don’t exactly adhere to the law. So now we pick and choose which laws to follow?”
“Hey, everyone speeds at one time or another, even if it’s twenty in a fifteen mile an hour zone, but most people know not to drink and drive.”
“Ugh. That damn line.”
“It’s there all the time. Sometimes it’s blurred, or we’re standing on it and can’t look down, but it’s always there.”
“And I crossed it,” Jason sighed.
“No, bro, you leapt across, did a few somersaults, and crashed on the other side, but hey, we all make mistakes.”
“You call murder a simple ‘mistake’?”
A soft smirk fell upon Dick’s face as the water trickled down his face and saturated his already sweaty tank top. “No, I call trusting Talia and falling into the Lazarus Pit a mistake. The rest were just consequences.”
“And I have to repent.”
“Then
repent in
Jason’s cold eyes turned upon Dick with brazen curiosity. “Is that how you get through the day after knowing what you’ve done?”
Dick met his question without blinking and put out his hand. “The only way.”
Tentatively, Jason broached the distance to his brother and him and clasped Dick’s hand. “I—I can’t come home yet. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t know who I am, Dick. For so long, I was your replacement, and I tried to fill the void that you left in Bruce’s life and just be…you. I know Bruce came to love me on my own, but…I guess it’s time to figure out who I am, not as Robin or as Red Robin or as Bruce’s son or Dick’s brother. As me.”
Dick graced Jason with an understanding but modest smile. “I understand.”
Jason’s eyes brightened. “Can you?”
“Hey, who do you think you’re talking to? I was the guy who ran away from home three times. I think that might be the only record you didn’t break,” Dick relented and with a sigh, heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll keep Bruce off your hind for a little while longer, but you better come home soon, all right?”
He tugged a folded envelope, once immaculately white now tinged with dirt and sweat, out of his pocket and handed it to Jason.
“I need you there.”
As Dick walked pass, Jason snatched his wrist. “Do you have to go yet? I mean, maybe you could stay a few days?”
“So, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I did,” Dick finished seven days later. He leaned his elbows against the tanker’s railing, his leather jacket protecting him against the jagged rust. When Bruce failed to answer, he laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Dad. Really. He needs this.”
“We failed him.”
“Bruce…”
“Like I failed you. I should have come down to Bludhaven when Blockbuster attacked you. I should have been there to stop Tarantula like Jim had been there to stop me, like Tim had been there to stop you with the Joker. This time, I was so wrapped up with your sacrifice that I couldn’t be there for Jason—again.”
“It was like you and me all over again with Jason’s death. We should’ve been there for each other instead of making it worst, but hey, we’re working on it, and he’s working on himself. He’ll be okay. Just trust me.”
Bruce shook his head and looked away, his bodily movements mimicking Dick’s as he leaned against the railing. “I do. That’s not the problem.”
“That’s the problem,” Dick said, slipping easily into their usual routine.
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
A moment of silence caught Dick’s attention as Bruce’s voice ground like rock sharpening metal. “The fools I’ve managed to raise. One tries to sacrifice himself for me, thinking that I would give him up. Another throws himself into a self-imposed exile because he feared to lose his only lifeline, and I couldn’t reassure him at the moment. A third is tempted by Ra’s to bring back his loved ones and almost joins the madman’s crusade, and the fourth is the aforementioned madman’s grandson.”
“And you love each and every one of us.”
Bruce let out a grunt before giving his son his half-grin. “Don’t press your luck.”
Dick’s smile couldn’t have been any less glowing. “Always.”
*^*^*
“Dick! Dick! Did you hear? Huh? Did you? Did Alfred tell you?”
Wearing a leather jacket over his uniform, Nightwing dropped down his legs from the Crays’ console where he sat, Bruce in the chair, as the estactic jean-clad teen raced down the stairs, waving a large envelope in his hand. Dick pulled off his mask to see it clearly.
“Okay, kiddo. Okay, calm down. Did I hear what?”
Tim shoved
the envelope in his hand. “
Dick couldn’t hold back the
beaming smile that matched his little brother’s and drew the teen into a
crushing embrace. “Congratulations! I knew you could do it!”
“Well, the
months spent doing nothing in
“That’s what I’m here for—to be the proverbial pain in your ass.”
“Yeah, a huge one at that!” Tim ducked the swipe and jumped down the stairs. “I’m going to call Conner!”
“He’s right, you know,” Bruce said softly. “You’re the reason he’s going.”
“You’re paying
for it,” Dick chuckled, “and you’re probably wishing I would have pushed him
toward
Bruce
glanced toward the stairs where Tim disappeared. “No. He deserves
Dick
snorted. “Please. We’re all over getting over your shadow and proud to be in
it. The reason he’s going to
“He’s ready, and he won’t be alone, will he?”
With a sigh, Dick leaned back on the console. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that, but before I accept, I need to know how much it cost.”
A perplexed expression contorted Bruce’s face. “Excuse me?”
Dick reached into his jacket’s pocket and extracted a bent but rather large envelope. “I flunked out of college my first semester at Hudson, was asked not to return for a second at Gotham State, and haven’t done much for Columbia to give me an acceptance letter since. You can’t tell me you didn’t donate a building or at least a few cool million to get this puppy.”
Bruce met his eyes squarely. “You wanted to get your law degree, and he needs you more than me. Just promise me you’ll look after him.”
“Always, but he’s not going to be the only one living with me.”
“Oh?”
*^*^*
“So, what do you two think?”
Conner
Tim Drake diverted to look at the glass doors leading to the balcony and shook his head. “Bro, this place is so much better than the dorms! I’m going to be crashing here all the time. Seriously.”
“Well,
actually, I know you guys have to live in the dorms the first year and all, but
I was thinking…” Dick stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Barbara’s
going to be splitting her time between Gotham and Platinum Fields, and I’m
going to splitting mine between Gotham and
Tim whirled to Dick, his eyes huge. “Wuh—What?”
“It’s got four bedrooms, so I figured when you’re not at the dorms, you could take one. Conner could have another when he’s not in Metropolis with Clark and Lois. The fourth we’ll leave open just in case Damian or Jason comes to visit, or in your guys’ cases, maybe some of the Teen Titans.”
Conner’s mouth dropped open. “Dude, do not be shitting me here.”
“Hey, I’ve cleaned muck up from circus cages, just like I’m sure you cleaned up for the cows on the farm. I don’t shit anything.” Dick glanced about the apartment. “So, as long as you guys promise not do anything illegal other than vigilante stuff, what do you say? Roommates?”
Conner smirked and turned to Tim. “You have the greatest big brother ever. Seriously.”
Tim snorted. “Remember that I saw him first before you claim him as your own.”
Dick
ruffled both their hair before heading toward the door. “And since you guys are
rooming together at
Dick didn’t
even get the front door shut before Conner and Tim squealed. With his smirk
widening, Dick took out his cell phone and hit speed-dial one. “Hey Bruce, is
*^*^*
It was the hardest thing he had to do other than burying his family and friends. Tim stood in his near-empty room in the Manor, remembering when Bruce and Alfred moved him into Dick’s room after the adoption. He knew the room would be his forever—or at least until Bruce decided to move Damian into it—and grabbed the duffle off his bed. He practically cried while folding the suit, and his hands shook as he thought of the ramifications.
If he wasn’t Robin anymore, then what was he to Bruce? Sure, he was the older man’s adopted son, as were Dick and Jason, but what if he wasn’t an asset in Bruce’s fight? What happened if Bruce didn’t want him anymore?
God, was this what Dick felt when he turned eighteen and went to college? So…lost?
“I know it’s a little daunting,” Bruce said as he entered the room, his hands in jacket pockets, “but you will do well, Tim. You earned this.”
“I know
I’ll do all right at
Bruce never unzipped the bag. He let out a brief chuckle and crunched the sides. “I hate it when your brother’s right. He’s sometimes too intuitive for his own good.”
Tim blinked. “Wha…?”
Bruce simply placed the bag on the made bed and sat down on the edge. “You think I’m going to fire you because you’re going to college and I fired Dick around the same time.”
Heat suddenly flushed to Tim’s cheeks, and he shrugged awkwardly. God, what happened to the Bruce Wayne who avoided emotion like the plague? He thought he could simply hand it over and be done with it. Damn Grayson.
“Dick and I…had differences in perspectives. We’ve discussed them—”
“—screamed them—” Tim corrected.
Bruce nodded. “—and avoided them through the years, but…” He paused, drawing Tim’s eyes to him, the boy’s heart needing to hear the rest, and before Tim Drake stood a vulnerable Dark Knight, fidgeting with the zipper but never using it. And just like that, the defenses rose with the shadows, and Bruce’s piercing blue eyes snapped upward with intense affection. “I never thought he would leave for three years. I never thought the only conversations we would have would be spiteful attacks and tongue lashings. I should’ve because no one knows the human condition better than I.”
“Bruce, why are you telling me this?” Tim asked starkly. He wasn’t sure why he asked; the words simply blurted themselves out.
“Because…the
real reason I fired Dick was that I wanted him home. Here, in
“Grateful?”
Bruce rose
from the bed and placed the duffle bag’s strap over his son’s shoulder.
“Because it means you still have some growing up to do, and I want to be there
when it happens. Go to
It finally dawned on Tim the truth behind the verbal and sometime physical battles through the years. “You…You don’t want us in this business, do you?”
Bruce put his hands on both of Tim’s shoulders. “It’s a danger to surround yourself with the ones you love, but I never thought it would end up like this when I took Dick in. And after Jason...I swore there would never be another Robin, but you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Now with Damian…I know there is nothing I can do to deter you. If I were to fire the lot of you, you would just do this anyway. The least I can do is to watch your back, like you watch mine.”
Tim looked down at the bag and then raised his eyes to meet Bruce’s. “What…What would you do if I gave up the suit? If I wasn’t Robin anymore, would you still—”
“I would always.”
Bruce’s answer wasn’t to Tim’s question, he knew, or at least the one he was specifically asking, but the answer pitched Tim forward to wrap his arms around Bruce. Bruce held the boy as strongly as the boy held him, and he rested his cheek on the top of Tim’s head.
“The job is yours as long as you want it.”
“…but what about Damian?”
“He’ll just have to be disappointed. You’re my son, too.”
Feeling the warmth against his cheek, hearing the heart beat within the man’s chest, Tim raised his eyes and what he questioned Dick doing for the last year, he heard slip through his mouth, “Thanks…Dad.”
“All right, all right, break up this male bonding,” Dick mock-groused as he came into the rather empty room. “You all packed, kiddo?”
Tim wiped his eyes and patted his duffle. “Yeah, I’ve finally got everything.”
^*^*^
“This is
Summer Gleason reporting from outside the gates of Wayne Manor. All of
*^*^*
“Oooh-kay, honeys! Now which one of you cuties here is the Wayne Heir?” the giggly woman with a low-cut dress and short skirt asked as she leaned over the head of the table. She jumped up and down in anticipation. “Oh, come on! Don’t be shy!”
“
“And I didn’t, W.H.” He slurped another sip of his beer. “I only got a stripper.”
Squished in the middle between Tim Drake and Wally West, Dick pleaded to Conner Hawke across from him, “Twenty bucks for you to be me.”
Connor gave
him a sympathetic smile. “I already went through this when
“But we’re at T.G.I. Friday’s!”
“Hey, if
he’s the ‘Wayne Heir,’ does that make me the ‘Queen Heir’?”
Tim pointed his half-eaten mozzarella stick at the redhead. “Isn’t that Connor?”
“Well, actually, by that thinking,” Garth interjected, dunking a celery stick into the ranch dressing, “wouldn’t Damian be the ‘Wayne Heir’?”
“Says His Coral Highness, the Crown Prince of Atlantis,” Wally interjected.
The youngest member of the group immediately perked up. “As I have said from the first time I dueled Tim, I am the only one worthy of my father’s legacy.” Then he paused at the twin glares that mimicked his father’s and amended, “But! I am open to the possibility of sharing said legacy.”
“And we more than welcome you,” Dick said, reaching over Tim’s head to tussle Damian’s hair and winked as his other younger brother, who caught the subtly.
Damian could join them as Bruce’s legacy, not the other way around.
Dick swished back a brew before an alluring hand ran down his back. The bottle slipped across the table and spilled beer across the appetizers.
Snapper Carr snatched the queso dip. “Dude!”
“Looks like Dick still can’t hold his liquor,” Wally laughed.
“Ah,
honey?” Dick offered
“Married!”
Wally exclaimed, wigging his ring finger up. Dick quickly looked to his left,
where his eighteen-year-old brother sat and desperately sought another
recipient. Garth—married;
“The green guy over there—His father is a millionaire. Really. Why don’t you try him?”
She cupped his cheeks in one hand. “But you’re the one I want, sweetie pie.”
For the first time, Dick was grateful for his friend’s inebriation. “I’ll go with you!” He leapt up in his chair and flipped over the stripper. As he started off, he stopped shortly to point to Tim, Conner, and Damian. “Off-limits, off-limits, and off-limits if you want to keep your head.” He grabbed her by her wrist. “Seriously.”
With that,
he followed
“
Slashing a
single wire with his knife,
A first for
the archer for sure. Dick leaned back on the door as
His head jerked up at the screeching wheels, and his eyes widened at that flashing blue and red lights.
*^*^*
“What is the problem today, Commissioner?”
After all these years, James Gordon still jumped in his chair. He didn’t turn toward the voice, however, and instead lifted up a bottle of scotch and two glasses. “Who would have thought my daughter and your son? I remember distinctively telling him hands off years ago.”
Batman took the seat and the glass, circling the scotch about the rim like he’d done so many times as Bruce Wayne. “For as much as he listens, he disobeys.”
“Same with Barbara. Still doesn’t stop me from wanting to stop her, though. Especially with this Oracle fiasco.”
“She’s good, Jim, and she’s safe. Safer than when she was Batgirl.”
“And yet, ‘Barbara’ was the one attacked—because of me.”
Batman regarded his drink for a long moment. “It is always the ones close to us who are hurt.”
“You talk from experience.”
“I know from experience.”
Jim nodded and glanced at his pipe. “Barbara didn’t tell me everything. Hell, she practically told me nothing, but I know what happened to your boy was for some vendetta against you. He…He doesn’t blame you, does he?”
“Never does. They never do, and yet…”
“There are days when you teeter on the line, don’t you?”
“…don’t we all?”
Gordon let out a long sigh. “Do you ever regret taking them in, making them your partners?”
Batman met Gordon’s eyes unabashedly. “Do you?”
It took a moment to realize Batman no longer meant the boys as his crimefighting partners but as his children, like Jim had done with Barbara. “Every day.”
Batman nodded. No words were said or needed.
“Yet you’d be damned without every single one of them.”
“They become your world,” Batman added.
“And you let them.”
“…yes, I suppose one does.”
Moving the glass up to his lips, Gordon stopped before asking tasting the liquor. “If you could do it all over again, would you?”
Batman paused in thought before grounding out, “I want to say yes…”
“—but you look at them and know what’s happened, and you wonder if they would have been better off.”
Batman nodded. “There are times I believe that.”
And then there were times like these when he couldn’t be prouder, when he couldn’t be…happier.
The content look upon his usually grim and moody face lifted to Gordon’s glass, and Batman clinked it against his. “To the past, which Thank God we can’t change; to the present, which we will celebrate tomorrow; and to the future, our children’s.”
“And to family.”
“Yes,” Gordon agreed, “to family.”
Batman shot back his head and finished the drink with one gulp. As he rose from the chair, the door to the office opened, allowing in a crack of light to the dark office. “Commish? Oh, hey Bats.” Harvey Bullock peeked his head into the room and passed a wave toward the Dark Knight. “I-I, uh, patrols brought in a perp for indecent exposure, and I thought you’d like to deal wit’ it personally.”
Gordon narrowed his eyes. “Why would I like to…”
“Well, see…” Bullock disappeared from the doorway, only to push a man in his mid-twenties through the door, his hands handcuffed in the front.
“I totally didn’t…do…it…” Dick stopped his resistance at the mere sight of the Batman, his mouth dropping open and his body going rigid, and Bullock used the momentary shock to push Dick into the seat Batman previously occupied.
“Yeah, most perps get that way when seeing the Bat for the first time.” He handed the file over to the Commissioner, but Batman intercepted it, opening it with a snap. “Yeah, see, Mr. Grayson-Wayne here—”
“It’s
actually just ‘Grayson,’” Dick interjected with a grimace. “See, I just added
the ‘
“Well, then Mr. Grayson here had a few too many—”
“I only had one beer.”
“—and decided to let it out the other end in an alley.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were caught by the squads!”
“I was holding the door for my friend!”
“And just who was this so-called ‘friend’?”
“Roy Harper,” Dick said factually. “Age twenty-six, five-foot eleven-inches, one-seventy-five-slash-one-eighty, red hair, blue eyes. He’s got a Navajo tribal tattoo on his right bicep and five bullet-hole scars in his chest.”
“I wonder how he got those,” Bullock mumbled before challenging, “And why wasn’t Mr. Harper in the alley?”
“Because he ran. I figured it was worse to evade the police, especially since I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Batman flapped the file onto the desk. “Except lie to the police about your name and being an accessory to a crime.”
“Hey, do you know how many people have been calling me the ‘Wayne Heir’? It’s all over TV in case you haven’t noticed, so I think I can get away with that one. And I didn’t commit a crime.”
“Yeah, or so you say,” Bullock affirmed.
Dick rolled his eyes and fell back in his chair. “Fine, you want a DNA test? Go ahead. The urine’s not mine, and that’ll prove it.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, do you, Detective?” Gordon finally interjected. “However, Dick, I would advise not holding any more doors for your inebriated friends.”
“Trust me, sir. After this, I doubt I’ll be hanging with my inebriated friends much longer. I think my father will put them in jail.”
“Does this all suffice for you as well, Batman?”
Batman looked down at the equally glaring young man before turning on his heel and allowing his cape to flow. “I believe Mr. Grayson has a wedding tomorrow, Commissioner. You wouldn’t want to disappoint his bride by locking him up for the night, and I doubt Mr. Wayne would appreciate his ‘heir’ being flashed upon the news as a criminal. However, I would advise Mr. Grayson that if he is ever arrested on a count like this again, he will have to answer to me.”
Batman dove out the side window, his cape flapping behind him.
Bullock flicked a toothpick from his mouth and thumbed toward the window. “You should be grateful he’s not your father, kid.”
Dick just glared at the detective, and by the time Bullock left the room, he was out of his handcuffs. He placed them on the commissioner’s desk. “Would you mind if I just—”
Commissioner nodded and patted the boy on the shoulder. “Go. I’ll handle this.”
“Thanks.”
Without a second thought, Dick dove out the window and submitted to gravity. He used the fire escape to propel his body across the alley and pushed off the opposite wall with his feet. Finally vaulting off a dumpster, he landed safely on the ground and met up with Batman two blocks later. Batman stopped short of opening the Batmobile.
“Why aren’t you at the police station?”
“Gordon said I could leave,” Dick fibbed and pushed backwards to sit on the edge of the car’s hood. “Are you really angry at me for almost dragging your name through the mud or does this have something to do with Gordon finding out your identity or perhaps, maybe even it’s something else?”
Batman straightened his back and glanced about the alley. “You and I can’t be seen together. Not like this.”
“If anything comes out of it, I’ll let you arrest me for something minor like intoxication, okay? Now, don’t avoid my question.”
The Bat Glare only lasted a few seconds this time before Batman jumped inside the Batmobile. Dick followed a moment later, flipping himself over the windshield and into the passenger seat. Silence stole any conversation while Dick waited for Batman to gather his thoughts, and he was finally rewarded with:
“Things change.”
“Damn straight. So?”
“With all the money you owe Alfred, you could make the quota for the Wayne Foundation charitable contributions for the year.”
“Damn straight. So?”
Batman let out a long sigh. “I keep thinking about when times were different. Years ago, everything was simpler. The job was simpler.”
“We were simpler,” Dick added, sitting back in his seat with a warm smile. “I miss those days.”
Batman looked away. “I’m…proud of you. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud, but…tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow, compared to everything else in our life, will be a cakewalk.”
“Tomorrow, compared to everything else in our life, will be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do.”
Dick cocked his head to the side with bewilderment, and Batman refused to meet his eyes.
“Let you go.”
Dick’s tender smile somehow found a
way to soften. “I’ll still be your son, Bruce. Tomorrow, I’ll still be
here—well, I might be in
“It isn’t always good either.”
“Yeah, but things are different this time. I’m not running away or changing out of short pants or fighting radical choir boys. I’m not going anywhere this time. Face it, Dad. You’re stuck with me.”
“I…” Bruce glanced at the Robin control for the passenger seat and sighed. “Gordon asked me tonight if I could back in time and do things over, would I?”
“Would you?”
“There are things I would love to do again, and there are things I wouldn’t want to happen.” He reached over to grab Dick’s forearm. “The simpler days are gone, and you—”
“—are going to be in Gotham at least four nights a week until I finish law school, at which time I’m moving back to Gotham permanently and getting a job at Wayne Enterprises.” Dick met Bruce’s eyes and shrugged. “I think it was you who once said those days aren’t gone. I mean, Tim is only going to be able to go out with you here and there, and you don’t feel comfortable with Damian yet. So, I was wondering—I dunno—maybe you wouldn’t mind if the original Dynamic Duo got back in business.”
Bruce eyed his son’s hopeful smile from the corner of his eyes before redirecting his gaze out into the streets. “I’m not changing my name to Flamebird.”
That, of course, drew a wide grin that infected Dick’s eyes. “Fine, but there is no way in hell or on this Earth you’re getting me back into short pants. It just ain’t happening.”
Batman pulled back on his cowl and
hit the ignition button. “
Dick’s face drained of color.
*^*^*
“Oh, stop
whining! We still need to paint the town red! Or black! Or at least green…”
“I think you’re missing the point,” Connor said, holding the door open for the rest of the group. “It’s Dick’s party.”
“And we should probably pool our funds for bail,” Vic added.
“Aw…but I had all mine in ones for the strip joint!” Gar shifted into a bird and began tweeting.
Connor arched an eyebrow. “I thought we weren’t going—”
“Why don’t we just call Bruce?” Garth asked. “He can bail out—”
Tim stopped dead and glared at the prince. “You really want to call Bruce for this? Or Oracle for that matter?”
“Oh,
puh-leeze! It’s better that Dick’s gone! He wasn’t any fun anyway. Only one
beer! HA! I had one before we left!”
“
“If he wanted, he could get out of jail.”
Tim’s bright eyes focused on something on the roof, unforeseen by the other members of the group. Damian finally followed his gaze, and even he gulped.
“I mean, come on! That flying rat taught him how to get out of those situations his first week of training. If Dick can’t get out of them, then he’s totally—”
A black
shadow flew down from the roof and elbowed
Conner leaned over Tim’s shoulder to whisper, “Party over?”
Tim nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
Batman
didn’t seem to even notice the disconcertion of the others or their rapid
escape as he caught
The car lights vanished from the alley, all except those from a red Ferrari.
“I was just…*cough*”
“If you
ever ‘just’ again with him, you will never ‘just’ again.” Batman’s nose was
millimeters from
With a
vicious smirk, Batman dropped
“Your brother has opted to finish his party with a movie night. He requests your presences.”
Tim dashed to his car, Damian on his heels. “Finally! This party was boring. Tell me you got that new Friday the 13th movie?”
When Batman
nodded, Tim let out a whoop and swung into the driver’s seat. Only after Tim,
Damian, and Batman left did
*^*^*
“Can someone please explain to me how a man who can run at Mach Five can’t get anywhere on time? Anyone? Someone?”
Tim covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow as Dick asked the question for the millionth time since the groomsmen moved into the Sables for dressing. Now, over an hour later and Wally West still not in sight, Tim dropped his arm onto the bed and glared at his older brother.
“He’ll be here.”
“Or he won’t, at which point I’ll break his legs.”
“You’ll have to catch him first.”
“Never has
and never will be a problem for Robbie,”
Garth stood almost side-by-side to Dick. “And
we’re all about your size. I hate to say this, but
“First,
“Wuss,” Damian spat.
Dick glared at Tim. “You just had to teach him that, didn’t you?”
“Hey,” his little brother protested, “it’s not my fault he’s not smarter than a parrot.”
“Wuss.”
Tim sat up to see Damian. “It really doesn’t fit there. Hold on. I’ll give you the signal.”
“Oh, great. Now both my little brothers are conspiring against me.”
A gust of wind billowed papers into the air as Wally West came to a screeching stop, the stench of burning rubber wafting into Dick’s already flaying nostrils. “Hey guys. Sorry I’m late.”
“Story of your life,” Dick grumbled.
“Yeah, well, I found something more important these.” He handed the tuxedos to Tim, and in another whirlwind, Wally left and returned, this time bringing a young man in tow. He was younger than the majority of the people in the room though older than both Tim and Damian, and upon his still boyish face he wore a sheepish grin. His hair, as flaming as Roy’s and Wally’s, now complimented the boy’s light complexion, even though his skin had tanned during his mouths away. He dug into his jeans’ pocket to pull out a folded envelope.
“I hope this invitation is still good.”
Whatever scowl had darkened Dick’s face brightened to an overjoyed grin, and he strode forward to sweep the younger man into a hug. “Jase…you came.”
“Hey, you said, ‘Jump.’ I just said, ‘Not yet.’ ”
Dick ruffled the boy’s flame mop. “I forgot you had red underneath there. I like it.”
Jason smiled, genuine and true. “Me too.”
“Are you…”
His smile faltered a little, and his cheeks reddened, but he managed to mutter, “I’m not ready…yet. I will be. I promise.”
“Just know we’re here when you’re ready.”
Jason ducked his head. “Yeah, I already do.”
“Great, so
that completes the whole crazy set, right?”
“Apparently,
being among those of the highest chaste have not taught you enough, Master
Roy?” Alfred admonished as he strode into the room. “Master Damian has lived
with his mother most of his life and thus only now has come to see Master
Bruce. Master Jason, after having a bout of such addictions as heroin and
cocaine has only now progressed to the point where he was not a stain upon the
Jason actually smirked and twitched a shoulder. “No problem. I get it, but I’m just going to stand in the back, so what does it matter?”
“ ‘In the back?’ Please, if you were going to be in back, so would Damian.” Dick dug through the tuxedos until he found the proper one and thrust it into Jason’s hands. “You’re my brother. You’re up there with the rest of my closest friends and Roy.”
“Ahem,” Alfred’s disgruntled voice called over the commotion. “Though we all are overjoyed by Master Jason’s return, I do believe we have a schedule to keep today. Perhaps it would behoove the groom and his men to keep it.”
“Um…Alfie?” Jason asked. “I’m sure you went all out, but are you sure this puppy’s gonna—”
“Perhaps you have been gone far too long, Master Jason,” Alfred offered as he took the hanger from Jason and began to unzip the velvet covering. “One likes to be prepared so as not to be caught unawares.” He handed the undershirt to the boy. “And it proves best for one to know one’s own.
“Welcome home, Master Jason.”
*^*^*
“Do you Nightwing take thee—”
*^*^*
“—Barbara Louise Gordon to have and to hold, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, in the good times and the bad, until death do you part?”
*^*^*
“Oh, yeah.”
“And do you Oracle take thee—”
*^*^*
“—Richard John Grayson to have and to hold, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, in the good times and the bad, until death do you part?”
“Absolutely.”
*^*^*
“Then by
the power vested in me by the State of
*^*^*
“It is my honor to present for the first time Mr. and Mrs. Grayson.”
*^*^*
Bruce stood
off the side, a contented smile upon his face, a wine glass half drunken in his
hand. With one hand in his pocket, he leaned against the stairs and watched his
eldest son upon the dance floor with his new wife, and instead of the young man
of twenty-five, all he saw was the little boy who would slide down the banister
and flip over
“Time does not stop even for the most precious of moments, Beloved.”
Bruce never took his eyes off his son to scout the room for possible assassins, though his voice revealed none of his trepidation. “Why are you here, Talia?”
“I know you are proud of him. I see the pride in your eyes when you look upon him as you look upon our son and your other children.”
Bruce refused to turn toward the head table where Jason, Tim, and Damian sat alongside Selina and Alfred—his family.
“He will honor your legacy as I will honor my own father’s.” She placed a hand on his forearm and still failed to receive his full attention. “I know now that what we could have had years ago can never be. We have the same goal, but our paths do not align. They intersect only at the most inopportune times and cause friction.” She smirked and took his glass in her hand for herself. “Do not worry. I did not come with any of my father’s assassins. He is safe as is the rest of your ‘family.’”
“Then why are you here?” Though Bruce didn’t trust the daughter of the Demon, he knew her well enough to take her word for this instance and met her gaze.
She reached into her dress and pulled out a small velvet pouch. “Here is the rest of crystal Richard shattered. The only slithers missing are the ones you have collected, but be forewarned, Beloved. The crystal still has the ability to open his soul and the past, so I advise you to keep these safe.”
His son’s own personal kryptonite. “Why give them to me? Why not use them yourself?”
Her eyes diverted to the boy upon the dance floor and despite her cold front, a hint of a reminiscent smile lingered upon her lips. “Because he is family, Bruce, and I have learned from my father’s mistakes. One does not use family for one’s personal gain.”
His hand shot out faster than he thought, clamping over her wrist. “Tell me one thing, Talia. You tried to incorporate Dick into your life and create a surrogate family out of mine. Why?”
Her eyes softened. “To keep you content. If my ideal life would have been realized, Richard would have been my brother and thus, still a part of your life.”
“He would have been a killer.”
“And he isn’t now? I know what he allowed to happen in Bludhaven. As my brother, he would have gotten a new start without the guilt of your teachings. We would have gotten a new start with our son.”
“If you truly believed that, then why didn’t you take Jason or Tim?”
Talia placed her hand on his forearm. “Jason would never have died, which I believed to be a better outcome for him, and Timothy, as you know, would have his father and stepmother.
“Many of the tragedies your progeny sustained were for no other reason than their undying loyalty to you.” She put a hand on his forearm to release her own. “When you look at it from that perspective, how can you tell me what I attempted to do so heinous, so unforgivable, when you—who had the power to save them from themselves—gave in to your own selfishness? When you look at them, how can you honestly not tell that you don’t feel guilty for not granting them what they deserve most? A happy ending.” She patted him on the shoulder. “It matters little now, doesn’t it, Beloved? What is is what will be. All I ask is that you keep my brother safe as I know you will.”
As he watched her walk away and blend in with the hordes of rich and drunken elite, Bruce found himself, not for the first time, wondering just what happened between Talia and Dick during his time as Ra’s’s servant.
Placing the pouch in his jacket pocket, he once more went to the head table. Her question would keep for another time and place. For now, he resigned himself to actually enjoying the occasion and company, especially when he took Selina’s hand as the band leader called for the father and stepmother of the groom to take the dance floor.
*^*^*
Long after the party ended and the couple left for their honeymoon, Bruce made his way down to the Batcave. His forehead so defined over his face, it cast shadows upon his eyes. In his hand he scrunched the velvet bag Talia brought him as a wedding gift, and he ignored the stabbing pain in his hand as the crystal shards dug into his flesh.
As he entered the medical wing of the Batcave, he moved toward the self-standing cabinets that housed the close-calls bullets. He tugged open a certain container he knew Alfred had used recently.
His once dark face immediately grew hostile, and he slammed his fists into the cabinet, toppling it to the side.
On the cave floor in front of the mess fell a particular drawer—empty.
*^*^*
Three Months Later:
“Alone, I see?” Commissioner Gordon noted as he handed Batman a folder and then hit off the Bat Signal. “Though my daughter would kill me for wanting your partners here, I can’t say I wish they weren’t.”
“That bad, Jim?” Batman opened the floor and immediately felt the presence glancing over his shoulder.
“The Joker. Aw, man. And here I was hoping for a quiet weekend to do my report,” Nightwing complained before moving from behind Batman to nod at the commissioner. “Sorry we’re late, sir.”
Batman glanced over his shoulder at his older protégé. “We?”
“How the heck did you beat me?” Robin groused as he jumped down onto the edge of the building. “I totally took Lower Fifth. You couldn’t have—”
Nightwing shook his head. “Hey, the rooftop express beats your crummy cycle any day, and by the way, I even stopped two robberies and three muggings on my way over.”
“You must have cheat—“
Batman raised the folder. “Joker.”
The one word stunned both Nightwing and Robin into silence, and Batman tapped his cowl. “Oracle, can you triangulate the last known whereabouts of the Joker?”
There were a few perks of Dick’s marriage to Barbara. She would always work with him when her husband was his partner.
Oracle’s voice perked up. “Already on it.”
Batman nodded and handed the folded back to Gordon. “We’ll be in touch.”
Back flipping onto the edge of the roof, Nightwing smirked down at his little brother. “Race you to Old Gotham.”
“You’re on!” Robin fired a line and dove off the side of the building.
As Nightwing moved to follow, Gordon called him back.
Nightwing cocked his head to the side. “Yes, sir?”
Gordon for an instant hesitated and spat, “Be careful out there. I want grandchildren one day.”
Nightwing’s eyes widened until his mask almost couldn’t contain them, and he shot a glare at Batman. “You just can’t let things go by normal progression, can you? You have to control everything.”
“If I controlled everything, you’d be wearing a cape,” Batman said as he swung toward Old Gotham.
“I agree,” Gordon assessed. “Winter’s crept up a little early this year.”
Nightwing blinked. That wasn’t why Batman wanted him to wear a cape, and of course, Commissioner Gordon would be the only person to believe the reason to be parental concern for his health instead of parental concern for sexual harassment.
Nightwing shook the thought from his mind and jumped down to be eyelevel with Gordon. An ecstatic grin indented his cheeks. “We were thinking if it’s a boy, we’d name him ‘Thomas.’ Is that all right with you, sir?”
The End