Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cut up into pieces, looking for a reason
Who's gonna be there to make me whole?
I can't stop the bleeding, looking for a meaning
Throw me a line and bring me back home

(Lifelines by I Prevail)

“Hello, welcome wagon!”

Dick grinned from behind the box he was setting on the kitchen counter, the voice recognized even beneath the noise and shouted out directions of the movers. “In the kitchen, Renee. Past the stairs and to your right.”

“Holy crap, kid! That’s one hell of a view.”

The smile he wore only grew as he stepped out from behind the box covered island. His new partner and her girlfriend were standing in the chaos that was his apartment, staring at the literal wall of windows that made up the living and dining space. The eastern wall looked out over a balcony that wrapped around the exterior that was an unobstructed view over the Atlantic. Through the southern wall, where he planned to set up his dining table, he could just make out the skyline of Blüdhaven across the bay.

He came up behind the statuesque figure of his pseudo-cousin and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Hi Katie.”

Katherine Kane accepted the greeting with a smile of her own and held up a carry tray with several coffees in one hand with a takeout bag printed with the familiar Holesome Dough logo in the other. “We come bearing breakfast.”

“And a new friend.” Renee Montoya lifted a small terracotta planter housing a tiny aloe plant.

“Grayson, which room does the bed go in?” One of the movers hollered from somewhere in the apartment.

“King goes in the loft upstairs, double to the room on the right down the main floor hall.” He called back, taking the three items from the ladies and motioning them toward the sliding door in the southeast corner that led onto the balcony. The plant he set atop a stack of boxes as he past and opened the patio door.

It was quieter outside, the midmorning breeze coming off the ocean cooling him after hours of lugging boxes and furniture up to the sixth floor. He’d have to look at getting furniture for out here, but for now the wide brick railing served as a table for the trio.

“I’d offer you the tour, but it’s a bit of a mess right now.”  He explained as they took their drinks from the tray. He popped the lid of his takeout cup and drank appreciatively at the dark beverage inside. “God, thanks for this. I needed caffeine and have no idea where my machine is at the moment.”

Renee laughed and leaned against the rail. “There’s a café about a block north on the corner into Memorial Park. They’ve got a decent enough brew, though prices are a bit steep. Still, would do in a pinch until you can get yours set up.”

“If he’s living in a place like this he’s not going to have to worry about overpriced coffee.” Katherine smirked at him. “Though I’d like to know how you managed this on a cop’s salary.”

“I wouldn’t be able to if I was paying the appraised rent on the place.” He admitted with a smirk of his own. “Even with my new detective’s salary I’d have been lucky to afford a place in the Cauldron.”

“Bruce?” Katherine asked hesitantly, looking at Dick with a side eye to gauge his reaction.

He knew it was going to be a popular opinion for a while, but he’d learned long ago that he really didn’t care what other people thought of him. Taking another drink of his coffee he shook his head. “Technically I own the entire building. Well, the IFG Trust, of which I am the Settlor and Lucius Fox is my Trustee, does. Most of the block on both sides of the street, actually. Plus, another dozen properties in Gotham, four in Blüdhaven, and three in New York. This apartment was renovated and set aside for one of the boys if they wanted out of the manor but…”

It still stung, the distance between him and those he considered family. Ever since the Syndicate and Spyral, ever since he decided to hang up the mask and tights five years ago, they barely spoke to Dick. Even years later, Jason and Tim still hadn’t forgiven him for ‘faking’ his death. Barbara was walking again and had gone back to Batgirl and the Birds of Prey. Cassandra had her life outside of Gotham. Stephanie was busy with med school. Damian had settled with the Teen Titans on the west coast. And Dick didn’t know anything about the newest addition, Duke, at all.

And then there was Bruce. While the rest at least acknowledge Dick’s existence occasionally, he hadn’t seen or talked to Bruce in more than four years. It had been about six months after he had returned from Spyral. He told Batman he was retiring Nightwing and going back to the BPD. It was the final straw, his first soldier’s last act of defiance, and made it abundantly clear that Officer Richard Grayson was not welcome at the manor. 

So, at twenty-five years old, Dick packed up his things in the manor for the last time and left.

Alfred was the only one he had any consistent contact with. The man called him weekly, every Sunday night where he would update Dick on everything going on with the family and Dick would do the same. What the man passed on to the others, if they even asked, he had no idea.  As far as he knew, Alfred was the only one that knew Dick had been promoted to Detective and Commissioner Gordon had enticed him away from Blüdhaven and back to Gotham.

“So, Partner, does that mean all after hour cramming sessions when on assignment are done here? You’ve got at least double the square footage of my and Katie’s place and half the occupants.” Renee’s glib statement halted his spiralling mood.

Partner.

Dick smiled at the older woman Gordon – Jim; the man had told him to call him Jim – had paired him with. “My private office will be upstairs in the loft but the living room has plenty of space for us to spread out in. Mi casa es su casa. I mean that, ladies. Actually, that reminds me.”

He placed the takeout cup on the wide rail and hurried back into the kitchen. The extra key he had cut was sitting on the breakfast bar and he scooped it up before heading back outside. “This is my spare key.” Dick offered it to Katie who looked a little surprised at the gesture. “I really appreciate you letting me put your name as my emergency contact and next of kin with the GCPD. This key will get you into this building and I’ll get you programmed into the keypad for the apartment door before you leave. Then with the security system once it’s installed. I’d also like to give your name to Mrs. Palarmose, the building manager, in case of emergencies.”

“Of course, Dick.” The closest thing he had to a cousin said as she accepted the key with a rare, shy smile. “Though I thought you would have asked Alfred.”

“He’s too busy managing the manor and taking care of Bruce and the others.” Dick picked up his coffee again and nearly finished it off.

Katie reached around her girlfriend and ruffled his hair. “I’d be honoured if I didn’t have some idea the kind of trouble you tend to attract.”

He laughed, batting her hand away and smoothed out the now flyaway strands. “I’m not that bad.”

“Wait, he’s my partner. Is this something I should know about?” Renee looked between the two with a teasing scowl.

“Grayson! Is this a table or a desk and where do you want it?”

“I’ll be right there!” He yelled back and downed the last of his beverage. “Sorry, ladies, I’ve gotta get back to work. Feel free to stick around, but if you do I’m making you lift things.”

***** ***** **3 MONTHS LATER** ***** *****

…06:27am…

His phone started ringing as he was buttoning his slacks. He grabbed a dark blue dress shirt from one of the hangers on his way out of the walk-in closet. He quickly slipped it on over his arms, letting the soft fabric drape open against his chest, and picked up the earbud that was next to his phone on the charging device next to his bed. It paired quickly and he pressed the accept button as it rang a third time.

“I still have thirty minutes, Renee.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” his partner stated grimly. “Gang and Narcotics got a call this morning of a kidnapping in the West End less than an hour ago. Man was taken outside of a daycare where he’d been dropping off his kid. Witness descriptions sound like the Deacons.”

“West End is Dimitrov territory,” He frowned as he walked to his dresser for a pair of socks. “Deacons are scared shitless of Rodion, no way they’d step that far from Bristol.” 

“Kasinsky and Cohen are working on the victim’s profile, but so far there’s no known gang connections or affiliation with any of the Families.”

“Deacons answer to the Dubelz Family.” A few long strides had him down the short hall to his office and looking at the map of the city he had tacked up on the wall. There were dozens of coloured pins and notes depicting the boundaries and territories of the various gangs and mob factions that ran the organized crime of Gotham City. “Agatha wouldn’t risk the alliance she’s got with Rodion.”

“Even if she was trying to make a play toward the Heights? She’s always wanted the University but Rodion and the Five Fingers run the area.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.” He hummed as he looked at the blue pin in the middle of the upper island. “Panessa Family runs Robinson Park and is stuck between the two. Tomaso has been trying to expand ever since he took over for his Uncle but Rodian and Agatha have a tight grip on the gangs in their areas. There’s been more skirmishes along Chambers Street and near the planetarium the last two months and it looks like Tomaso is losing ground.”

“You think he’s trying to start something between the other two?”

“Or someone else is wanting everyone to think he is.” Dick glanced at the whiteboard he had hung next to the map and his notes there. “Santo Cassamento has been trying to climb the ranks of Cosa Nostra for years. It was suspected he had ties with some of the Families in Blüdhaven, but Amy and I could never tie him definitively to them.  Word is he wanted Robinson Park when Arrigo Panessa died but the head of Cosa Nostra gave it to Tomaso instead. I wouldn’t put it past Santo to try something like this to discredit Tomaso.”

“But why kidnap some random civi–”

The rest of what Renee was saying was drowned out by the explosion of gunfire downstairs. Dick was lunging for his gun safe behind his desk, his brain quickly recognizing the sound as a shotgun breacher round, ignoring as his security system began screaming an alarm. In his ear Renee was shouting at him while he was crouching down. He entered the code into the keypad when he heard his door slam open. Several sets of heavy footsteps entered his apartment even as he opened the safe door. His service revolver was in his hand and he loaded the clip, flicking the safety off, just as a set of footsteps reached the top of the stairs.

“M– Mr. Grayson?”

His heart plummeted from his chest to his stomach when he heard Miranda Palarmose’s terrified voice.  “Fuck, they’ve a hostage.” Dick’s quietly muttered words silence Renee’s yelling.

“Who are they?”

“Bedroom clear.” One voice called from downstairs.

“Loft clear.” Another said loudly from down the hall.

“Kitchen clear.” A third came from further in the apartment.

“Unknown,” He whispered knowing the earbud mike would pick it up and scowled at the shadow he could see on the floor in the hall outside the office. “At least four, but likely more.”

“Hold on, I’m almost–” The call dropped.

“There was an active call on the phone.” The voice in his bedroom hollered.

“Don’t make this difficult, Detective.” An unfamiliar voice called out patiently from downstairs. “You have a lovely home and I’d hate for your landlady’s brains to mess up the colour scheme.”

“Shit, shit, shit!” He hissed to himself but didn’t hesitate to thumb the safety back on his gun. “All right, I’m here, don’t hurt her.”

“Place any weapon you have on the floor and kick it into the hall.”  The shadow in the hall commanded as it was joined by a second. “Then on your knees, hands on your head. She dies if you don’t comply,”

“I won’t resist.” He said and came out from behind his desk.

Dick did as was instructed, dropping to his knees as he watched his gun skitter against the opposite wall outside the door. His hands were coming up to his head as one of the men outside entered the office with an assault rifle aimed immediately at him. The second picked up the revolver and tossed it back down the hall, likely to someone else as Dick never heard it hit the floor, and walked into the room past the first man.

Both were dressed in full tactical gear, their face’s covered with balaclavas, and carried themselves with a precision that screamed professionals. With the rifle aimed at his head, Dick didn’t put up a fight as the second man came up behind him and grabbed one of his arms. He gritted his teeth and glared at the man in front of him as his hands were pulled down and behind his back. The angle was awkward, arms raised and straining his shoulders, forcing him to bend a little at the waist while his wrists were crossed and wrapped in several layers of heavy-duty duct tape. With a tearing sound, his hands dropped to the small of his back and the man behind him started winding the tape around his upper arms and torso. The adhesive pulled at the exposed skin of his chest with every tight layer but he still held his tongue.

“Target secured.” The first man called out when the second was finished and the rifle was lowered to his side.

Together, the pair pulled Dick to his feet and, with a bruising hand on each arm, he was marched out of the office. In the hall, as he suspected, was a third gunman who kept a pistol aimed at Dick while walking backwards. He was led down the stairs and his skin crawled at the feeling of the gun still pointed at his back as they descended.

“The code.” The third man snapped when they stopped next to his security panel. Dick gave them the four digits that would stop the alarm blaring but send the duress code to the company. It wasn’t necessary, Renee already knew he was in trouble, but it would stop the security agent from calling for an all clear.  

Inside the now quiet living room, in the early morning sunrise streaming through the windows, there were three other men. Two were armed and dressed as the trio escorting him, one standing menacingly behind a quivering Miranda who was sitting on his sofa. She looked unharmed, but the older woman was pale and her tear-stained face was watching him as he was forced into the room.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Grayson.” The woman sobbed as he was manhandled to his knees. “I – I didn’t – I had no choice!”

“It’s okay. Are you hurt?” He asked her and was mollified somewhat when she shook her head.

The last man was different from the others. He was dressed casually: jeans and a t-shirt covered with a blazer that hung open and revealed the shoulder holster and the pistol nestled there. He was about the same height as Dick with a similar build and not much older, early to late thirties maybe. His face was uncovered, Asian features unfamiliar to Dick though that wasn’t surprising. He had only been back in Gotham for three months and he was still getting to know the major players in the gangs and Families. 

“My, my, you are quite the fine specimen.” He said with a leer, almond eyes regarding Dick with interest and settling on his chest. “It’s a shame we don’t have time to get to know one another just yet, Detective.”  A few steps closed the distance between them and gloved fingers pulled the earbud from Dick’s ear. “Who were you talking to?”

“My partner.” Dick answered, seeing no need to hide it. “She was already on her way and is only minutes out. GCPD will know you’re here.”

“Well then, we’ll have to make this quick.” The leader motioned to the men surrounding them and without a word four of the five spread out. Two went to the dining table, the other two disappearing back upstairs. The fifth was holding Dick’s phone and handed it over to the man. “A passcode? Don’t trust the biometrics, Detective?”

“No.” He admitted with a scowl, keeping an eye on the man even as he watched the rest opening several cases that had been set on his dining table. His heart was thundering inside his chest when he saw the explosives being withdrawn.

“Hmm.” The man hummed casually and without instruction the fifth man lifted his rifle toward Miranda again.

Through clenched teeth, Dick rattled off the series of ten numbers that would unlock the device.  “What do you want?”

The man didn’t answer. He thumbed an app open that Dick couldn’t see, swiping and tapping at the screen for only a few seconds before the familiar trill of an outgoing video call sounded. It connected on the first ring, a police siren screaming in the background.

“Who the fuck are you and where’s Detective Grayson?” Renee’s voice was hard and vicious and Dick would never tire of hearing that tone from his partner.

“I’m here, Montoya.” He said when the man looked at him pointedly.

“As for me, you can call me Niko.”

A chill swept down Dick’s spine at the name. A name he only knew in passing from one of the last cases he and Amy had worked on with the Narcotics division of the BPD. ‘Niko’ was the supposed head of the New Jersey Yakuza but they had never been able to get a positive ID. After months of trying, the Detectives in charge of the case decided to move and shut their Blüdhaven operations down. Thirty men had been arrested and close to five million in product had been confiscated. It would take years, if ever, for the Yakuza to rebuild in Blüdhaven.

The man in question started walking around the room, the fifth gunman shifting to cover Dick with his rifle, following his men that were setting up the explosives along the wall and windows of his apartment. “Is the picture clear, Ma’am? I wouldn’t want you unable to see the ordinance that is currently being positioned and armed in your partner’s home.”

“What do you want?” Renee demanded icily.

“First off, you shouldn’t be on your cell phone while driving.” The man named Niko said with faux concern. “I would like for you to pull your vehicle over, wherever you are, and turn off the engine. I’ll wait until you’re in a safe location.”

“Are you serious?” His partner spat incredulously.

Niko sighed and turned, aiming the phone’s camera in Dick’s direction. Without warning, the gunman standing over him shifted the hold on his rifle and backhanded him hard with a heavy fist. The blow was expected but it still had his head snapping to the side and his body falling to the floor. A fist grabbed hold of his hair and pulled him back to his knees, blood oozing from his newly split lip.

“Goddamn- Okay! I’m stopping.”

Dick stretched out his jaw in the momentary quiet, glaring up at the gunman briefly before watching one of the others dragging a chair from his table into the center of the living room. The man then grabbed hold of Miranda by the back of her neck and dragged her from the sofa.

“Hey! Don’t touch her, asshole!” Dick roared when she shrieked at the sudden assault. The instinct to help had him getting one foot beneath him but a hard kick of a steel-toed boot to his abdomen had him doubling over, gasping and choking on the bile that suddenly burned the back of his throat. Before he could breathe properly again, he was yanked back up and this time the gunman had the barrel of the rifle pressing against his temple.

“That’s enough!” Renee yelled through the phone, the camera in Niko’s hand having shown her the entire exchange.

Unable to do anything to stop it, he watched with growing dread as Miranda was forced into the chair. The same tape that bound Dick was wrapped around her waist, trapping her in the seat, and then he saw in horror as a large set of cuffs were locked around her wrists in her lap. When the assailant stepped away from her, a flashing white light was blinking steadily from the explosive device now attached to the terrified woman.

“This lovely lady is one of six.” Niko said, his casualness now gone leaving behind a hard expression as the last of the explosives, for a total of four plus the one on Miranda, was armed. “Throughout the city, my people have taken other hostages and hidden them with similar bombs. You have until midnight to find and disarm them before they will detonate. That’s almost seventeen hours, but unlike this one here the other five will not be so easy to find.”

“What do you want?” The woman on the phone ask again and Dick wondered if anyone else picked up on the fear in her voice.

“Only my property” The man came to stand a few feet in front of Dick. He handed the phone off to the gunman then took his place beside Dick. He fought back a cringe when Niko’s hand cupped the side of his face and his thumb wiped the blood from his lip. “The good Detective Grayson and his partner in Gotham’s sister city were responsible for the collapse of my enterprise there while I was out of the country. I want it back. The drugs, the weapons, the cash.”

Dick’s hands fisted impotently behind his back when Niko’s hand trailed down the side of his neck, over his shoulder and down to his chest. He tried to get away from the unwanted touch but he had little room to move with the man now crouched behind him and holding Dick against his body.

“Get off me, you piece of shit!” He growled as Niko rubbed the palm of his hand down his sternum.

“Don’t be like that, Detective, I want us to be friends.” A ripping and tearing sound accompanied the words and a length of duct tape was offered to the man. Niko accepted it and, despite Dick’s twisting and ducking of his head, the strip was smoothed over his mouth and cheeks. A hand patted the side of his face haughtily, Dick huffing through his nose and jerking away from the touch, before Niko rose to his feet. “You have seventeen hours, Ma’am. In the meantime, Detective Grayson will be keeping me company.”

“Like hell he is!” Renee barked as Dick was grabbed by two of the gunmen and pulled to his feet.

He grunted behind the tape-gag, his bare feet slipping on the hardwood floor, and he thrashed in futile protest as he was dragged toward his still open door. The two goons descended the stairs from the loft, in their hands his laptop and files and what he suspected was the map from his wall. With no other choice, Dick stopped struggling and let them guide him down the stairway. Six floors later, his heart racing and breath coming in furious pants through his nose, Dick was relieved when Niko pulled the fire alarm when they finally stepped into the lobby of the building.

One of the other tenants, a young mother in jogging attire attempting to push a stroller through the front doors, gasped when she saw them approaching and tried to move out of the way. Niko, with what may have been a disarming smile in a different situation, hurried to help her. He lifted the stroller out of the doorway and onto the bricks of the small plaza in front of the building. She wasted no time taking the infant out of the stroller and backing away, staring at Dick with wide and terrified eyes as he was forced toward the street.

Niko opened the back door to a waiting sedan, one of the gunmen peeling away from the rest for the driver’s door, and Dick was taken to a delivery truck that was double parked. “See you again shortly, Detective.” The man called genially as he eased himself into the car and shut the door.  

“GCPD! FREEZE!” Montoya’s voice screamed nearby but he didn’t get the chance to look for her as a hood was placed over his head.

He writhed against the arms that grabbed and lifted his legs, yelling in the back of his throat when he heard the snap of automatic gunfire next to him. For a single second he was weightless as he was tossed into the back of the van, the sound of more gunshots and screaming faded by the walls around him, before he landed and hands were pulling him further inside.

The doors slammed shut the same instant the idling truck surged into gear and away from any chance of immediate rescue. Laying bound and blind on the hard, metal floor and surrounded by the enemy, Dick could only hope that Renee was okay and would be able to save the other hostages.

He had no such hope for himself.

Chapter Text

Now you've become

Everything you claimed to fight

Through the need to feel you're right

You're the saviour of nothing now

 

(Saviour of Nothing by Disturbed)

…06:56am…

“Thank you for agreeing to the time change, Dinah.” Bruce said as his fellow Leaguer settled herself on one of the den’s sofas with a yawn. He held one back himself as he sat in his usual chair. “I know it’s far too early for either of us, but the meeting at WE this afternoon came up last minute yesterday. As much as I may want to, I can’t get out of it. I just didn’t want to put this off until next month.”

The petite woman kicked off her sneakers and tucked her legs beneath her, leaning against the arm of the sofa to look at him directly. “It’s not a problem, Bruce. I’m just glad you still wanted to see me. You never would have before your diagnosis.”

He offered her a small, genuine smile. “Yes, Dinah, you were right. Therapy has been good for me.”

Three years ago, he had taken a hit in the field while on assignment for the JLA. What had started as a low-grade concussion had quickly spiralled out of his control. He started experiencing wild and unprovoked mood swings. He had been forgetting things and even losing time. During one episode he had physically assaulted Luke Fox when the young man had been visiting his father at WE. Luckily, the man behind the Batwing had been able to subdue Bruce. When he came back to himself, Bruce was strapped to the bed in the cave’s medbay with Alfred and Leslie nearby.

It took weeks for Leslie to find a cause for his erratic behaviour. Test after test, scan after scan, it was only in the absence of biomarkers found with other neurological disorders that she settled on CTE. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Bruce had, after decades as Batman, taken one too many blows to the head.

It was likely he had been suffering from a mild form of the condition for years but had brushed the lesser symptoms off as a result of some other ailment. There was no true treatment, no definitive way to confirm the diagnosis in a living person, so it came down to managing his symptoms. Antiseizure medicine to combat the extreme and sometimes violent episodes that were not unlike Bipolar Disorder; sleep aids to bring his circadian rhythm back into something more normal; fixing the cowl of his suit to better protect his head.

Therapy with a qualified psychologist who could help him and teach him the tools he would need to monitor his condition.

The woman he had tasked with the job smirked triumphantly at him. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I kind of know what I’m talking about. What about your meds? Last time, you told me Dr. Thompkins was considering switching you off the carbamazepine to a regular antidepressant.”

“She was and she did.” He told his friend and therapist. “I’ve been symptom free for almost a year and she’s optimistic that in another year or two we can consider weaning me off them all together.”

“That’s fantastic Bruce.” Dinah beamed at him, her words interrupted by a notification from the phone he had placed on his desk before they sat down. She looked over her shoulder in that direction before turning back to look at Bruce when he made no move to answer it. He had thought he had kept his face neutral, knowing full well what that particular chime indicated, but she frowned at what she saw there. “Is that important?”

“No.” He lied. As soon as he did she popped an unimpressed eyebrow at him and he sighed. Leaning forward with his arms on his knees he clasped his hands together. “Yes, but I can’t do anything about it.” Bruce’s mouth had suddenly gone dry and he wished he accepted Alfred’s offer of coffee and water. He licked at his lips with a shake of his head. “Dick’s shift just started. I’m paired into their scheduling system so I know when he’s on duty. I know its more than a little illegal and unethical but…”

It had started almost a decade ago, the first time Dick had joined the BPD. Even when they were fighting, estranged, and not speaking to one another, he’d had to know. When Dick was out there on the streets without him – without the family – for backup. Bruce needed to know so at the end of the day he could look at the reports and see what sort of calls his son had answered, what sort of enemies he was facing and making.

Five years ago, Bruce lasted a week before he was tweaking his old program and monitoring his son’s patrols and cases. That hadn’t changed with Dick’s promotion and transfer to the GCPD.

“You still haven’t spoken to him?” Dinah’s expression had fallen with sympathetic understanding.

Shoulders slumping, he stared at his hands. He didn’t have to answer verbally, he knew his body language was screaming it at the woman.

“Why not?” Her tone was soft, guiding.

“Because seventeen years of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse can’t be excused by a brain injury received three years ago.” He told her bluntly.

“No, but it is the reason you’ve finally gotten the help you need.” She shifted in her seat, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “Nothing will ever make the things you said or did, to Dick and the rest of your children, over the years okay. You know this, Bruce. I know this and your children know this. Except, unlike Dick, the rest of your family have seen you making the effort to change and be better. So why is Dick different?”

That is the last time you touch a hair on his head, you goddamn hypocrite. Fuck me up all you want, I’ve been wearing your bruises on my skin since before I outgrew the pixie boots. But if you even look at him the wrong way again? If you dare to breathe on any of them wrong again? If you give any of them so much as a paper cut? I will take every last one of them from you, expose every dark secret of Bruce Wayne and Batman, and salt the earth behind me.

That had been just after Jason came back to them. Alive but angry and fueled by the Lazarus waters that had brought him back. Nightwing hadn’t been there that night when Red Hood had tried to force Batman to kill the Joker. But his eldest was observant, a detective, and there was a very obvious scar on Jason’s neck. A scar that Bruce felt the need to fall on his knees and beg for his second son’s forgiveness every time he saw it. (Jason insisted once was enough, admitted that he’d been a little shit back them pushing Batman’s buttons for that exact reaction.)

But Dickie? In more than twenty years, had Bruce ever said he was sorry to Dick for the things he had done to him?

Bruce thought of the countless times he had tried to reach out to his eldest since he’d started treatment for the CTE. He’d held the handset to the phone on his desk in this very room, the number he’d had memorized for years dialled all but the final digit, only to hang up. Or sitting in his car, engine running and shifted into drive with the intention of making the trip to Blüdhaven to see Dick in person, only to be unable to take his foot from the brake.

“He’s back in Gotham now.” He said knowing that his words did not answer her question in the least. “A Detective with the Gang and Narcotics Division of the GCPD.”

“I’d heard.” She said evenly. “Roy took Lian to see her Uncle Dickie just after he moved into his new apartment.”

“Alfred says he’s happy.” His heart ached to admit it and yet he was glad for it. “I don’t want to upset the life he’s built for himself.”

“A life without you, you mean?” She inquired gently. “Or his family?”

“I’ve never stopped the others from seeing him.” He insisted weakly.

“You’ve never encouraged it either.”

He sighed and pressed at his eyes wearily with the fingers of one hand. “I know. I thought I was doing the right thing, Dinah, when I sent Dick – no, when I forced Dick to go undercover with Spyral. I never imagined that their anger with him over my deception would linger like it has.”

“Have you told them?” Dinah asked with absolutely no recrimination in her voice. “The whole truth about what happened with the Syndicate and then Spyral.”

“You mean how I gaslighted and beat their brother into submission until he said he’d go?” He spat, the self-loathing he’d felt from that day surging to the surface. “Or the part before that, where Luthor really did murder him right in front of me?”

“Either. Both. It’s been five years since he came home, Bruce, more than six years since he was held captive by the Syndicate. Why haven’t you–”

“Guys, I need you down in the basement.” Duke’s voice came from the hidden intercom that would carry it through the entire manor. “Now!”

The urgency in the teens voice had Bruce bolting out of his seat for the clock against the wall. Dinah was only a second behind him, leaping to her feet, unlocking and throwing the door leading to the manor open, before scooping up her sneakers to follow him down the stairs. Tim was the only one home right now and would have been in the kitchen with Alfred getting ready to head into the office with Bruce after his meeting with Dinah. Except whatever had Signal sounding like that was likely going to throw a wrench in the day’s plans.

“Report.” Batman barked as he and Black Canary hurried toward the computer banks.

Signal had been getting ready for his morning patrol and was dressed in his gear, though his helmet was resting on the console next to the keyboard. On the main screen was a map of the city, numerous alerts popping up in the various boroughs. “GCPD is reporting multiple confirmed bomb threats across the city. They know the location of one but there are another five that are unaccounted for. According to the threat, they will detonate in a little under seventeen hours at midnight. Deputy-Chief Sawyer with the Special Operations Bureau is leading point and about to issue the city-wide emergency alert to shelter in place. All flights in and out of the airport have already been cancelled and rerouted, same with the trains, and all public transit is being called back to the terminals.”

“Who made the threats?” Dinah asked looking up at the large monitor.

“They don’t know yet.” Duke declared, glancing behind Bruce to where Tim and Alfred were hurrying toward them. “There’s a detective already at the location of the known bomb and a counter-terrorism unit is on route. Except there’s a hostage, a woman, connected to the bomb and according to the officer on scene there’s enough explosives to wipe out everything inside a hundred-yard radius. Patrol officers are beginning to evacuate everyone within the area.”

“What’s all that?” Tim motioned to the monitor where another indicator suddenly appeared on the Gotham Bay Bridge.

“I’ve activated our link with the GCPD and everything they’re connecting with the situation is being tagged in our system as well.” Duke tapped on a few keys and a smaller window opened in the corner. “That’s an APB on a delivery truck that was seen fleeing the scene of the first bomb.”

“My word!” Alfred exclaimed, his eyes focused on a section of the map and his face rapidly paling. “Is that–”

“The location of the bomb.” Duke nodded and zoomed the monitor in on the red marker in Old Gotham. “It’s the old Conservatory of Art on Court Street. Some trust bought it a few years back and converted it into an apartment building. The hostage and bomb are on the top floor.”

“That’s Master Dick’s building and his is the only apartment on the top floor.”

The butler’s words had them all freezing and Bruce’s heart started to pound inside his chest.  “Who’s the detective on scene?”

“I don’t- I don’t know.” Duke admitted as Tim gently moved him aside to take his place in front of the computer. “The original alert only came across our system about five, maybe six minutes ago while I was getting changed. I called you down when I saw the initial report then got us linked to the GCPD. I hadn’t time–”

“It’s Montoya.” Tim’s voice was the steady cadence of Red Robin but Bruce noticed his hands shaking before the young man pressed his palms flat on the console. “She was called in early, almost an hour ago, and dispatched to a suspected gang related kidnapping. Except half an hour ago she was the one who called in the bomb, the hostage, and the abduction of her partner. The APB is for the truck Detective Richard Grayson was taken in.”

“Call everyone in.” Batman said without hesitation, pushing the sudden soul-crushing fear to the furthest shadows of his mind, and he watched Tim send the alert out to their people. “Signal, reach out to Sawyer and let her know we’ll be assisting in the search for the other bombs. We find them, we find the bomber. Dinah–”

“I can have a suit and a bike in twenty.” She told him, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I’ll touch base with the Sirens. Harley will have contacts we don’t and Pamela will be useful searching the greener parts of the city for the bombs. I don’t think Selina’s back from Prague yet. Do you want me to notify the League?”

Batman shook his head. “Not just yet. Too many outside heroes showing up might spook the bomber to detonating early. We’ll readdress their involvement if it gets too late in the deadline.”

“I shall make my way to the Belfry before they close the bridges.” Alfred said tersely, his jaw stiff and his expression shuttered in the way that screamed Bruce had somehow mis-stepped. “You’ll want a centralized location to coordinate your search. I shall appreciate Ms. Gordon’s assistance if you can spare Batgirl.”

“Alfred–” Bruce started and reached out for his almost-father.

The other man held up his hand to halt anything Bruce may have said. “Master Bruce, whatever it is can wait. Your city needs Batman.”

…01:10pm…

The hidden door on the upper most ledge of the Clocktower closed behind Batman as he stalked down the narrow spiral staircase into the main area of the Belfry. Even before he stepped out of the passageway he could hear the voices echoing in the usually empty space. The din of radio chatter of first responders throughout the city crackled over the scanners with updates of the crisis that had locked down Gotham City.

“-unit from Blüdhaven has finished evacuating the area surrounding St. Faustina Church.” Spoiler was reporting through one of the speakers of the large touch screen system Alfred and Barbara were manning. Barbara stretched out and circled a section of Bristol near the corner of Reservoir Avenue and Oxylus Street. “They should be breaching the church to start with the first of the ten perimeter bombs in a few minutes. The proximity sensors are a problem, but they’re confident they have the order to disarm correct. If all goes well, they’ll reach the first hostage in approximately ninety-minutes.”

“Let Lieutenant Del Arrazzio know I’m seeing a secondary exterior signal coming from the north-western spire.” Oracle said while Alfred’s touch highlighted the frequency transmitting south. “I don’t think it’ll interfere with the perimeter bombs, but it looks like one of the hostages’ devices is tied to it. I don’t know in what capacity yet.”

“Copy that.” The typically lighthearted woman sounded far more serious than Batman could remember hearing from her. “I’ll hang back here for a little longer, but Harley sent word that she may have a lead on some of Niko’s people. She wants to meet at Jitters near the Yacht Club.”

“Be careful.” Alfred instructed sternly. “GCPD is reporting unrelated gang activity near the University.”

“Yeah, Quinn mentioned that the Crips are trying to take advantage of the situation and push into Five Finger territory. She’s got her Freaks going to play mediator.”  Spoiler scoffed. “Like that’s going to diffuse things, but it’ll keep them contained for the time being. I’m going to talk to Del Arrazzio. Spoiler out.”

“What’s the status?” Batman approached the pair once the comm had gone quiet.

“Black Bat’s on her way to Tokyo now.” Barbara told him, motioning to a nearby screen that monitored their people around the world. “She’s got a contact on that end that might be able to get us something on this Niko character. It took Agent A and Starfire to convince Robin to remain in Jump for the time being, but I don’t think that’ll last. If he comes, he won’t be alone either.  We’ve been fielding update requests from the JLA, the JLI, the JSA, Titans, Teen Titans, Outsiders, and Young Justice. They all ask about the situation with the bombs, but it always comes down to Dick. We’ll be lucky if we can keep them out of this much longer.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t.” Alfred commented with a scowl directed at Batman.

As much as he may have wanted to, Batman would not risk his son the city or the hostages. “Until we know more they’d just be in the way. What’s the latest in the city?”

“Commander Rohrbach and the officers on loan from BPD have really helped.” Barbara said and opened a window on a smaller monitor for him to view. “Blüdhaven and Gotham detectives are following up on more than a dozen names of suspected associates of the men and women arrested in the BPD bust six months ago. Three from Gotham had been arrested a couple weeks ago on possession charges and Sawyer has already got them in interrogation.”

The small media players showing the CCTV feed inside the Major Crime’s Unit were soundless, Tim’s programming scrolling a row of subtitles transcribing everything that was being said. After a few seconds it was apparent none were going to cooperate.

“What about the situation in The Cauldron.” He asked grimly.

“Red Robin is on scene with several GCPD patrolmen.” Alfred informed him succinctly, manipulating the computer so the screen in front of Batman had the latest information. “Members of Freeze’s Regulators are, surprisingly, assisting Red Robin in isolating the disarming sequence for the perimeter bombs. It was one of their hackers who discovered the secondary frequency transmitting the status of one of the hostages’ devices to a receiver outside the building.”

“Do we know where?” He growled seeing Red Robin’s report that one of the hostages, a teenage girl unaffiliated but known to one of the Regulators, was unconscious due to a pre-existing medical condition. Because of the proximity sensors of the perimeter bombs they could not get close to check on her and she could not be roused verbally.

Barbara shook her head and motioned to the highlighted lines that originated from the bomb locations but faded out after only a few blocks. “The one on the roof of the 8Bit Club is transmitting northeast, the one at the church south. The signals have to be being rerouted by second secondary transmitters somewhere in the city otherwise they’d intersect somewhere in the middle of Sprang River.”

“Was there one on Dick’s building?” He asked, though looking at the map he already had his answer.

“No.” Barbara snapped in frustration, pulling up the GCPD reports from the scene on Court Street. “It’s like Dick’s apartment was the warmup. One hostage, four perimeter bombs of which only one had a proximity sensor. Whoever designed the set up is good, in the worst possible sense of the word. If the perimeter bombs are disarmed out of sequence, the whole thing detonates. If the proximity sensor, which only deactivates once the previous bomb in the sequence is disarmed, is tripped the whole thing detonates. But unlike the perimeter bombs, which are modified claymores containing enough RDX and PETN to level the building and surrounding area, the explosive component in the hostage’s device is a solution of nitrogen trichloride. Disarming that was just a matter of removing the blasting cap. The hostage, Miranda Palarmose, was freed from the device a little over an hour ago and transported to GC General Hospital.”

Batman looked at the information they and the GCPD had gathered since the crisis began. Six hours of the seventeen had already passed and only three bomb locations had been found. The entire city was on edge as the search for the three remaining devices continued. If the ordinance of the other bombs were the same as the one in Dick’s apartment, if even only one of them detonated, the lives lost could number in the hundreds. Every resource was being thrown into finding them and stopping that from happening.

Every resource.

Nothing else was being investigated.

“It’s a distraction.” He stated as he moved to a smaller system off to the side and delved into their connection with the GCPD. “Niko has the entire police department running around the city looking for his bombs. If he was only interested in chaos and destruction he wouldn’t have staged the events in Dick’s apartment this morning and just let the bombs detonate.”

“According to Detective Montoya’s initial report, Niko wants what was confiscated by the BPD.” Alfred said. “He is using the bombs, hostages, and Master Dick as leverage to ransom its return.”

“But he’s not,” Barbara said with understanding as she followed Batman’s thinking while she watched him scroll through the police reports of the last eight hours. “Other than that first mention of it, he’s made no contact for an exchange or deadline or compensation, considering it’s been six months since that bust. The drugs and guns would have been destroyed once they were processed as evidence, the cash returned to the state treasury. He had to know there was never a chance he’d get any of it back. Even with practically an entire city held hostage.”

“The information shared with Deputy Chief Sawyer by Commander Rohrbach notes that, as far as they knew, ‘Niko’ had never stepped foot in Blüdhaven. The man had always been content to let his intermediaries run things. Montoya even mentioned that he was out of the country when the BPD sting took place. So why Gotham, why now?” Batman looked back up at the map. “We’re missing something. Is the Special Ops team still at Dick’s apartment?”

“No, Sir.” Alfred answered a few seconds later. “The Lieutenant in charge, after removing all explosives for disposal, turned the scene over to members of the Forensic Science Division. However, as it’s an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, they just sealed the apartment and are focussing on assisting in locating the remaining bombs.”

“Everything starts there.” Batman glared at the red marker south of Memorial Park. “Niko went after Dick for a reason and its more than revenge for what went down in Blüdhaven. I’m going to see what answers I can find there. Keep me updated with the search for the bombs.”

While it was easier to traverse the city unseen beneath the cover of night, Gotham was his city and Batman had no trouble making his way into the oceanfront neighbourhood. Not long after leaving the Belfry he was grappling up to the balcony of the sixth floor. Perched on the wide, stone wall that served as a railing, he palmed a batarang before entering his son’s apartment through the opened patio door.

Any other day, he would have been impressed with the beautiful space. The large windows, the lightly painted walls, the granite and natural walnut cabinets in the kitchen, natural bamboo wood floors. All tastefully decorated with the small personal touches that he would recognize as Dick’s. But that was another day. Today, all he saw was the crime scene in his son’s living room.

A shadow above him had his head snapping up, but the familiar figure of Batwoman kept him from throwing the projectile in his hand. The crimson wig she wore pooled around her shoulders as she leaned against the frosted glass railing of the second-floor loft, looking down at him with an unimpressed scowl.

“I don’t know if I should be surprised you’re here or not.” His younger cousin said flatly. “I mean, you’re here, so kudos. But are you here because it’s the starting point for today’s mess, or because this is where they kidnapped the son you’ve been pretending doesn’t exist for the last five years from?”

Teeth clenched together, he glared up at the woman. “I’m here for answers either way.”

It must have been the wrong thing to say, as his fellow vigilante shook her head and pushed off the rail. “You won’t find anything down there. The bomb specialist made a real mess of any trace evidence while he was trying to stop this place from blowing up. What you’re looking for is up here. Stairs are to your right.”

She turned her back to him and walked out of view into what looked like a small hall. Taking a moment to look around and agree that the main floor would hold nothing for him, he followed her directions to the stairs and up into the private area of his son’s home. The open loft at the top of the stairs was the master bedroom, the door to the walk-in closet open and a frosted glass wall separating a large ensuite from the sleeping area. Immediately to his left was a second door down a hall of only a dozen feet. The inside of what was obviously Dick’s office had been thoroughly ransacked.

A small, rectangular object was suddenly flying toward him and he caught the phone out of the air with ease.

“Renee was talking to Dick when Niko and his men broke in.” Batwoman told him from where she sat on the edge of an empty desk, the contents that were once on top now scattered across the floor. “They were cut off less than a minute later, but not long after Niko used Dick’s phone to call her. She recorded it and sent me a copy before handing it over to the Special Ops guys.”

Batman looked down at the device’s screen and the paused video waiting for him. He barely noted the tiny rectangle in the corner with Detective Montoya’s furious face as the grinning man that took up the screen had his full attention. He tapped it and the playback began. Only a few seconds in he heard the voice he had been desperate to hear for far too long.

“I’m here, Montoya.” Dick’s voice had deepened again, or perhaps that was the barely restrained fury Batman could detect in even those three words.

He watched the recorded video call closely, taking in every detail of Niko while the man was on screen. Even more so when the gangster made a point of showing off the explosives that were being adhered to the wall of his son’s apartment. But neither compared to how his eyes practically drank in the sight of his son when the camera was turned to show him.

Dick had been held at gunpoint on his knees, half dressed and bound with thick layers of silver duct-tape. Bruce felt the growl that came from deep inside his chest when a quick backhanded fist had Dick falling to the floor. Unbridled rage flooded his veins when he saw the blood that marred his boy’s lips and chin. He hated with every fibre of his being that he could only watch what took place over the next few minutes. He heard Dick’s fierce protectiveness of the woman and clocked the kick to his son’s bare torso. A strike like that, with no body armor or even clothing to soften the blow, would mark him with deep bruising if it hadn’t damaged the abdomen internally.

Batman pushed back the statistics of how quickly a person could bleed to death with untreated internal injuries.

The camera never pointed away from either hostage. Batman knew he should be watching as the explosive cuffs were secured to the woman, but all he could see was the gun against Dick’s temple. The rifle muzzle was pressing hard enough that it left a deep, red spot on lightly tanned skin. He barely registered the exchange between Niko and Montoya, nausea curling his stomach as he watched the man pawing and groping the exposed skin of Dick’s torso.

“In the meantime, Detective Grayson will be keeping me company.” The video ended shortly after that menacing statement, Dick last seen gagged and fighting against the men dragging him out of his own apartment.

“Yeah, that’s how I felt watching it too.” Katie said softly behind her cowl. “Hearing it a second time wasn’t much better, just makes me want to punch that smarmy bastard even harder. Since the odds of me getting to him before you are slim to none, I’ll call dibs on the fucker that hit Dick.”

“He wore a mask.” He felt the need to point out.

“Guess that means I’ll just have to kick all their asses.”

“Red Hood and the others will want in on that once they see this.” Batman said as he forwarded the video on to Oracle, eliminating the message from the device as soon as he knew the Belfry had received it. Once done he stepped around some of the mess in the office, holding the device for Batwoman to take.

She was staring at him with a hard frown, something in his last statement causing her to direct her anger toward him. The cell phone was lifted from his gauntlet and tucked into an open pouch on her belt. “I know I’ve said this before but feel like I need to say it again before we get back to finding those assholes. You fucked up, B. It shouldn’t have had to take a city-wide bomb scare, and Dick getting kidnapped by the goddamn Yakuza, for you all to pull your heads out of your collective asses. Six years he’s needed his family. Needed you. He had been beaten, bled, broken, and died for this crusade of yours. Yet then, when he physically and mentally couldn’t do it anymore, instead of standing beside him and supporting him, you took his family away from him. Again.”

With a scoff she pushed off the desk and onto her feet again. “Not that you had to do much. The rest of your children, legal and not, instead of being glad Dick wasn’t actually dead, were butthurt that he deceived them on your orders. The golden pedestal they all put him on came crashing down under the relentless onslaught that is your parental ineptitude. And yes, I’ve known for a long time exactly what you did to him after the Syndicate and Luthor had taken their pound of flesh.

“That being said,” She closed the last bit of distance between them and placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. Through the lenses of her cowl Bruce could just make out the softening of her eyes. “I also know you love him more than you know how to handle and just the thought of losing him again now scares you shitless. It always has and its why you’ve always drove him away first. Except you’ve changed for the better in the last few years. You remind me of a man I once knew who welcomed a small circus orphan into his heart and home.”

“Kate,” A lump formed in his throat around her name and he swallowed hard. “What if he can’t forgive me? I’ve hurt him so much more than any of the others, in so many worse ways, even Jason.”

“I know you might not know Dick as well as you once did but you can’t really be that dense. Your son has been waiting fifteen years for you to bring him home, Bruce. Don’t make him wait any longer.”

Chapter Text

Was there ever any question on how much I could take?

You kept feeding me your bullshit hoping I would break

Is there anybody out there? Is there anyone who cares?

Is there anybody listening? Will the hear my final prayer?

Step away from the ledge, I’m coming down.

 

(Coming Down – Five Finger Death Punch)

…02:35pm…

CRACK!

The loose molar finally gave beneath the brass knuckles that struck Dick viciously across the jaw again. He’d lost count not long after they’d reached the double digits, but he’d been hoping the tooth would have lasted a little bit longer. He already had far too many false teeth for a man his age.

A hand threaded through his blood matted hair and yanked his head back straight from where it had slumped to the side against his shoulder. His mouth filled with blood, yet Dick kept his lips pressed together as he pushed at the broken tooth with his tongue. Eyes glaring militantly at the man standing right in front of him, Dick spat both blood and tooth into his face.

Leaning a few yards away against the platform’s railing, Niko chuckled his amusement as his man sputtered and took a few steps back. “That’s enough for now.”

The gangster pushed off the rail, the sea-soaked wood creaking in warning, and walked over to the old chalkboard the map from Dick’s office was tacked to. On a table nearby, another of Niko’s thugs was clacking futilely at the keyboard of Dick’s laptop with a couple more trying to make sense of his coded handwritten notes. It may have been more than six years since he’d donned the mask, but years of Batman’s and then Spyral’s teachings had the habit ingrained so deeply it was second nature to encode everything. Half the time he had to remember to not code his grocery list.

There wasn’t a chance in hell they were going to figure it out.

The hand holding his head up released its grip and Dick was grateful for the momentary reprieve from the abuse he’d been subjected to since their arrival. He’d been worried when they’d moved him from the truck onto a boat, but the trip hadn’t lasted long. He had still heard the familiar sounds of Gotham wherever they had put to port.

The dock they’d dragged him onto had been wooden, warped and rickety, and left his bare feet with several splinters that were uncomfortable to walk on. He’d been taken into a passageway of stone that echoed closely around them and smelt of sea water and wet soil. A short elevator ride, the pullies and mechanics creaking menacingly, and he had been taken down a flight of unsteady stairs. He was then forced across a rocky sand covered floor with water that crept up over his ankles. Another flight of stairs, this one going up, and he was manhandled into a chair. Loops of coarse rope around his waist kept him in place.

The hood had been removed, not that it mattered. Wherever they were was underground and, despite the evidence of past occupation, it was obvious it had been a very long time since anyone else had been there. Battery operated lanterns lined the walls but there were still too many deep shadowed areas for Dick to get a clue on where he’d been taken. There was some type of large, brass contraption in the centre of the cavern right next to the raised platform Niko and some of his people had been setting up on. On the ground beneath them, nearly a dozen more armed men working with crates and barrels containing things Dick couldn’t see.

And then the gag had been carelessly removed, tearing layers of skin from his lips, and the interrogation had begun.

“Which factions run the largest sex trade?”

“What is the name of your contact in the DEA?”

“Who’s running the Triads now that Ekin Tzu is dead?”

“What is the Sullivan’s connection to the Falcones?”

“When was the last time you worked with Homeland Security?

“Which Family is suspected of ordering the hit on Sean Riley?”

“How present is the Justice League in Gotham?

“Tell me about the Batman.”

Dick hadn’t said a word and paid for his silence in blood and bruises.

There was not an inch of him that didn’t hurt. His right eye was too swollen to open and the vision in his left was blurred, tinted red by the blood that flowed into it from a cut on his forehead. His nose had been broken early on, blood spilling over his lips and onto his exposed chest that was added to with every subsequent blow to his face. His right cheek was swollen and felt hot, blood seeping from a split to the skin over what was likely a broken zygomatic bone.

The open fabric of his shirt was torn and stained, the blood of a half dozen deep cuts from a serrated blade carved across his chest. It had been done slowly, meticulously, and he had felt every millimetre of the knife across his skin and through the muscle fibres beneath. He’d bit his tongue hard enough it bled while keeping from making a sound through it all. He only screamed when the legs of his slacks had been cut open and they started to flay the skin from his shins with a knotted, multi-tailed whip.

“You’ve impressed me, Detective Grayson.” Niko said genuinely, dragging a second chair to sit across from his captive. “Most men would have given me something by now.”

The quiet that settled between them implied he wanted a response, but Dick refused to give it to him. He closed his good eye and let his chin drop to his chest. He felt the blood trickle from his mouth and down his chin, but at this point it didn’t matter anymore.

“It’s almost like this isn’t your first experience with – what is it you American’s say?” Niko prompted, and suddenly there was a hand on Dick’s knee. No pain, no pressure, just a light rub that made a mockery of a soothing touch. “Ah! Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, that’s it. Polite words to contrast the brutality of the reality.”

It wasn’t the first. He’d had far too many experiences with torture, either for information or just the sick joy of it. And by people who were far better at this than the man in front of him. But Niko didn’t know, could never know, that despite the screams he’d elicited, Dick was far from broken.

The hand crept beneath the tattered fragments of his pants, stretching up his leg and to the inside of his thigh. He swallowed hard with unease when fingers wormed beneath the leg band of his boxer-briefs, choking on the fear that rose with the knowledge, both theoretical and first hand, of what was going to happen next. He’d known it since Niko had first looked at him this morning.

In what he knew would be his last act of defiance, Dick hooked his foot around the leg of Niko’s chair and yanked. The frail wood snapped, and the chair tottered, sending the gangster to the floor. A solid metal tonfa slammed into Dick’s left knee a second later and he just barely managed to bite back his scream when the joint dislocated with agonizing pain. The weapon was reared back for a second blow and Dick braced himself for it.

“Stop.” Niko was still grinning at Dick when one of his men helped him back to his feet. He laughed lightly and brushed at the dirt and bloodied mud that clung to his clothes. “I think I would have liked it had we met in different circumstance, Detective Grayson. You are as intriguing as you are handsome.”

There were so many words Dick would have liked to spit at the man, but he would not give the man the satisfaction. He settled on a second mouthful of blood that splattered across the tips of Niko’s shoes.

Hands on his hips, Niko was smiling at Dick like it was all a game. With another chuckle, Niko looked back to the map then the men working on Dick’s belongings. “How long until the first bomb is defused?” The Japanese rolled off the man’s tongue.

One of the men looked at a tablet in his hand before answering. “An hour at most.”

“It’ll take too long to break him, time we do not have. How unfortunate, it was just getting to the good part.” Sighing in disappointment, Niko motioned to everything around him. “Do what you must, see if you can get anything from him in the half hour, but I want him awake and alive when you put him in the cage. Don’t bother taking anything with you when you’re done, the landscape of Gotham City’s organized crime will be changed one way or the other by tomorrow morning.”

The gangster returned his attention to Dick, stepping into his space and grabbing his chin. The thumb and fingers pried his jaw open and was the only warning he had before Niko’s mouth was covering his. Unable to do more but wrench against his restraints and growl his protests, Dick clenched his eyes shut to the feel of the unwelcome tongue plunging past his bloodied lips.

The violation was over a few seconds later and he pulled his face away from Niko’s bruising fingers the instant they lessened their grip. He turned his head, spitting blood and saliva onto the stained wood beneath him, and glared at Niko as the man took pleasure in wiping Dick’s blood from his lips.

“Perhaps in the next life we’ll meet again, Detective Grayson.” Niko had the gall to suck the blood from his fingers and lascivious grin. “Richard.”

“Kutabare, manko!”¹ He rasped, meeting the man’s gaze with a glare, the one Dick had perfected beneath when he wore the cowl, which succeeded in wiping the amusement from Niko’s face.

The Japanese expletives hung in stunned silence for a moment before Niko pulled a pistol from the holster on the nearest man’s hip and pulled the trigger. Dick’s scream echoed in the cavern; his body curling around the pain of the bullet tearing into his abdomen.

“Forget it, he’s not going to give you anything. Get him in place then get back to the ship. He’ll either bleed out or he gets to burn at midnight. Either way, we’re done here.”

…03:27pm…

The woman was glaring furiously as she stalked out the port master’s office. Behind her, two uniformed members of the GCPD were escorting the man toward the patrol car in cuffs. High above them on one of the large cranes of Dixon Docks, Red Hood scowled behind his helmet as he watched Montoya slam her fist against the passenger side window of her unmarked sedan. Shaking out the sting she likely felt, she turned to watch the patrol car head out of the shipyard. A moment later, he was stepping off the crane and letting his grapple slow his descent.

“No news then?” He asked her, the modulation to his helmet turned off as the Detective had been in the know for a few years now.

“Not good news anyway.” She griped, massaging the reddened knuckles of her left hand. “Stupid bastard was paid to look the other way when the truck came through this morning.” Her hand reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out an evidence bag that had not been sealed yet. Inside was a USB drive which she offered to Hood. “Lucky for us, he was too stupid to turn off the cameras.”

He accepted the drive and took a device from his belt that would copy the information on it in just a few seconds. “I’ll get this over to Oracle.”

“This was the last lead I had on where they’d taken him.” Montoya’s genuine worry for his brother her partner was plain and raised his estimation of her that much more. “I’d hoped they were keeping him here, maybe in one of the warehouses or even on one of the docked ships, but they’re not. Video shows the truck being dumped off Berth 28. Niko wasn’t there, but his men can be seen just before loading Dick onto an unregistered speedboat less than a half hour after they took him. If I had just followed them–”

“The other hostage and the bombs came first.” He ejected the drive and gave it back to the detective, watching as she dropped it in the bag and sealed it. “Dick wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

“I know.” The bag was tucked back into her pocket. “Doesn’t change the fact that now we have no idea where they took him. The boat headed east but cameras lost it seconds after it left dock. That boat could have gone to any of the other ports or marinas in the city, anywhere up or down the coast, one of the dozens of ships moored off the coast. Or they could have taken him out into deeper waters where we’ll never find his body.”

The thought had the lingering remnants of the pit casting a pale green haze over Jason’s vision, only for it to be banished back into the recesses of his mind by shame and guilt.

He’d been hurt, and maybe rightly so, when he found out Dick had lied to him and faked his death. Jason had thought they’d been in a good place back then, had almost been like the brothers they were supposed to be. But then there was the Syndicate, and the lying, and making Jason think Dick had been gone for good. It had made his heart hurt in a way he hadn’t allowed since his mother had died.

In true Jason Todd fashion, he masked his pain and grief with rage and anger. He had punched his older brother, knocked him off his feet, when all he wanted to do was grab him and never let go. Dick had been alive, and it shouldn’t have matter if it was faked for one of Bruce’s self-serving missions. He should have just hugged the man, told him he was glad he wasn’t dead, and gone back to how it had been before the Syndicate took Dick from them.

Except he hadn’t and his pride had kept him from reaching out to the man when Bruce, the asshole, kicked Dick to the curb. And now Jason may lose any chance he had to fix things between them.

Despite the helmet hiding his face, Montoya could read his silence far too accurately. “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

“A year ago, maybe a little more.” He admitted, unable to mask the guilt in his voice. “Was with a mutual friend of ours when he picked up his kid from Dick’s place in Blüdhaven after a mission. We’d been gone about a week, and Dick had helped Lian cook a meal for us. Said he remembered how much it sucked to survive that long on MREs and wanted to give us something homemade to come back to. Except I was an ass and wouldn’t let us stay. Roy was pissed, so was his daughter, but Dick just smiled and told us to take it with us. Like it didn’t kill something inside him that I wouldn’t even be in the same room as him long enough to eat.”

“He likes to take care of his people.” Montoya said with a sad smile, as if that wasn’t something Jason had always known about his big brother. “I’ve been his partner for three months and it seems like Katie and I have spent more time at his place than ours. Mind you, he’s got a view to di–”

The cut off sentiment left the air between them heavy and uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat. “My people got a bead on the guns Niko’s running with.”

“Mercs?” She accepted the change in subject gracefully.

“A crew out of Atlantic City.” Red Hood answered with a nod. “Nearly thirty men. Whatever Niko’s play is, its bigger than what we’re seeing. I’ve got feelers out for their handler, see what else may have been supplied.”

“Oracle to all points,” Barbara’s voice was steady through the comm built into his helmet, but after this many years there was no missing the stress in her words. “GCPD has located the third device at Prinsen Towing & Recovery Service, corner of Dillon Avenue and Rotterdam Street. The bomb specialist on loan from Metropolis PD is on route. Officers on scene are requesting our help evacuating the area.”

“This is Spoiler: I’m a few blocks out. ETA two minutes.”

“Red Robin: I’m still at the 8Bit Club overseeing the Regulators diffusing these bombs. One perimeter bomb left then the hostages. I should be clear in less than an hour.”

“This is Black Canary: I may have a lead on another device; I’ll keep you posted.”

“Batwoman coming up from the Financial District; ETA seven minutes.”

“Signal here: I’m on Tricorner Island, it’ll take me a while to get there.”

“Batman to Signal: Doctor Thompkins contacted me about an unknown device one of her volunteers found on the roof of her clinic on Sheldon Hill Road. You’re closest.”

“Copy that, Batman. Let her know I’m four minutes out.”

Pressing the switch in his glove to activate the mike of his comm, Jason IDed himself more out of habit than necessity. They all knew what each other sounded like. “I’m at Dixon Docks with Montoya. She got the location of the truck that took Dick, but it looks like he’s been taken out of the city by boat. I’m heading for the Belfry with a copy of the security footage for analysis.”

“Ten-four, Red Hood.” Agent A acknowledge after several seconds of aching silence. “Belfry out.”

“They’ve found a third device.” Montoya told him, motioning to her window where he could just make out the crackle of her police radio.

He nodded and tapped the side of his helmet. “I heard, but that’s not my job today.”

“Mine neither.” The detective patted her pocket containing the USB drive. “I’m going to get this over to Major Crimes and a description of the boat to the Harbour Patrol and Coast Guard. Niko didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d want to miss the production he’s got going on here. My gut’s telling me they’re still in Gotham.”

“Douche like that?” He pressed the sequence that reinstated the modulator of his helmet. “Yeah, he’s still here and he’ll have Dick close. I’ll get the information to Oracle and Agent A, see if one of our cameras can find where they put to shore again. Let us know if you get anything and I’ll do the same.”

“Hood.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm before he could even aim his grapple. “As long as he’s breathing it’ll never be too late. Not with him.”

“Let’s just hope he’s still breathing when we find him then.”

…04:52pm…

The clouds had moved in not long ago, casting the large clockfaces of the Belfry in foreboding shadows. Between his hands, Tim stared down at the mug of tea Alfred had sat in front of him before the older man descended the stairs back to the main area of the Belfry. As much as he enjoyed the man’s calming presence, he was grateful for the space.

The girl hadn’t made it.

As soon as the last perimeter bomb had been disarmed, Tim had headed straight for her. Except, once he had reached her side, he could see they were too late. Her chest wasn’t moving, eyes closed, her skin pale and lips blue. He hadn’t needed to feel for the pulse at her neck to know she was gone. Techyn, the gang’s hacker that had helped Red Robin through it all, had been inconsolable and had vanished into the Cauldron with his crew as soon as the last bomb had been disarmed.

Regardless of what happened with the rest of the bombs, a war was coming to Gotham.

“Cassandra’s flight will land at Haneda Airport in about an hour.” Barbara was talking to Bruce and Stephanie down near the computers. “Her informant in Tokyo got back to us, though, and confirmed there’s a major shakeup in the American arms of the Yakuza.”

Feeling numb, Tim tried to focus on the words that were being carried up into the upper area, but he found himself watching Alfred as the butler ignored the trio and returned to the small kitchenette in the corner. He set about preparing coffee, tea, and a tray of light snacks for anyone who might answer Batman’s call to regroup. Tim had been in the Belfry, needing a few minutes to collect himself after he turned the scene at the 8Bit club over to the FSD officers. Stephanie had shown up a few minutes after Bruce, but it didn’t appear as if anyone else was coming. Had he not already been there, he likely wouldn’t have either.

“The ‘Niko’ we’re dealing with, his real name is Yamato Itō, a lieutenant out of Sapporo.” Oracle pulled up a mugshot from Japan’s National Police Agency. “The BPD’s arrests and seizures of the gang in the city was a death sentence for the previous ‘Niko’. Apparently, Itō has promised to retrieve everything, excluding the people arrested, tenfold. If he does, he’ll become the new head of the East Coast Yakuza, not just New Jersey.”

“Since early this morning, his people have been masking themselves as members of other gangs.” Batman picked up for the woman. “He’s assaulted crews and strongholds across the city, killing everyone and taking the drugs, weapons, and cash for himself. If he’s aiming for control of the entire eastern seaboard, he likely has no real interest in Gotham. We’re just the location chosen for his culling.”

“Then why kidnap Dick?” Spoiler asked, her confusion and weariness evident in her tone. “If it’s not about revenge for the bust in Blüdhaven…?”

“Information.” Batman explained and the man motioned to a screen that was running a decryption program and the desk beside it covered in papers. “Everything in Dick’s private office had been taken. But this is all the backup copies he kept that Batwoman and I found in the hidden compartment in his closet.”

“I’m trying to decode everything,” Oracle admitted, and Tim could hear her frustration. “But Dick’s had more than six years to improve on the last encryption I knew he used to use. This one is far more sophisticated that I was expecting.”

Six years.

It felt like hardly any time had passed since Nightwing had been taken by the Syndicate and Tim had been forced to watch his brother unmasked to the world. Six years since the failed attempt to rescue Dick from the fallen Watchtower. Six years since he thought the man dead, five years since he found out the truth.

Dick was alive and had hidden from them to run off and play spy.

That uncharitable thought was accompanied by a swell of guilt that was getting harder to push back. Tim was a creature of logic and facts. The facts were, as much as they may hurt, Dick had a damn good reason for going undercover as deep as he had. By faking his death, no one asked questions. No one was looking for him. And the organization he had infiltrated was a credible threat to every masked hero across the globe. It was only because of his brother’s intervention that Red Robin’s civilian ID, and the ID of everyone he cared for, wasn’t auctioned off to the governments of the world. How many meta-human lives had been saved when Dick shut Spyral down?

So, why was Tim so angry? Dick wasn’t the first of them to fake his death and disappear. Bruce had done it. Steph had done it. Half the Justice League had done it. Jason had honestly been dead, so not a good example, and yet Tim couldn’t help but compare the way in which both his older brothers had returned. Red Hood came back wanting and attempting to kill them all and Tim’s body would forever carry the man’s scars. Dick had just wanted to come home.

Tim wanted him to come home.

But that was emotions.

Red Robin had to deal with logic and facts.

Leaving the untouched mug on the table he had been sitting at, Red Robin made his way down the stairs to the others.

“In Blüdhaven Dick worked with both BPD Detectives and every State agency from the DEA to Homeland Security for three years before making the move back to Gotham.” Oracle stated. “And now, a Detective in his own right, he’s going to know a lot about the inner workings of organized crime in the state. The information in those files and on those drives is going to be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“And why Niko’s put on the big production.” Red Robin said levelly. “Batman called it a distraction and he’s right. But right now, the bombs, the hostages, the countdown, that’s the priority. There are still two devices, and we have no idea where they are.”

“Canary and Batwoman are working with Seargent Davies from the anti-terrorism unit to narrow down the location of the fifth bomb.” Batman told them. “They think they may have it somewhere on Barr Street near the Elliot Centre.”

“And the last one?” Red Robin asked. “There is only seven hours until midnight and if its anything like the rest of the scenes it’s going to be at least two hours to disarm everything. Dick can wait. We need to reassign Red Hood. His connections would be better spent looking for the last bomb rather than one man.”

There was a sudden, loud clatter from the kitchenette as the knife Alfred had been utilizing was slammed down hard on the cutting board. Tim looked at the man and flinched at the expression of disappointed fury that was directed at him.

“That ‘one man’ is your brother, Master Timothy.” Alfred snapped. “Though I can see how you may have forgotten that given how you, how all of you, have been treating him these past years. But whether you acknowledge it or not, a member of your family is being held at the mercy of a man with obvious ill intent toward him. Would you truly condemn Master Richard to further trauma and harm after everything he has already experienced?”

“Dick has been through this before, Alfred.” Barbara said gently. “He can handle himself for a few hours while we look for the other hostages.”

“I shall remember that the next time you are shot, Miss Gordon.” Alfred snarked primly, turning his stare to the older woman who had recoiled at the callousness of the words. With a shake of his head, the oldest of them looked back at Batman. “The clock is running out. It is time to call for aid.”

“There’s still time.” Batman said flatly.

“If not now, then when!?” He bellowed, the tray he’d been meticulously filling swept off the counter and to the floor. “When, Batman? When will you finally admit that you are simply a man and cannot do everything? When there’s four hours left? Two? When the seconds tick away on the innocent lives you are gambling with for the sake of your foolish pride? When Richard’s life is once again snuffed out like the candle you had him naively swear his servitude to you and your damnable crusade? When? WHEN! When will you finally put aside your goddamned ego and see what it is about to cost you?”

Tim knew his eyes were just as wide as Barbara’s and Stephanie’s. He had never heard the typically unflappable man shout at any of them like that before. But it was the man’s words that were echoing worryingly inside his head.

Richard’s life.

Snuffed out.

Again.

“You have surrounded yourself with a veritable army of men and women with the powers of gods and yet you insist on flailing impotently against an enemy that seeks to take one of your children from you. How many times, Batman, must that boy scream before you hear him?”

Bruce balked beneath the cowl. “It’s not that simple, Alfred.”

“It has never been simpler, Sir.” He stalked around the table toward the computers, only for his path to be blocked by the wall that was the Batman armour. “Step aside, Mister Wayne.”

“Alfred, I know your worried, I am too.” The man tried to placate him. “And we’ll find him, we’ll bring him ho–”

“MISTER KENT, IF YOU WILL PLEASE!” Alfred’s shout echoed through the Belfry, and only a second later the heavy ‘clang’ signalled the door to the upper stairs closing. Turning to the footsteps descending the same stairs Tim had only come down moments prior, the unhappy scowl of the Man of Steel and his clone was more than enough to silence any protests the Bats may have had.

“Kon?” Tim exclaimed in surprise at seeing his best friend and teammate. “What are–”

“We heard every word.” Kon-El interrupted him with a scowl. “‘Dick can wait’? That’s cold, RR, even for you.”

“Wonder Woman is on her way to meet with Deputy-Chief Sawyer.” The head of the Justice League informed them, saving Tim the indignity of trying to justify himself. “I’m taking point with the League members that are spreading out through the city to assist in the search for the final devices and hostages.” The steely glare the man levelled at Batman was a grim reminder why villains feared the man. “All of the hostages. Agent A, Oracle, get us caught up.”

Stunned by what just happened, not that Tim could blame her, Barbara motioned Superman over to the computers and started going over everything with him as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Tim could only stand there, watching them, until he heard Alfred hissing under his breath at Batman.

“It may be your name on the adoption papers, but I have never needed legalities to call him my son. And I will not allow him to die because of you again.”

…06:23pm…

Standing on the peak of a water tower across from the Gotham City Cabaret, Robin’s lips were pursed into a thin line as he watched Signal on the opposite roof. The device the older teen had found was similar to the ones he had traced in nearly every borough of the city with one notable difference.

“There’s a transmitter,” Duke muttered over the private line he had opened when Robin had joined him a little over an hour ago. “But it’s just not transmitting. And of the receivers, only two are actively receiving anything. I can try to trace them back to point of origin, but they both head back into the city.”

“Likely the two bombs the others are trying to disarm.” Robin glanced at the figure that floated down and settled on the tower beside him. “Anything?”

Jonathan Kent crossed his arms over the symbol on his chest and shook his head, a slight blush colouring his cheeks. “Nothing. I scanned the entire building and through both subbasements. The building has a major rat infestation, but there’s no bomb or hostages.”

“Damn it.” Damian muttered and scowled while looking across the rooftops in the immediate area. From his vantage point he could see one hundred and eighty degrees of the coastline and somewhere along there was where they had hoped the device would lead them to. Arkham to the north in the Upper Bay, Tricorner Island to the south on the other side of Sprang River, and between them hundreds of locations where the last bomb could be hidden.

“Signal to Red Hood.” Duke kept the line with Damian open even as he reached out to the older man. “Did your contacts find the supplier for these devices? If I had an idea of how many I was looking for I might be able to narrow it down more.”

“There might have been something on the manifest they found,” Hood answered immediately. “There was a hell of a lot more explosives than what we’ve seen so far on that list, so the Arrows and Speedsters are focussing on those. I think Cyborg and Oracle were narrowing in on the smugglers that brought it all in.”

“Copy that, thanks.”

Damian tapped the comm piece in his ear. “Robin to Red Hood. Has there been any progress on locating Richard?”

“One of Dick’s CIs contacted Montoya.” His older brother told him. “We’ve got a lead on the ship we think Niko’s got Dick on. It’s nothing concrete, but more than what we had a couple hours ago.”

“Please keep me informed of any developments.”

“You and everyone else. Hood out.”

The heavy quiet that blanketed him and his best friend lasted for several seconds before Jon broke it. “Are you all right, Robin?”

Watching the yellow shape of the newest Bat, Damian found he couldn’t answer that question as he normally would. “I haven’t spoken to him in almost eleven weeks. It has been much longer since I last saw him. I cannot help but feel that I made the wrong choice when I acquiesced to Richard’s request to limit my contact with him.”

“Dad said the same thing to Mom when we heard what happened.” Jon said with a disquieted frown on his lips. “They were so mad while we were watching the news. This is a League level event, but Batman’s agreement with the JLA keeps us out of Gotham unless we’re requested directly. Why weren’t we called in sooner?”

All too familiar anger bubbled up inside him at the mention of his father. “Likely the same reason I was instructed to remain on the other side of the country. Reasons that are flimsy and have no true value other than to appease Batman’s foolish pride. And now, even with the involvement of heroes from across the globe, we are racing against a clock that could devastate Gotham.”

And if they were to lose Richard again, for real this time, it would shatter what remained of his family.

“Watchtower to all points,” Cyborg’s steady voice cut into their comm line. “Bomb specialists have successfully disarmed all explosives in the West End location, reporting no casualties.”

“Signal to Watchtower: the transmitter of the device in front of me gave off a zero-point-six second burst when the third receiver deactivated. It was too quick for me to pinpoint a direction. Did you happen to catch it?”

“Copy that Signal.” Cyborg paused for a few seconds before continuing. “Got it. Eight degrees north of east from your current coordinates.”

“Ten-four, I’ll let you know what we find. Signal out.”

Damian’s eyes drifted past Signal who was now standing on the opposite roof, and to the largest landmark he could see. “Cape Carmine Lighthouse.”

Jonathan sped through the sky to the towering structure as Signal and Robin fired their grapples and leapt from the roofs. “There’s another one of those devices up here.” The half-Kryptonian informed them over the comm link before he was suddenly plucking them both out of the air. He carried them to the gallery outside the uppermost room that housed the massive light.

“This one’s different.” Signal muttered to them as he knelt next to the brick-size device. He held his wrist computer to it, scanning the components within. “I’m reading only one receiver and one transmitter, both currently inactive. Signal to Cyborg: device confirmed. I’m uploading the initial scans to the Watchtower servers. Device is located one hundred twelve feet above sea level atop Carmine Lighthouse approximately two hundred fifty yards from previous coordinates.”

“I got them, Signal. Give me a minute…”

While the older bat worked, Damian walked around the small balcony that encircled the structure. The door from the lightroom had been broken open, only a thin zip-tie keeping it from swinging in the wind. He snapped it easily and stepped inside. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jon drifting out over the water, his eyes likely scanning the immediate area.

“I’m not seeing anything above ground, Robin.” Superboy reported in Damian’s earpiece as he floated northward around the outcropping the lighthouse resided on. “But there are minerals in the rocks and soil that make it hard to see anything deeper than a few feet.”

“Superman mentioned the same to Batman early in their careers.” Robin told him. “Some areas of the city are worse than others.”

“Cyborg to Signal: From what I can tell, it looks like when the last bomb is disarmed it sends a signal through the relays that deactivates one of the receivers on the previous device. That deactivation then sends a transmission burst to this one. In turn, it sends another transmission to… somewhere. But it’s close, within a hundred yards.”

Robin stepped back outside and looked out over the ocean, Signal rising to his feet and standing next to him. “There is nothing here.”

“But there should be.” Duke grumbled.

In a sudden blur of red and blue, Superboy flew to the southern side of the small peninsula. “Got the remains of a set of stairs on this side of the rockface.”

Both bats anchored their grapple lines and descended quickly, running as soon as their feet were on the ground. Wordlessly they followed the direction Superboy hovered, running down a short flight of stairs and behind a workman’s shed.

Jonathan was waiting for them at the cliff’s edge. “Half of it’s missing, but there’s a dock and a tunnel leading beneath the lighthouse.”

“Lighthouses used to use liquid fuel and flames,” Duke told them as he leapt effortlessly over a gap in the stairs, Damian following a second later. “The fuel tanks were typically kept in a separate building away from the lighthouse itself in case of an explosion.”

“Or buried.” Damian shifted his balance when he made the next jump onto the precariously held together dock, rotten slats of wood shaking beneath his added weight. He stepped off quickly to the stone of the tunnel, stopping as he stared down the short passage. At the end, a heavy metal rolling door stopped them from continuing.

“Door’s old.” Jon walked the few feet forward, Damian and Duke right behind him. He pointed at the mechanism at the top. “But that lock’s brand new.”

“Can you see what’s on the other side?” Robin flexed his hands into fists at his side anxiously.

His friend shook his head. “The door’s easy enough, and there’s definitely something past a wooden structure, but I can’t get a clear look. Maybe if I was inside.”

Duke stepped forward and scanned the area around the door before moving back again. “I’m not reading anything on the door.”

“Bring it down, Superboy.” Robin commanded needlessly. Fingers tore through the metal as if it were paper, pulling and widening the hole Jon made until they could pass through.

Signal grabbed onto Damian’s shoulder before he could move to walk inside. “Wait!”

Except it was too late, and Superboy had drifted through the nearly imperceptible web of light that had covered the entire height and width of the tunnel on the other side of the door. It vanished the instant his body disrupted the web and a single red bead of light started flashing a few feet into the cavern.

“Don’t move!” Robin snapped at the half-Kryptonian who froze in place.

The area inside suddenly brightened as Signal’s meta-ability strengthened the light.

Robin almost wished he hadn’t.

Dozens of crates of explosives, stacks of barrels, a yellow tinge to the window into the tank in the centre of the cavern, the same terrifying liquid dripping nerve-rackingly from the rusted seams, wires criss-crossing the expanse and connecting them all to the mine that lay now activated in front of the three boys.

Tapping at the receiver in his ear to open all active comms, Duke spoke with a noticeable tremor in his voice. “Signal to all points: We have located the final bomb. In the old fuel chamber beneath the Cape Carmine Lighthouse. It’s- it’s a hell of a lot bigger than the others.”

“Superman to Signal: what about hostages?”

“One.” Robin answered, the word practically choking him as he swallowed. His eyes locked on the sole figure slumped and unmoving inside a cage carved into the far wall of stone. “It’s Detective Grayson.”

Chapter Text

I close my eyes and still hear the screams

That would tear apart our world

I keep reliving everything

I can’t believe how much it hurts

Here we are, once again, still questioning the end

How can I let you go?

 

(Don’t Tell Me – Disturbed ft. Ann Wilson)

***** ***** **5 YEARS AGO** ***** *****

The cave was echoing with the fading sound of the cycles as the others headed out for patrol. Bruce had been on a teleconference call for Wayne Enterprises in his office upstairs and would be meeting up with them later. He almost didn’t notice the modified Kawasaki on the vehicle deck, the sleek black motorcycle having tilted and fallen onto its side. He paused on his way to the changeroom as he stared at it, stopping in the midst of unbuttoning the cuffs of his dress shirt.

Batman quickly flicked his eyes to the large monitor of his computer system and the map of the city continuously displayed. There were five tiny symbols speeding into Gotham and splitting off for their designated patrol routes. There were supposed to be six. Nightwing’s symbol wasn’t anywhere on the map and given the condition of his bike it’s not surprising. The fact that the other man was still inside the cave was, however. Frowning and shaking his head, Batman turned and stalked toward the partitioned area away from the cave’s cameras. Not bothering to knock, he pulled back the sliding door to Nightwing’s cubicle.

A domino mask was on the short bench, Nightwing’s boots unlaced, removed and strewn haphazardly on the floor. The armor had been changed out for a pair of worn jeans and the uniform was hanging neatly in its compartment at the back of the space. Nightwing was standing barefooted with his naked back (Had his son’s body always carried that many scars?) to the doorway, slipping the t-shirt he’d been wearing earlier back over his head. The way the younger man’s shoulders tensed, and the slight hesitation before pulling the shirt down the rest of the way, was enough to tell Batman that Nightwing knew he was there.

“Nightwing, where are you going?” Batman demanded, barely keeping the growl out of his voice. “You have patrol.”

“Is Alfred here?” The other man asked coolly and smoothed the fabric over his torso and tilted his head slightly so Batman was visible in his periphery.

In the back of his mind, Bruce’s stomach curdled but knew he didn’t outwardly react. Nightwing’s lips were split on the right side of his mouth, blood oozing and smeared across skin that was already bruising.

“What happened?”

“Is Alfred here?” He asked again, avoiding Batman’s question.

“He’s still upstairs.”

“Get out, Bruce. We had an agreement.”

Batman exhaled in a huff of exasperation. “I’ve indulged this ridiculousness long enough, Nightwing. We need to talk.”

“Last time we ‘talked’ alone in this cave you kicked me off the upper deck and through the display cases. Get. Out.”

The younger man’s voice didn’t change, not a single inflection betraying what he was feeling, but the way Nightwing ordered Batman out was telling enough. He would not waver (and deep in the shadows of his heart Bruce could not begrudge his son this). Not bothering to mask his ire, Batman turned and his dress shoes clacked angrily as he stormed toward his own changing area.

He was efficient, always had been, but after so many years donning The Suit, it was as simple as breathing. Within minutes Batman was fully armored and geared, cowl in place as he stepped back into the main area of the cave. Nightwing was sitting on the edge of a gurney in the medical area, Alfred dabbing at the split lip with a gauze pad.

“He can take care of that himself, Alfred.” Batman growled as he approached. “You’re dismissed. Nightwing and I need to talk.”

“I think not, Sir.” Alfred clipped stoically, setting the bloodied gauze onto a tray. He picked up a fresh one, wetted it with some alcohol, and was once more tending to the still bleeding lip. “Master Richard has set reasonable boundaries between you and him, and you will respect them. I will not interrupt your conversation but I shall not leave.”

“Enough of this childish behaviour, Nightwing!” Batman snapped angrily.

“Do you see a mask, Batman?” Nightwing sneered, his lips curling and causing him to wince when the blood that had been slowing flowed quickly to the surface. “You agreed to my terms when I came back. Just because it’s been a few months doesn’t mean you get to start ignoring them now. If you want to talk, take off the damn cowl.”

The cut to the man’s mouth (an injury that should not have been obtained inside the cave) was deeper than Batman had realized but his scowl hardened when Alfred tutted needlessly.

“I’m afraid it will need a stitch or two, Master Richard.” The elder man told him and walked over to a cabinet for a suture kit.

Batman begrudgingly pushed the mask off his head and let it hang at the back of his neck. When Nightwing came back from his time in Spyral, he may not have explicitly stated it but his actions made it abundantly clear that he no longer trusted Batman. He refused to be alone in the cave with him and Nightwing would only talk to Batman when in uniform. Otherwise, Dick insisted on Bruce not wearing the cowl around him. At the time, Batman had understood. He knew the dynamic between them had changed after–

“Things can’t be the same. After this, Bruce, after asking this, between us… it can’t ever be the same again.”⁽¹⁾

After.

“What happened?” Batman crossed his arms over his armored chest, watching as Alfred began to methodically lay out what he would need to close the cut to the lip.

“Red Hood’s hand ‘slipped’ when he was putting on his jacket as I walked past.” Was the explanation, Nightwing’s words slightly mumbled as he held the gauze to his lip.

“And your bike?”  

“You know how ‘clumsy’ Tim has been since I’ve been back.” With a half-hearted shrug he lowered the gauze at Alfred’s silent prodding.

Batman held back a sigh. “Start your patrol time sooner than the others.”

“Right. That’ll solve everything.” Nightwing said scornfully, effortlessly speaking without moving the right side of his mouth so the butler could work.

Anger flared at the man’s tone, one he had become far too familiar with both as Batman and Bruce Wayne. “It’ll keep the contention out of this cave and maybe, then, you could do your job! You’ve sulked long enough, Nightwing!”

“I am not Nightwing!” The first of his protégés barked, snapping his head to glare at Bruce before Alfred could pierce the skin with the suture needle. “I am not in uniform. I am not wearing a goddamn mask. My fucking name is Dick! Use it!”

The silence fell heavy around them, even the background chittering of the bats throughout the cave system had gone quiet with Nigh– with Dick’s shout.

“Language, Master Richard.” Alfred scolded the young man gently, tapping at Dick’s chin to turn it back into place. He ‘tsked’ softly and wiped the fresh flow of blood from Dick’s skin. “Try not to move so abruptly.”

“Sorry, Alfie.” Dick closed his eyes and turned his head a little further away from Bruce.

The trio maintained the quiet while Alfred skillfully closed the cut to Dick’s mouth. It took three tiny stitches, the black thread stark against the soft pink of Dick’s lips, and there would be no hiding them or the deepening bruise.  Any scarring left behind would be camouflaged by the fine lines of his lips. When the man was finished, and he had wiped the last of the blood from Dick’s chin, Alfred gathered the tray with the mess and headed deeper into the medical area to clean everything.

“I’m tired.”

The words were spoken quietly, defeated, and Batman bobbed his head once in acceptance. “We can get by without you for tonight. Go upstairs and–”

“No.” Dick interrupted firmly, more emotion bleeding into that single word than he had heard in weeks. “I’m tired, Bruce. I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This.” He motioned between the two of them, then to the cave as a whole.

“I agree.” Batman conceded, stopping Nightwing from explaining further. “You haven’t been right since you came back to Gotham and I’ve been thinking it would be beneficial for you to move out of the Manor.” (Looking back at the footage of this moment with Dinah, he would wish he had noticed how Alfred stiffened and Dick’s expression shuttered into the emotionless mask he had been wearing since his return. But he hadn’t, and…) “Nightwing hasn’t really settled back in with the others. It’s been causing friction in the field and at home. I’m ending it. I won’t have you jeopardizing our mission.”

“Of course, your mission.” Nightwing scoffed and slid off the gurney. “I’m not falling in line like the good little soldiers every one else apparently became while I was on the last mission you forced me on–”

“I didn’t force you.” Batman snarled.

“–so, you’re throwing me out.” The other man continued as if he hadn’t spoken, stepping around Batman and heading for the stairs. “Again.”

“You need to get your head clear and it’s obvious you’re not willing to do it here.” He followed and reached out, grabbing his former partner’s bicep and halting Dick’s steps with a jerk of his arm. “You’ll move into the Penthouse in the Wayne Foundation Building. It’s adequate for a long-term base of operation. The Bunker will be reactivated and your gear moved there. Oracle and I will monito–”

“Remove your hand at once, Master Bruce.” Alfred’s voice was icy, the hand he dropped onto Batman’s armored shoulder heavy, and the purse of his lips exposed the protective fury behind the veneer of propriety.

Seeing the impressively intimidating expression turned on him, it was only then that Batman realized Nightwing– that Dick had frozen at his touch. Dick’s face was pale, his hands clenched into fists at his side, and Batm– Bruce recalled Nightwing’s third absurd condition of his return.

Do not ever touch Nightwing (or Dick) when in The Suit.

Letting go (he would later learn his grip with the gauntlet had left deep bruises on his son’s arm), Batman took a single step back and allowed Dick to move away from him. “This is what I’m talking about, Dick.” He said evenly, showing is disappointment with a glare and shake of his head. “You’re behaving like we’re your enemies rather than your allies.”

Dick wouldn’t look at him, didn’t look back at Alfred, and swallowed noticeably before speaking in that frustratingly flat tone again. “I was in Blüdhaven this morning. I saw Amy – Captain Rohrbach – and she’s offered me a job.”

Sour jealousy was quickly overwhelmed by growing rage. “She fired you last time. Why would she offer you a job?”

“Amy was one of the exceptions Helena programed into the Somnus satellite.” The man said. “She’s agreed to help me sort out the paperwork to bring me back onto active duty with the BPD.”

White, incandescent fury speared through him and the gauntlet creaked as his hands curled into fists of his own (watching the footage back later with Dinah beside him, Bruce would wince at the visible flinch of his son’s body and how Alfred had stepped between them). “She’s agreed. You accepted the job.”

“She only fired me in the first place because of the mask.” Dick’s voice was steady, unwavering. He was resolute in the face of Batman’s growing ire. “I was going to tell you tonight after patrol. I’m retiring Nightwing.”

Retiring– no. Batman could not lose his son soldier.

“I had hoped,” Batman hissed through his clenched teeth. “After everything, after Ultraman and the Crime Syndicate, after Owlman and Luthor, after Spyral and Mother⁽²⁾, I’d hoped you would be strong enough to finally accept the sacrifices expected of you. I was a fool to hope. You are weak–”

“Master Bruce, that’s enough!” (At the time, Alfred’s voice had barely registered with him. The hand the man had pressed against the bat symbol on Bruce’s chest when he stepped menacingly toward his eldest son had gone completely unnoticed until he rewatched the footage with Dinah.)

“I’m not weak, I’m tired!” Dick’s voice was steel but did nothing to mask the weariness in every word. “I’m tired of being on edge every second of every day, wondering when the others are going to express their offense to my very existence again. I’m tired of going out on patrol and never knowing if anyone would bother showing up if I called for backup. I am so fucking tired of jumping at every shadow because it might be you.”

“Then you’re a coward!” Batman growled. “I’m your ally–”

“You were supposed to be my father!”

(Years later, Bruce would hear the utter desolation in his son’s voice and weep. But that would not be until a head injury, a diagnosis, a reason even if it would never be an excuse, for why he said what he did.)

“You were never supposed to be my son.” Batman grabbed the cowl from between his shoulder blades and pulled it into place. “If you accept that badge, and for as long as you wear it, you will not be welcomed in my home. Either you put on your goddamn mask and uniform, Nightwing, or you get the hell out of my house.”

Nightwing never showed up that night for patrol and Batman and the others came back to an empty cave. Alfred was not waiting for them as he usually did, and when Bruce went to look for him he found the man sitting on the edge of a bed in a room (a room that had once been his oldest son’s) that had been stripped of anything personal.

In Alfred’s hands he cradled several scraps of torn papers. Papers that he slapped into Bruce’s chest with a glare angrier than any the man had ever levied in Bruce’s direction. The words his butler spoke meant little to him other than to prove that Bruce had made the right decision.

“You have broken his heart for the last time, Master Wayne.”

Nightwing had quit.

He was weak, a coward, and of no use to Batman and his mission.

Without looking at their contents, he let the torn paper fall to the floor, uncaring as he walked over them when he turned his back on his butler and left. “Have the room cleaned and repainted as soon as possible. If one of the others want it they can have it. If not, close it up.”

(Even years later, after a head injury, a diagnosis, a reason, Bruce would never be brave enough to ask Alfred what ever happened to the torn copy of Dick’s adoption papers and certificate.)

***** ***** **NOW** ***** *****

…09:47pm…

“Detective. Detective! Goddamn it, Montoya! You can’t be here!”

“Stuff it, Takahata! That’s my partner down there!”

Batman felt her approach more than he heard it, his focus on the pair of Lanterns – Anya and Guy – up in the air. None of the men and women around him said anything as a wall of green was brought into existence, cutting off the immediate area from the rest of Gotham.

“That bad?” His son’s partner muttered when she stopped next to him.

“A precaution.” Superman admitted grimly. “We have some of our best technical minds trying to figure out the bomb’s configuration, but this one is far more dangerous than the others have been.”

“You shouldn’t be here, Renee.” Deputy-Chief Sawyer told her, though not unkindly. “You’re too close to this. If you want to help, go help with evacuating the nearby neighbourhoods.”

“With all due respect, Chief, you’ll have to drag me out of here in cuffs to stop me. And I’ll put you in the dirt if you try.”

“We’ll take her down.” Batman offered, knowing his cousin’s girlfriend would not be deterred. Plus, she could be helpful. “Detective Grayson is unconscious, and until we can get to him we won’t know his condition. Her presence might rouse him enough for us to assess.”

“All right, but I don’t like it.” Sawyer agreed with thinned lips. “We can’t get eyes or ears down there, Montoya, it was causing interference with the receiver on top of the lighthouse. The heroes have been relaying their findings via their flyers, and if things start looking sketchy I want you to have one of them bring you back. I’m not going to risk losing two of my detectives.”

“No, just the one.” Montoya snapped with a glare, her words twisting something ugly inside Batman’s chest. “I’m not leaving him.”

“We’re going to do our best to make sure you don’t lose either of them, Ma’am.” Superman told the woman.

With a nod and a sympathetic glance at her officer, Sawyer turned back to the police mobile command center parked outside the green glowing shield. Batman moved first, Montoya and Superman quickly falling into step behind him as he led the way toward the cliff’s edge.

“How bad is it really?” She asked the pair, her anxiety noticeable now that her superior was no longer present. “I know the manifest Hood’s people found mentioned a lot more explosives than what we’ve found so far.”

“It’s all here.” Batman told her evenly, though he felt anything but. “An explosion of this magnitude would wipe out the peninsula and everything above ground for a half mile.”

“The bit about transmission interference?”

“True.” Superman verified. “The JLA comm technology is different enough that we haven’t notice anything, but we’re not taking the chance. Everything is being communicated word of mouth.”

“And Dick?”

“We can’t reach him.” He growled and grappled past the remains of the staircase while Superman floated Renee down to the rickety dock. At the mouth of the narrow passage, Tempest stood with a hand extended toward the ocean. The Atlantean had his lips pursed together, beads of sweat clinging to his hairline.

“How are you holding up, Tempest?” Superman asked the senior member of the Titans with concern.

“Fine.” Was the terse response, purple eyes never once looking away from the water. “As long as the storm does not break overhead I can keep the rising tide from flooding the cavern below. Aqualad is monitoring the ship Red Hood connected with the bastard that did this to Ni– to Detective Grayson, but he will join me here should he be needed.”

“I know he used to be Nightwing.” Montoya said quietly. “I have since before he was my partner. Dick has shared stories with me. He’ll be glad to see you again after all these years. You and the other Titans I’ve seen throughout the city.”

Dick’s former teammate scowled. “Dick asked that we stay away out of respect for his mentor. He did not want to cause contention among the community. Or his family. But remember, Detective, when he was Robin and then as Nightwing, Dick was the one that brought us together. He was our leader and is still our friend. Once a Titan, ever a Titan.” An angry glare flicked at Batman briefly before looking back out over the water. “We will always stand with him, even when he pushes us away.”

“When this is over, we’ll remind him of that.” Superman placed a gentle hand on Montoya’s arm carefully leading the woman around the Atlantean and through the narrow passage to the where the door had once been.

Superman had torn out the remains of metal door, once Cyborg had given the all clear and deemed it safe to do so. They’d had to wait to descend into the cavern until the first proximity mine had been defused. The cybernetic man teleported down from the Watchtower insisting on doing it himself. Signal’s initial scans of the cavern beneath the lighthouse showed a configuration too dangerous for the Anti-Terrorism bomb specialists to handle.

Once the first mine was neutralized, it had activated four perimeter mines along the upper walkway as well as two others at different points in the cavern. The proximity sensors were next generation in contrast to what they had seen so far. The devices were so sensitive to the slightest vibration, it prevented the use of the Flashes or Supers and their enhanced speed. There were at least four different systems of laser sensors and grids that kept their fliers on the ground. And for every mine defused, at least one more activated elsewhere and rewrote the order which they needed to be disarmed.

Niko had obviously been prepared for the Justice League.

Every ounce of Batman’s years of training was needed to keep himself from acknowledging the dread and terror that was hiding in the recesses of his mind when he dropped down the short elevator shaft. The sheer amount of explosive material in the cavern was frightening, especially knowing not one but three of his sons were within the blast range.

“Wally, STOP!” Red Robin barked, and Batman saw the second Flash instantly freeze down on the cavern floor. “Shit! Vic, are you seeing this?”

The two technical geniuses were standing at the railing overlooking the cavern, a holographic overlay of the area depicting the bombs, wires, invisible lights, and sensors, displayed via a projector on Cyborg’s shoulder. Victor Stone grumbled and turned to a second projection that showed computer code scrolling past quickly.

“Damn it! Signal, a new grid weaved itself three feet in front of Flash. I couldn’t stop it.”

“I see it.” Bruce’s newly adopted son was on the rocky floor below, though he hadn’t moved more than a few inches away from the cavern wall. After a brief second, criss-crossing thin green lights became visible where Cyborg had mentioned. “It’s the same as the rest. If I disrupt them they’ll set everything off.”

“All right, we keep going. Kon, the proximity sensor on the mine to your right just deactivated and started the countdown.” Cyborg told Superman’s clone. “You’ve got forty-three seconds to remove the cover and place my scan-chip. Carefully, please.”

“No pressure.” Kon-El muttered where he stood next to an open crate beneath the ominously full fuel tank.

“Oh my god,” Montoya breathed as Superman settled her within the framework of the elevator.

“Superman.” Red Robin spoke authoritatively through clenched teeth. “We’re going to need another speedster. Barry or Kara maybe. Someone who can move their hands quickly when needed and stop in less than a heartbeat.”

“Let me do it.” Kal-El said, moving past the woman and Batman toward the break in the railing.

“I’ll let the GCPD know and have Wonder Woman take point up top.” Kyle Rayner, the Lantern that had been flying messages back and forth, said as he lit up with the familiar green glow. He lifted off the ground and back out the tunnel.

“Got it.” The older Superboy called, raised both hands out of the crate and otherwise remained motionless.

“My turn,” Cyborg muttered, staring at the new code coming at him faster than Batman could process. A few seconds later, a blink of red lit up on the cavern wall along the walkway of the upper level, only a handful of feet away from Batman, lit up.

“Finally! Guys, that got us the second one up here. Proximity sensor is deactivated.” Red Robin called to the team below even as he handed a handful of tiny computer chips to Superman as he passed the head of the JLA. With unsurprisingly steady hands, Batman’s third son made quick work of the mine and the light flickered out.

“No new perimeter mine this time, Red.” Cyborg said when Tim moved back to his original spot. “Still got three bombs down there.” Cyborg swiped at the hologram screen. “Superman, I need you to drop down next to Signal. Signal, guide him through the webs to the mine on the fuel valve to the right.”

Batman watched from where he stood as the Man of Steel followed the directions. Once the man was gone, Bruce walked the few yards along the walkway now that the second bomb was deactivated. Montoya was right behind him and her shocked gasp told him when she could see around the large secondary tank in the corner. When she could see to the opposite side of the cavern where his oldest son had yet to move.

Dick was less than thirty feet from them.

Rotted wood and stone walls kept Bruce from seeing the entirety of the cage imprisoning Dick, but what they could see was worryingly enough. Dick’s back was pressed up against the bars of the cage door, arms pulled through the gaps between, and cuffed together with an explosive device like all the other hostages. His head had slumped toward his chest, the restraints on his arms likely the only thing keeping him semi-upright.

But even at this distance they could see the blood that had pooled around him, seeped through the bars and stained the wood floor.

It was agonizing, being so close and yet feeling as if there was a thousand miles between him and his dying injured son. The remaining two perimeter mines along the walkway kept them from getting any closer. The soil and rocks of the walls made it difficult for Superman to get a good look inside Dick’s prison, and the wires he had seen wrapped around the bars kept them from using the Martians’ phasing ability to get close to the unconscious man.

“What did they do to him?” The woman uttered beneath her breath, so as not to interrupt the two directing and guiding the rescuers below. “Is he alive?”

“For now,” Bruce answered her lowly, motioning toward the raised platform next to the central fuel tank to draw her attention to the fresh blood staining the aged wood. The woman hissed several curses in Spanish and he agreed with every one of them. “According to Superman, Dick’s been shot. The bullet is lodged inside the abdominal cavity and he is bleeding internally. If we can’t get to him soon…”

“What’s the estimate timeline on disarming enough of these mines that you can reach him.”

“Too long.” He snarled and clenched his fists impotently at his sides. “This, here, was Niko’s endgame. The bombs throughout the city were a distraction. To keep the GCPD and even us occupied while he swept undetected and took what he wanted.”

“Including Dick and everything he knows about organized crime in the state.” Montoya spat. “But with the amount of people Niko’s killed, he’s already changed everything in Gotham and it’ll trickle out into the other cities soon enough.”

“It’s not a distraction. It’s a test.” Another woman’s voice added sternly, causing the pair to turn and face the newcomer. Green Lantern stood behind Amy Rohrbach, the Blüdhaven Commander scowling as she stood next to Detective Montoya.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Batman snapped at Dick’s former partner and Captain.

“Sorry Batman,” Rayner said with absolutely no remorse in his words and a smirk on his face. “The Commander insisted and I’ve heard enough of Dick’s stories to know not to say no to her.”

“Amy.” Montoya greeted the woman with familiarity. “What did you mean by a ‘test’?”

“Renee.” Rohrbach returned, ignoring Batman, and let her gaze zero in on Dick. “Blüdhaven is now off limits for Niko and the Yakuza because of Dick, me, and the taskforce last year. Gotham’s got the same, if not worse, level of corruption and is the next best location to start rebuilding their criminal enterprises. But with the Bats and their connection to the Justice League–”

“Niko needed to know how far he could push before we pushed back.” Batman practically hissed. “The hostages, bombs, theatrics–”

“Acting like one of our over-the-top melodramatic Rogues would overshadow any future action Niko makes in Gotham.” Montoya said with a shake of her head. “This is Penguin or Two-Face level of play. Next time, we’d expect him to act bigger, to outdo himself. You Bats wouldn’t care about the smaller moves he’d make, leaving them to the GCPD.  But the Gang and Narcotic division would accredit anything he did to one of the other factions because it wasn’t theatrical enough.”

“He’ll take over everything.” Batman snarled. “All this, killing Dick, it’s his opening gambit.”

“Not on my watch.” Rohrbach took a step forward, stopping beside Batman. “Steady hands, boys.” She called out and a second later her voice echoed across the cavern. “YOU’RE LATE, ROOKIE!”

For a moment, nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

…

 Nothing happened.

Beside him, Rohrbach took a shaky breath and visibly deflated. Gone was the confident, strong police commander as she was replaced by a woman desperately worried for her friend. “It always works in the movies.”

He couldn’t blame her for trying. He had considered it himself, only he knew the reality was far less kind than anything shown on film. With injuries as extensive and life threatening as Superman had told him, nothing short of a miracle would wake his son.

And with every second that passed by, Bruce began to wonder if this was when his family ran out of miracles.

The minutes ticked by in agonizing slowness and yet far too fast. For every step forward the team disarming the bombs made it seemed like they were pushed back two. Superman disarmed his bomb after fifteen minutes, two more on opposite sides of the cavern armed.  The midnight deadline was drawing ever closer and he was kept away from his son.

It was the Murder Machine all over again.

Except this was so much worse.

And all because of his own grotesque words and actions.

He hadn’t spoken to his son in years. Hadn’t touched him in anything but anger even longer. At least on the fallen Watchtower Dick had been conscious. Bruce had been able to speak to Dick, to touch him and try to comfort him. Only for Luthor to…

How would he face his family, his children, his friends?

How was he supposed to watch, impotent and powerless to stop it, as his son died in front of him a second time?

On the cavern floor below, Clark and Conner suddenly froze and snapped their heads toward the caged man.

…no.

“Nobody move!” Superman barked, his voice hard and more serious than Bruce could remember hearing in a long time. “Kara, Jon, I need you here now. Cyborg, how long do we have between detonation and the explosion?”

No.

The wind of the arrival of Superboy and Supergirl buffeted against Batman’s back, ruffling the women’s hair beside him.

Victor scowled.  “Why–”

“How long?!” Superman’s bellow wavered noticeably.

He was scared.

No!

“Zero point zero eight two seconds.”

“Superman.” Bruce’s voice was steady but his heart was pounding so hard inside his chest he didn’t think anyone needed enhanced senses to hear it.

“Everyone out. Now. Flash, you’re with me.”

“Kal-El.” He demanded, breath like ice in his lungs when those on the cavern floor followed the leader of the Justice League without question and carefully made their way toward the upper walkway.

“Kyle, tell Tempest to get clear. Then you’ve got sixty seconds to have Chief Sawyer move everyone as far back as they can. You and the other Lanterns need to strengthen that wall with everything you have.”

“Kon?” Tim’s voice broke as his best friend pulled Signal up with him, grabbing both of Bruce’s sons around their waists. The three were gone a second later.

Kara took careful hold of the two officers next to Batman and likewise vanished.

“Clark!” Bruce bellowed when Jon was suddenly next to him, already holding on to Cyborg in the other arm.

Clark glanced up at him unable to mask his fear. “He’s not breathing.”

“You have broken his heart for the last time, Master Wayne.”

“Wally, as soon as I move, get as many of those mines as far out over the water as you can before they explode.”

Bruce couldn’t do it again.

“Clark, please…”

“Jon. Go.”

Between one blink and the next, Batman was suddenly out of the cavern and on the roof of a building two blocks away from the lighthouse. He stood with the others, watching helplessly as the green light of the barrier darkened while the Lanterns hovered directly in front of it.

Tim’s hands tightened painfully around Bruce’s arm.  “Dad…?”

The explosion shook the city.

Chapter Text

You came back to find I was gone

And that place is empty, like the hole that was left in me

Like we were nothing at all

It’s not what you meant to me, I thought we were meant to be

Oh, there isn’t one thing left to say

I’m sorry it’s too late

 

 

Let Me Go – (Avril Lavigne & Chad Kroeger)

Jason had been less than a block from Gotham City General, passing the hospital on his way toward the lighthouse, when the explosion rocked the city. The gout of fire and flame into the night sky nearly had him crashing his bike. He’d let the machine topple carelessly to its side as he grappled without thought to the top of the nearest building. He could only stare at the inferno barely held back by the will of the Lanterns.

It was too soon.

There was still more than an hour to the midnight deadline.

It shouldn’t have gone off.

Not unless…

For a few horrifying, gut wrenching seconds, his heart was ripped from his chest as the grief he had felt six years ago surged to the surface a thousand times worse.

Worse, because Jason had wasted five fucking years being a goddamn asshole.

Worse, because he had lost the chance to fix things with the other man.

Worse, because Dick was gone and it wasn’t fake this time.

Then he saw the streak of red through the sky above him and turned around just in time to see Superman land outside the emergency entrance and run inside. Jason was already on the move before he realized it, dropping to the sidewalk below and sprinting for the hospital. The automatic glass doors opened to absolute chaos that came with the sudden appearance of the head of the JLA.

But it was the nurse that was kneeling on a gurney, arms clasped together and pumping hard on the chest of the man laying there, that had Red Hood freezing where he stood.

Dick’s blackened and bloodied face could only be seen for an instant as a second nurse rapidly pulled out the curved blade he’d used to position the breathing tube down Dick’s throat. Then it was obstructed by an AMBU bag being clipped into place. Multiple voices were calling out stats and orders and in the back of his mind he could hear Superman giving a rundown of Dick’s condition to the Doctors.

Three minutes since he’d stopped breathing… ninety seconds since his heart stopped… gun shot wound to the abdomen… extensive internal hemorrhaging… multiple broken bones… lacerations and contusions… first and second-degree burns… potential blast-induced brain trauma…

Nausea churned bile at the back of his throat and only the Man of Steel’s hand suddenly on his arm kept him from tearing his helmet off and vomiting into the nearest garbage can. The grip kept him steady as the gurney carrying the man was whisked away when all Jason wanted was to run after it. He knew he was in shock but allowed the other hero to steer him back outside. A moment later they were on the roof across the street and Superman’s voice was cutting through the speaker inside his helmet.

“Superman to all points: Detective Grayson – Dick has been taken to Gotham General in critical condition.”

Jason supposed it was only years of experience, of taking command and watching as friends and loved ones were injured or killed, that allowed Clark to sound as calm as he did. But there was no hiding the terrified worry on the face of the man beside him at that moment. Superman’s abilities allowed him to see what was happening inside the hospital, a blessing, and a curse, and for him to wear that expression was all Jason needed to know just how bad it was.

Neither man moved from the ledge of the roof, neither spoke. Their silent vigil was interrupted not long after when Dinah’s steady voice in their comms announced that the final bombs had been disarmed and all hostages recovered without injury.

They were still standing there thirty minutes later when a light-coloured sedan screeched to a stop outside the emergency doors. Jason could see Montoya in the driver’s seat and a civilian-dressed Kate bolting out of the passenger side door before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. Jason had been surprised to see Bruce’s cousin as he’d been expecting the man himself.

Pushing aside the implications, Jason had Superman take him down to the street, hidden in an alley away from any cameras or prying eyes. It was moments like this that he was grateful his armor was not as conspicuous as the others. Jason stripped of his jacket, weapons, helmet, and mask. Dressed in cargo pants and a plain black t-shirt, Jason left everything with the other man and was running for the entrance just as Montoya was coming back from parking the car. The two shared a brief look before going inside. They found Kate quickly enough where she was talking with a nurse at the counter.

“They’re prepping him for surgery.” She told them when they stood in a private waiting room a moment later. Her voice trembled and she leaned into her girlfriend when Montoya put an arm around her waist.

“It means he’s alive.” The detective assured the other woman. “Dick’s healthy, strong, a fighter. He’ll come through this, Katie, you know he will.”

The red head just nodded, but Jason could feel the doubt sinking its claws into his chest.

They didn’t know.

They hadn’t seen the look of utter devastation on Superman’s face. They hadn’t seen Dick laying bloodied and unmoving on the gurney as it was being wheeled away.

Not breathing, no heartbeat.

They hadn’t seen…

The image seared in his memory brought the nausea rolling back in and he pushed it down with slow, measured breaths.

Dick had been dead when he’d been brought in.

“I went to your funeral! I went to your damn funeral!”⁽¹⁾

He’d already buried Dick once.

He’d gathered around the open grave surrounded by literal hundreds of mourners. He’d listened to them weep, some breaking beneath the weight of their grief. He’d watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground and even been among those that tossed a handful of dirt atop it. He’d stood around the bonfire that had been built with all Dick’s earthly possessions that had not been buried with him and, as per Romani tradition, witnessed as the last remnants of Dick Grayson were reduced to nothing but ash.

Except it hadn’t been real.

Dick hadn’t died.

Jason grieved for him, more than he had thought he would. Alone, in the privacy of one of his safehouses he had cried; sobbed from the hurt and pain of the loss. Seeing Dick almost a year later on that roof, realizing that he’d been lied to, that his anguish had been for nothing, had twisted into anger and offense and hatred. He shut away everything he had ever felt about Dick Fucking Grayson and punched the other man hard enough to send him crashing to the ground.

A punch that would be the first of many.

For five fucking years, Dick had just accepted the abuse Jason had heaped onto him. The hits, the insults, the snide comments, ignoring him on patrol. Even when Dick finally had enough and left, it didn’t stop. There were nights bitching with Red Robin about how it was all Nightwing’s fault when things went wrong because he had quit. Hours commiserating with Roy and Kory the many flaws and wrong doings of the former Boy Wonder.

Jason had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince the world that he hated Dick Fucking Grayson.

And himself.

Except the reality was anything but.

He missed the friendship they had before Spyral. Before the Syndicate. The nights patrolling together, hanging with Roy, impromptu movie nights at Dick’s place in Blüdhaven with the others when the Gotham nights were quiet. The way the older man would open his door for Jason and just… know how close the Green was to the surface. The way he would hold Jason when the pit had him shaking with rage and fury and bloodlust without a word. The way he would sing lullabies in a variety of languages against Jason’s ears when the Joker’s laugh was just a little too loud in his mind.

He missed his friend.

Fuck it all, Jason missed his brother!

But everything inside Jason was screaming at him that it was too late.

Because Dick had been dead when Superman carried him into the hospital.

He was going to have to bury his brother for a second time.

This time for real.

Lost in the downward spiral of his thoughts, he hadn’t realized they were not alone until a hand slipped in to his. Cassandra curled up in the chair beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder without a word. That she was here, when last he knew she was in Tokyo, was worrying. It meant she’d bypassed civilian travel and used League resources to cross half the world in an instant. Her usual comforting presence only served to amplify his fear and worry.

Because it meant that someone thought it prudent to summon Dick’s family, estranged as they may be, home.

Her sudden appearance at his side had him realizing that several hours had passed since he’d entered the hospital. The windows were grey and wet with the rain that had started falling, but lighter than they had been as morning approached. It would explain why he felt as cramped and stiff as he did, and why there were so many people now filling the private room.

Garth, Donna, and Kyle were there with Wally settled protectively in the middle of them. The speedster was paler than Jason could remember seeing him, the energy bar in his hand untouched as he stared unseeing at a spot on the floor. Dick’s former partner with the BPD was next to Montoya and Kate, a stack of empty paper coffee cups set on the floor between them as the women talked with Alfred. Stephanie, Duke, Damian, Conner, and Jon were sitting not far from Jason, their whispered conversation going unheard by the last of their group. If the expression of guilt and grief was anything to go by, Tim was lost himself in the same spiral of regret Jason had been. Diana, Barry, Clark, and Lois were sitting and talking lowly in the chairs provided while Bruce sat unwavering with his arms on his knees as he looked at the watch on his wrist.

When the automatic glass doors opened nearly an hour later, it was like a jolt of electricity swept through the room. Nearly every head snapped up at the newcomers, only the Supers not disappointed when Oliver, Roy and Kory joined them. The three carried several carafes of coffee, bottles of juices, and bags of pastries between them. Barry and Clark rose to help them, setting up the food and drinks on the small table at the back of the room.

While several others got up to take advantage of the offering, Jason glanced up at the clock on the wall. He’d been awake for more than twenty-four hours, ever since he got the notification of bombs and hostages and his brother taken. He was exhausted, but it was nothing compared to the dread when he realized it had been almost nine hours since Dick had been wheeled away from him.

Nine hours with no news.

The paper cup of coffee that was suddenly held in front of his face did little to ease the queasiness, but he accepted it as Kory lowered herself into the chair on Jason’s other side. He sipped at it out of obligation, barely tasting it before offering it to Cass. His sister took the cup, kissed his cheek, and allowed Roy to take her place while she went to join Stephanie.

“Hey,” The archer said quietly in greeting. “You okay?”

In lieu of answering, Jason asked a question of his own. “Who’s got Lian?”

“Dinah.” Roy explained. “They’re picking up Selina from the airport then coming straight back here.”

“You really want Lian here for this?” Jason pointedly looked around at the near two-dozen heroes waiting.

“No.” The father admitted with a sigh. “But she insisted that her Uncle Dickie would want her here for cuddles when the doctors were finished fixing making him better. After that I couldn’t leave her with the others gathering in the Belfry.

The Belfry?

He knew a lot of heroes had answered the call to help Gotham when Superman took point with the GCPD and had thought they’d gone back to their cities once the crisis had passed. He hadn’t realized that they’d be sticking around waiting as much as everyone at the hospital was.

“Is there any word?” Kory asked warily. “No one has said how badly Dick was hurt.”

The lump in his throat made it hard to swallow and he rubbed his hand across the stubble around his mouth. “His heart wasn’t beating.” The words were barely a whisper, but he knew his friends had heard him by the way they stiffened next to him.

Across the room, Conner, and Jon both flinched but only shook their heads when those around them enquired as to why.

Nine hours.

Jason felt someone’s gaze on him and lifted his head to see Clark watching him. His eyes still held the same worry and grief as they had on the roof. The man was supposed to be a symbol of hope but, given the man was wearing those same emotions nine hours later, Jason only felt alarm settle low in his gut.

Nine hours and counting.

He wanted to get up and leave. To go out and hunt down the bastard that put Dick in that operating room for nine fucking hours. To beat the son of a bitch to a bloody pulp a thousand times over for every hurt he inflicted on Jason’s brother. To switch his guns to live rounds for the first time in years and put a bullet through the head of the man taking away Jason’s chance to beg for Dick’s forgiveness.

Because if he thought it would work, he would.

He would beg.

Jason would crawl on his hands and knees before God – before any of the gods – and beg for his brother’s life. He would beg and bargain and plead, if only Dick would survive the latest in a long line of atrocities committed against him.

Dinah arrived as they passed into the tenth hour, Selina moving straight for Bruce while Lian hurried to Roy’s open arms. The eight-year-old hugged him tightly for only a moment before she was climbing into Jason’s lap and wrapping her spindly arms around his neck. The little girl was as good at reading him as Dick was and always knew when he needed the comfort of a kind hand.

“It’s gonna be okay, Uncle Jay.” She whispered in his ear.

Returning the embrace, Jason shifted her to sit more comfortably on his knees as she started a conversation with Kory that seemed to be a continuation of one they’d had before. Roy got up and grabbed a bottle of juice for his daughter, a soft smile of adoration on the father’s lips as her innocent voice carried through the room as only a child’s could.

It was amazing how much the cloud of growing despair, hovering around those waiting for news, all but vanished with just Lian’s presence. The light laugh at her own jokes, the radiant smile she wore, the boundless hope and absolute conviction that everything was going to turn out for the best.

In that, she was just like her Uncle Dickie.

Jason was surprised that everyone was still there when the door finally slid open again as the clock ticked toward the thirteenth hour of their vigil. The doctor that stood there seemed just as shocked before looking at the tablet in his hand. “You’re all here for Richard Grayson?”

Bruce was on his feet in an instant. “I’m his father.”

The man pursed his lips, obviously recognizing Gotham’s crowned prince, but confused by whatever he was seeing on the device. “I have his next of kin and medical proxy as Katherine Kane.”

Oh.

“I’m Kate Kane.” The redhead rose from her chair without a glance at her cousin when he slumped back into his seat. Her hand held tight by Montoya, the couple approached the man.

“I’m Doctor Charles Bethune, head of the trauma team in charge of Detective Grayson’s care. May I speak freely here?”

“Can we go somewhere more private for now?” Kate ignored the dozens of eyes that watched her with varying degrees of hurt.

“Of course,” The doctor nodded and motioned to the door behind him. “If you’ll follow me, please?”

Jason was unsurprised when she didn’t let go of her girlfriend’s hand, nor when she called for Alfred to accompany them. The trio followed the physician out of the room, leaving those left behind to wait more.

“What are they saying?” Bruce demanded from Clark with a snarl.

Lois scowled at the man while her husband shook his head. “I’m not listening in, and before you ask I already told Conner and Jon not to either. We’re not going to invade Dick’s privacy like that.”

“We just want to know what’s happening.” Tim said with a borderline whine. “He’s our family–”

“Haven’t really been much of one the last five years, have you Drake?” Wally snapped at the younger hero. “When was the last time you even spoke to Dick?”

“I’m his father.” Bruce reiterated. “I have a right–” 

“No, you don’t.” Oliver interrupted with gentle understanding, the older archer flicking his gaze to the man sitting next to Jason. “A piece of paper doesn’t give you carte blanche over the lives of your kids, Bruce. It doesn’t make you Dick’s family other than in a legal sense. Especially after the way you all have been treating him since he came back.”

With that loaded statement, the silence that fell around them was tense and uncomfortable. It only served to prove that, despite Dick’s efforts when he left the community five years ago, there was a clear divide between most of Gotham’s vigilantes and the rest of the world’s heroes. Nightwing may have not wanted anyone to choose sides in their family conflict, but they had been anyway. And really, Jason wouldn’t have expected anything less.

Even five years after retiring the mask, Nightwing was still spoken of with respect and admiration.

The minutes ticked by. Five. Then ten. Nearly thirty minutes dragged on tortuously before the door slid open and the three returned.

The pit in Jason’s stomach opened into a chasm of panic at the expressions on their faces. All of them were gutted, eyes puffy and red, and practically clinging to one another. No one said anything for a moment, many that had been standing quickly finding a seat as the anticipation of what they were about to be told took the strength from them.

Montoya was the first to move, squeezing Kate’s hand before walking over to Jason’s little group and offering her hand to Lian. “Sweetheart, would you like to come for a walk with me?”

The little girl looked scared as she turned to her father. “Daddy?”

Roy had gone pale and nodded, running a hand over her dark hair as if comforting himself as much as her. “Just for a little while, all right baby girl?”

“But…” Her whispered protest was quieted with a purse of her lips and with great reluctance she allowed the detective to take her out of the room.

“Renee’s going to let her know the general situation; she doesn’t need the details.” Kate told Roy after the little girl was gone.

“What are the details?” Diana asked for the group.

The woman took a shaky breath before speaking. “The bullet had bounced around and broke into pieces inside him. It did a lot of damage and it took them time to find all the pieces. He’s lost a lot of blood and, even with transfusions, his heart… They’ve had to bring him back three times since they began. The last time took almost twelve minutes. They still haven’t found all the bleeds, but they’ve had to pause the surgery while they fight to keep him stable enough to continue.”

“Dear god…”

Jason didn’t know whose choked whisper that was, but it echoed the desperate prayer he was silently screaming into the cosmos for anyone to hear.

Don’t let him die…. Don’t let him die…. Don’t let him die…

“They needed my signature authorizing the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to take the strain from his heart and lungs because it–” She stopped, her voice cracking and she shook her head when Alfred placed a hand on her shoulder.

“When Richard joined the GCPD,” Alfred took up the debrief with his typical stoicism, but Jason could hear the barely contained emotion bleeding through the edges of his grandfather’s words. “He signed a DNR order. The use of the ECMO machine activates one of the conditions for the directive to come into effect.”

“But ECMO uses blood thinners.” Stephanie said thickly. They may all have some medical training, but she was a second-year med student. She would know more and by the expression on her face what she knew as not a good thing. “If they haven’t found all the bleeds, he’ll just bleed out faster than he already was.”

Kate nodded and cleared her throat. “The doctor asked for any of us that can to donate blood, especially those of us that are a match for Dick.”

“I’ve done it for him before.” Kyle volunteered. “I’ll donate.”

“So can I.” Damian whispered, the teen not bothering to mask the worry for their brother. “Richard and I are both B positive.”

Jason had always found it an ironically fitting blood group for someone like Dick. Except for in these cases when Jason’s A negative would be of no use.

“Me too.” Lois said quietly.

“What are the terms of the DNR.” Bruce interrupted, bringing the reality of what they were facing slamming back home.

“ECMO treatment will keep him alive long enough to close off the bleeds they know about and any new ones they find, so long as they have the blood supply to do it.” Kate continued. “It’s seen as a life saving measure of last resort. The longer he’s on it, and given the preexisting damage to his heart muscles–”

“Wait, what?” Jason barked, his terrified shock mirrored by nearly every face there. Only Dinah, Kate, Alfred, Bruce, and Selina were not surprised by the revelation.

“What do you mean by preexisting heart damage?” Donna demanded.

Kate’s eyes fell onto Bruce, who Jason was stunned to see look away in guilt. “Six years ago, Dick’s heart stopped for several minutes and restarted with a direct shot of adrenaline.”

“Twice.” Selina whispered with a tear on her cheek. “His heart stopped twice. Bruce and I performed CPR for four minutes to bring him back the second time.”

“The Syndicate.” Barry shook his head, looking as nauseous as Jason felt.

“Richard doesn’t know that.” Alfred said with a glare – a full on ‘Alfred-is-pissed’ kind of glare, something never seen outside the Cave – levelled at the man he had raised. “Excuse me, I need to inform the Doctors.” The man turned on his heal and stalked out of the room.

“It was real?” Tim sounded shattered and looked it when Jason glanced at his younger brother. “We– you let us believe it was faked. That – that he hadn’t been hurt that badly by the psychopaths that held him captive for days. That he’d gone off to Spyral right after but – but his heart stopped, Bruce. His heart – goddamn it, it would have taken him months to fully recover from cardiac arrest!”

“Bruce.” Dinah prompted when the man remained silent after the unspoken accusation.

Jason watched his father struggle, something Bruce never would have allowed prior to three years ago. Not before a head injury, a diagnosis, a reason. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the words the man spoke.

“After Dick was recovered from the Syndicate, I placed him into an induced coma in one of the storage rooms in the cave for eight days. I used Lexcor nanotech to heal the injuries he’d sustained during his time as the Syndicates prisoner. I sent him to infiltrate Spyral the day I woke him.”

Eight days.

They’d had the funeral five days after they’d stopped the Syndicate.

Dick had been alive and in the cave while they’d held his fucking funeral.

“You used Luthor’s tech?” Selina hissed through her teeth and dropped the man’s hand as if it burned her to touch him. “After that son of a bitch killed him?!”

The outcry of shouts was almost deafening and was only silenced by a sharp, shrill whistle.

“Shut up, all of you!” Kate stood before them with furious tears clinging to her lashes. “You can tear into Bruce later if Dick survives!”

The group dropped into distress filled silence at the woman’s shout.

“Was he getting treatment?” Stephanie asked after everyone had settled. “For the previous cardiac arrest?”

Kate wiped viciously at her eyes with the heal of her palm and nodded. “He’s on a low dosage of beta blockers to keep his blood pressure down. There was already a risk of putting him under general anaesthetic, but with the blood loss and now the blood thinners needed for the ECMO, the risk of a fatal drop in blood pressure is significantly higher. ECMO will keep him alive for the time being, but once he’s taken off of it, now that the DNR is in effect, if his heart stops again before he wakes to rescind the order…”

Do not resuscitate.

The’ll let Jason’s brother die.

The woman standing in front of them all breathed deeply to steady herself before speaking again. “Go home. Doctor Bethune estimates at least another four hours of surgery to find and stop all the bleeding in Dick’s abdomen. If he makes it through the surgery, he’ll be placed in the ICU where, at that point, only a handful of people are approved to sit with him. Of everyone in this room, including myself, there are only three.”

“Kate–”

Jason had no idea what bullshit Bruce was going to start spewing, but Kate stopped him with a hard stare. “You taught him well. Every legal loophole you might have tried to exploit to manipulate a situation like this to disregard Dick’s directives has been closed. He’s made his wishes perfectly clear, Bruce. Go home. I’ll call you when they move to take him off the ECMO. Amy, Damian, do you want to go get some rest or come with me to the room they’re setting aside for Dick?”

“I’ll accompany you in a moment.” The youngest member of their family answered. “I would like to speak with my family privately before I donate blood for Richard’s care.”

She nodded. “Have a nurse bring you to the room when you’re done.”

After she and Dick’s former partner were gone, the rest of those gathered reluctantly trickled out of the room.

Roy was the first to leave. He clasped Jason on the shoulder, murmuring that he was going to find Lian and make sure she was okay then take her back to Jason’s apartment in the Bowery. Kory kissed him on the cheek and went with her fellow redhead, Oliver trailing after them but not before a silent exchange between him and his wife.

Kyle and Lois left together to find a nurse so they could donate blood. Diana departed after telling Bruce she would update those waiting in the Belfry then return to the Watchtower if he needed her. Garth and Donna helped Wally to his feet, the speedster unsteady and pale, and Barry accompanied his nephew. Clark, Conner, and Jon were the last to leave, Jason watching as the Supers gave their respective friends what comfort they could before they were gone.

“Father,” Damian spoke when there was only the nine of them left. The sixteen-year-old’s voice was firm, serious, and sounding far more mature than Jason had ever given him credit for. “I recognize that you are not the same man now as you were six years ago, so I would like to give you the opportunity for an explanation.”

Bruce looked at his children, his therapist, the closest thing to a significant other he had, and hesitated.

“Let me start it for you, Bruce.” Selina said cattily (god, Dick would have loved that unintended pun). “I was with you when we breached the fallen Watchtower with the intent of getting Dick back from those sons of bitches. I was there when we had to team up with Luthor and his Superman knockoff out of necessity. I was standing next to you when we found Dick; hurt, barely conscious, and strapped to a fucking bomb. A bomb that trapped us as soon as we walked into that goddamn room and activated a countdown. A bomb that was tied to Dick’s heartbeat and would only disarm when his heart stopped.”

“Holy fuck, B.” Jason’s heart plummeted as Selina’s earlier words played in his mind. He leaned forward to bury his face in his hands. “You let Lex fucking Luthor kill your kid?!”

“I didn’t let him do anything!” Bruce snapped furiously. “I tried to find another way to disarm it, I tried to stop him, I fought Bizarro. I would have done anything I could have to save him, but–”

“Everything before the word ‘but’ is horseshit!⁽²⁾” Stephanie snarled.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Tim demanded brokenly. “Why let us believe it was all a lie?”

Bruce pressed his fingers against his eyes. “You didn’t need to know.”

“Bruce,” Dinah reprimanded him in the gentle voice of all therapists. “You’ve kept this from them long enough. They deserve to know, especially since they nearly lost Dick yesterday and there’s a very real chance that they still might. If they have to say goodbye today, they should do it with a full understanding of what happened. Tell them the truth. All of it.”

The patriarch of their hodgepodge family sighed and nodded. “I tried. I swear, I tried again and again to disarm the bomb but it continued to reprogram itself, bypassing and rerouting around every relay I disabled. We were running out of time and Luthor… He had Bizarro attacked both Selina and me, kept us from stopping him. Luthor suffocated him. He held his hand over Dick’s mouth and nose and had the audacity to look Dick in the eyes while apologizing for killing him.”

The horror of that memory was etched on Bruce’s face.

Jason’s death at the hands of the Joker may have broken Batman, but Bruce hadn’t been there to witness it firsthand. The man had arrived too late, only to find what was left of Jason’s body, and put the Joker in a full body cast for six months because of it. If Dick was to be believed, Batman only stopped short of actually killing Joker because Superman stopped him.

Jason could only imagine what it did to the same man to have watched his son murdered right in front of him.

It was a miracle Luthor made it out of that room alive.

“The exact details don’t matter right now, but I will open my files for you all if you want to know what happened.” Bruce said wearily. “The short story is, Luthor claimed to have forced Dick to swallow a concentrated cardioplegia, causing a failure of the electrical system of Dick’s heart, and induced cardiac arrest. He brought him back with a shot of adrenaline through the chest into the heart tissue. We couldn’t leave right away, Cyborg needed my help freeing the League from Firestorm, and while we were distracted Owlman attempted to take Dick again. Though Dick was able to fight him, his heart wasn’t strong enough so soon after being brought back. It stopped a second time before we got him out of the Watchtower, though that time he remained unconscious until I got him back to Gotham.”

“You said you kept him unconscious for days after. Why?” Cassandra asked with a tilt of her head.

“We were alone in the cave, Alfred and all of you having left the city when the Syndicate took control.” Bruce explained. “I was watching Dick sleep, going through which of the contingencies we had for if his identity was ever revealed, when I recognized the opportunity I was being given.”

“To get him into Spyral.” Tim clarified and Bruce nodded.

“Nightwing was a pivotal member of the hero community. He’d served on nearly every team, personally formed several of them, and was on friendly terms with practically everyone who has donned a mask in the past twenty years.” Bruce’s pride was palpable.

Not that Jason could blame him. Neither Batman nor Superman had the connections to the Heroes around the world that his brother had before Dick had hung up the mask. Though recent events only served to prove that the man still had many friends among the community.

“With Dick Grayson’s identity exposed, Spyral was going to come after him sooner rather than later.” The man continued. “If they thought of him as just a target, they would have taken him at the first opportunity and we never would have found him before they extracted the information from his head.”

“So, the two of you conspired to put him in front of a super secret global intelligence organization on a platter as a potential asset.” Stephanie said.

“No.” Bruce corrected her to the surprise of all but Dinah. “No, Dick had no part in it. To have him infiltrate Spyral as one of their operatives was my plan and mine alone. Dick had no idea and when I laid it out for him he refused.”

Oh, it just kept getting better and better.

“Richard refused you.” Damian reiterated, the fury rolling off the teen in waves. “Then why did he go?”

“After the funeral for Dick Grayson, after everyone had left the manor again,” Bruce admitted with shame bleeding into his voice. “I sealed the cave and shut off the cameras.”

Tim hissed through his teeth and Jason felt unease dancing down his spine.

“I brought Dick out of the induced coma and told him it was a test.” Bruce looked over at Jason for the first time since he began talking. “Do you remember the number one rule from when you first took on Robin’s mantel, before Nightwing started to help with your training?”

Now it was Jason’s turn to hiss through his teeth. “Robin fights where and how Batman tells him to.”

“And in the beginning, if you ever made a mistake and got hurt on patrol, what did we do after?”

Hazy memories faded by time and a curtain of Green had his stomach curdling. “Tell me you didn’t, you fucking goddamned sonuvabitch.”

“I’d test you.” Bruce answered for him with obvious guilt. “We would face off on the training mats and we’d spar. During the fight, I’d lay out everything you did wrong that led to the injury and then we’d keep going until you proved to me you were better.”

“You never trained with me like that when I became Robin.” Tim scowled.

“Or me.” Stephanie agreed.

“He stopped doing it after Nightwing settled in Blüdhaven and took on part of my training.” Jason growled, practically throwing himself out of his seat and stalking around the room, otherwise he would throw a punch in the assholes face.

“That’s because Richard would never have allowed it in the first place, had he known.” Damian spat venomously at his father. “It was how I was trained before coming to Gotham. It is the favoured training method used by my Grandfather’s League of Shadows. Richard vehemently refused to continue the practice when I was his Robin as, more often than not, initiates would wind up dead by their teacher’s blade for the slightest perceived failure.”

“I trained with Ra’s and the League for years before I became Batman, and it was the only way I knew how to train Dick when he set out to become Robin.” Bruce confessed, and that’s what it was.

A confession of the sins the man had committed against his oldest son.

“After eight days of waiting for him to heal, the relief of getting him back alive had shifted and I started to only see failures and mistakes. I had trained him to be stronger, better, to live. I placed the fault for his capture, torture, unmasking, even his own murder, solely at his feet because I’d had to watch him die. Once he was well enough, I woke him and told him he had to prove to me he wasn’t broken, that he still had the heart to make the necessary sacrifices for our mission. For the mission I was sending him on that was going to hurt his friends and family. That was going to hurt all of you. Through it all, he only ever defended himself. He never fought back once, not until I told him everyone thought him already dead and I needed him to stay dead.”

“Wait.” Duke spoke up for the first time, timid and hesitant but no less determined for answers. “Are you telling us that after he was kidnapped by an evil Justice League from another dimension, after he was tortured, turned into a bomb, murdered, trapped in a coma for eight days; after all that trauma, your son was still injured when you gaslighted and beat him until he did what you said?!”

“Yes.”

There wasn’t much more to say after that.

Chapter Text

Death is gonna come for me, be the change I couldn’t be

And you’ll find a life that’s like fairy tales

Far from this tragedy

Sad you had to wait for me, feels like an eternity

Please forgive me for my sins

Angels’ wings are lifting and setting me free

 

 

(Dark Aria (from Solo Leveling) – Hiroyuki Sawano)

Intellectually they knew that Bruce had been different back then. Six years ago, the brain damage from the years of head injuries would have had him behaving… well, like he had been. More Batman than Bruce, readily willing and capable to doing anything, to any of them, for any number of reasons.

They’d had this discussion after Bruce’s diagnosis, after Jason’s father started getting treatment and was better than he ever had been. A lot of his behaviour toward Jason, especially after Jason had come back alive and angry and tainted by the Green, was now underlaid by the thought that not all of it had been Bruce. That maybe, just maybe, the abuse had been a symptom of a larger issue. It couldn’t excuse all of it, nothing ever could, but it was enough of a bridge that Jason and Bruce’s relationship had started to heal.

He had forgiven his father, though he wouldn’t forget the man’s fists on his skin, the cutting words, the Batarang slicing across his neck.

But learning what the man had done to Dick, what he had allowed them to do to their brother, was bringing it all back. And now he couldn’t help but question if any of it really was a product of the CTE. Not it if had been happening to Dick since the very beginning.

Looking at events without the discoloured awe and idolization of youth, Jason could see just how abusive and toxic the relationship between Bruce and Dick had been. He could recognize how much Dick shielded him, shielded all of them, always redirecting Batman’s ire and Bruce’s disappointment toward himself. Jason couldn’t help but wonder just how many times Dick had ended up on those training mats being beat up by his father under the guise of ‘training’.

Jason found himself wandering the hospital aimlessly. He couldn’t stay in the room after Bruce’s admission, couldn’t stand to hear in what other ways the man had abused Jason’s older brother. Not that his own actions were any better. Even before the Syndicate and Dick’s fake – no, it wasn’t fake.

Holy fuck, it hadn’t been faked.

Dick had been clinically dead twice and – god, Jason had no idea what happened during his year deep undercover. What kind of things had he seen? What had he been forced to do? Who had he been forced to become to survive? What kind of hell had he gone through? No backup, no anchor after Bruce lost his memories, no lifelines if he needed extraction.

Teaming up with Agent 37 to go after Mother had shown Jason another side of his brother. And the weeks between then and the next time he saw Dick had changed him again. He was…

Jason came back from the dead angry and volatile and violent, aiming all that rage at Bruce and Dick and Tim and they had never deserved it. Dick had tried to protect him from the worst of Bruce, to teach him how to survive Batman, and Jason had repaid him with beatings and bullets. For a long time, Jason never hesitated to hurt Dick every chance he got. And Dick, in return, never hesitated to forgive him.

Dick came back when Spyral had finally released him from their claws. When the organization was no longer a threat and had, because of Dick Fucking Grayson, become somewhat of an ally. He hadn’t been any of the things Jason had been. Dick had been quiet, reserved, passive. He accepted their anger and abuse, their bullying. Never once did he attempt to correct their assumptions about what had happened and why he had taken on Batman’s damn assignment. Gone was the incomparable effervescent spirit of hope and unconditional love, replaced by a man that was…

Broken.

Fuck.

Dick had been broken and none of them…

None of them cared to see it.

No, that wasn’t right.

Alfred and Damian had always cared.

They were the ones that held Dick together. They stood by him when Dick could no longer take the shit the rest of them were burying him under.

It was no wonder that they were the only two allowed to be with him when it seemed like they were about to bury Dick for real.

Unable to stay, but unable to leave, Jason retreated like the Bat he was to the roof. High above the city, the afternoon air cool after the morning rain, he stood near the helipad with his face turned to the sky and tried to remember the prayer of healing his catholic mother had taught him.

Distracted, he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until someone cleared her throat.

Barbara sat on the roof in the shadow of the stairway entrance with a tablet resting on her knees. Her eyes were red and swollen, beads of moisture still clinging tenaciously to her lashes, and her nose was red as if she’d been wiping at it.

“I didn’t know you were here.” He admitted, sitting beside the older woman.

“I didn’t think I’d be welcomed.” The red head admitted, sniffing, and wiping the back of her hand over her eyes. “Alfred and I had a rather heated discussion after the JLA took over and we were alone in the Belfry. I may have said a few things that he took offense to and… honestly, he wasn’t wrong. But it’s going to be a very long time before I’m invited back to the manor for Sunday brunch.”

“I think it’s going to be a long time before any of us are back at the manor for Sunday brunch.” Jason sighed, then turned his head when a flicker of movement on the tablet caught his attention. He scowled when he saw the split screen, one side showing nearly a dozen people in surgical scrubs in an active surgical suite, the other a familiar waiting room and the few people that had remained after he left. “What the fuck, Babs?! Shut it down!”

“I know!” The woman sobbed anew, closing both windows with a touch. “I know I shouldn’t have, but–”

“There is no ‘but’ to that statement, Oracle.” He spat furiously and yanked the device away from her. There were still dozens of tabs and windows open and he quickly flicked through them. “What the absolute fuck?! I know you’ve got access to a lot of shit, but these are Bruce’s private files from the system in the Cave.”

“He said he was going to give us access–”

“To what happened with the Syndicate!” Jason snapped, unable to look away from some of the pictures and reports despite knowing he should. “Goddamn it. Goddamn it! This is fucking everything! Everything from the very beginning!”

“It changes everything we thought we knew, Jason.” The woman tried to reason. “Batman’s no better than the Rogues we fight! He’s worse because he’s playing at being a good man!”

“Shut up!” He snarled, as he read Bruce’s clinical synopsis of Dick’s reaction to learning about Jason and the mantel that had been given to the new boy. (It read as if Dick had been immature and irrational and had no right to be as angry as he was since it was ‘only a mother’s nickname’. It ended with a note that Batman would be ensuring Nightwing no longer had unrestricted access to the cave nor the manor so as not to ‘corrupt Robin’s training with undesirable outside influences, an oversight that will not be made a second time’. The report was dated only a few weeks after the new Robin started patrolling with Batman, but still almost a year before Jason remembered meeting his predecessor for the first time.)

“It’s all there, Jason.” She hissed, tears on her cheeks. “Everything Batman has kept hidden and secret about his relationship with Dick.”

“Goddamn it,” He muttered, swiping through the numerous images of Dick’s injuries over the years and the notations of their causes, paying closer attention to the ones only tagged with ‘training’.

“I don’t think Bruce has ever liked Dick.”

Jason froze at the statement. The rigid belief of her tone grated across his nerves and he shoved back the urge to slap her for it. “Dick’s his kid, Barbara. He may be an ass at the best of times, but Bruce loves him.”

The woman shook her head and motioned to the tablet in Jason’s hands. “There’s almost twenty years of Bruce’s thoughts and beliefs. Read the files from before Dick turned twelve and tell me you still believe Bruce ever loved him. Because I did and I don’t! Batman manipulated and orchestrated everything about their relationship. He documented and recorded the best ways he found to get Dick to fall in line. Which incentives got the best results from Robin in the field; the punishments that kept his more childish behaviour in check; how far physically he could push Dick in ‘training’ before Alfred interfered.”

“You’re taking it out of context.” He insisted, turning off the tablet screen and surging to his feet. “You’re reading debriefs and reports, looking at Batman and Robin as if that were all they ever were. I was there, I lived it, I saw Bruce and Dick not just Batman and Nightwing. Yeah, they may not have had the best father/son relationship–”

“He never wanted him as his son!” Barbara spat and followed him to her feet. “The day Dick left five years ago. I found the footage. Bruce told Dick, to his face, that he was never supposed to be Bruce’s son.”

“The CTE–”

“Might have factored into him verbalizing it, yes.” The woman agreed. “But I found Dick’s adoption records. Adult adoption records. Bruce Wayne adopted Richard Grayson only nine years ago; thirteen years after the death of Dick’s parents. You were adopted within six months of coming to the manor; Tim four months after his father was killed; Cassandra eight months, Duke two. There’s a notation in the file where Batman comments that had he taken legal action to tie Dick to the family sooner he may have never left Gotham. He only adopted Dick so he could control him.”

“You’re wrong.” Jason shook his head and started to walk away from her.

“How would you know?” She called after him harshly. “You were dead. You didn’t see Dick change, how he started behaving more like Bruce. Like Batman. The missions he took, the criminals he went after alone, the risks he took with his own life, sabotaging and ending relationships–”

“So that’s what this is about.” The disdainful laugh that escaped Jason surprised him and he turned to face her. “Dick is downstairs, probably dying, and you’re trying to blame anyone else for how you’ve treated him since you fucking dumped him.”

“He slept with another woman to keep her on his side!” Barbara hissed with a furious glare. “He cheated on me–”

“He didn’t cheat, you sanctimonious cunt, he was fucking raped!”

Jason’s roar held every ounce of dangerous Green rage he still carried from the night he had listened to Dick explain why Barbara had called off their engagement and left him.

“You took the word of that bitch at face value and left him on the floor after she had physically assaulted him. Then after the second worst night of his life, when he came to you wanting just an ounce of compassion and sympathy, you told him to leave and stay away. In a period of forty-eight hours, he lost everything and still went after the roided out psychopath hell bent on destroying his fucking life. He was slammed through a fucking wall and had the shit beat out of him before the bitch showed up to put a bullet through Blockbusters head right in front of him. She followed him up to the roof while he was in shock and having a goddamn panic attack and pinned him down. She ignored him when he told him ‘no, stop, don’t touch me’. She fucking raped him and left him lying naked in the rain.”

He stalked toward her, and in the back of his mind he was impressed that she didn’t falter when he stood toe to toe with her staring down at the fear in her eyes. “You call yourself Oracle, all knowing and smartest in the land. But what you know is shit. You spy and you stalk and you push your nose into things that are none of your fucking business. You read facts and report and interpret them to fit your narrative and fuck anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. You are and always have been an interloper. You may work with us, may wear a Bat on your chest, but you have never been family. Bruce Wayne loves his kids. He may be shit at showing it, and he’ll never win any parenting awards, but he’s our father and you can damn well believe we’ll stand beside him if you move against him. Because you, Babs, are nothing but the whore that used to fuck my brother.”

“Jason.” Even as Bruce Wayne the man had the uncanny ability to melt out of the shadows to the shock of those around him.

Jason didn’t even flinch, but Barbara blanched and stepped away from him when Bruce joined them.

Without a word, Bruce slipped the tablet from Jason’s hand and turned its screen back on. He bypassed Barbara’s lock screen with barely a thought and swiped through a few of the files still open. After a few seconds, the device was powered down completely and he placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“Commander Rohrbach came to find me.” The man said grimly. “Dick’s doctors want to speak with the family.”

The bottom dropped out beneath him and Jason staggered, Bruce right there to catch him.

“Bruce–” The woman began only to snap her mouth shut when Bruce turned to face her.

“I think it best you leave, Miss Gordon.” There was no fluctuation to his voice, no indication that he was speaking with anyone he thought of as more than an acquaintance. “There’s no reason for you to be here.”

“No reason,” She hissed. “Dick’s my–”

“Nothing; my son is nothing to you.” Bruce said sharply. “You ended your relationship a long time ago and have had nothing to do with him in several years. Go home.”

Jason let his father steer him toward the door to the stairs. As he held it open, Bruce stopped and didn’t even look back at her when he spoke again.

“Rest assured, Oracle,” Batman growled. “Your access to Wayne Enterprises servers world wide, as well as any and all of our private systems, will be revoked before you leave this roof. Your codes for the Cave and Belfry will be deleted. Measures will be taken to ensure you do not do anything you may later regret in retaliation.”

“You can’t do that!” The harpy shrieked. “How am I supposed to–”

“Right now, I don’t fucking care.” Bruce said and nudged Jason through the door. “Just stay the hell away from my family.”

The door clicked shut behind them.

Numb, heart racing inside his chest, it took two flights of stairs for Jason to find his voice. “Bruce…?”

“I don’t know.” The man admitted with a tremor to his words.

“Dick’s not going to–” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. “I fucked up, Dad. We all have. We have to – he can’t–”

He couldn’t breathe.

Bruce stopped them on a landing between floors and wrapped Jason in his arms. Jason desperately clung to his father, squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face against the man’s chest. The rush of blood surging through his veins roared in his ears, loud, too loud, drowning out the murmured words trying to calm him. Memories flashed through his mind, moments shared with his brother both good and bad, things he wished he’d said and so many things he wished he hadn’t. And now…

It took a few minutes for the panic to abate, until he could hear the heartbreak in his father’s voice as he whispered. “I’m sorry, Jason. I did this; I sent him away. I let you think how you – how we all treated him was okay. I never meant for any of this. I’m so deeply sorry.”

Bruce Wayne was babbling.

He never babbled.

Anxious, terrified, Jason stayed close to Bruce when they left the stairway and followed the signs wordlessly toward the ICU. Alfred was standing with Damian leaning against him, tucked beneath his arm, much as Jason leaned against their father. The boy’s face was pale from giving blood and blotchy with eyes that were far too red.

“Everyone is inside, Master Bruce.” The butler looked older than Jason had ever seen as he motioned them toward a solid door near the nurses’ station.

On the other side of the desk, visible through the fully glass walls, was a hive of activity in one of the rooms, nurses and orderlies moving in organized chaos around the machines and monitors surrounding the patient.

Inside the comfortable and tastefully decorated waiting room, the door clicked shut behind them, Jason’s stomach dropped as Bruce guided him to the empty seat on the sofa between Tim and Duke. Bruce hovered behind them, while Alfred escorted Damian to a second sofa where the pair sat next to Katie and Renee. Stephanie and Cassandra were in chairs around a small table with Selina between them and holding their hands, their seats all turned and facing the pair of men at the front of the room.

“Miss Kane has given her permission for all of you to be present.” Doctor Bethune said gently when they were all situated and looked at the man beside him.

“My name is Doctor Jackson Knowles.” The other man said. He was older, mid fifties, dressed casually in a pair of jeans, golf shirt, and light jacket. “I’m the Head of Cardiology here at the hospital and scrubbed in when Dick was placed on the bypass machines. With Dr. Bethune’s agreement, I have taken the lead in Dick’s case as I’ve also been his primary care physician for the past four years.”

“First, know that Detective Grayson – that Dick made it through the surgery.” The trauma surgeon told them. “The use of ECMO gave us the time we needed to successfully locate and seal all of the internal bleeding.”

“That was the worst of his injuries, but not the only one.” Dr. Knowles said and Jason ran the list he had heard Superman give as the doctor spoke. “Multiple cuts that required stitching, several bones that needed setting and braces, burns that have been debrided and dressed and a host of other superficial wounds that have only complicated Dick’s already perilous condition.”

“Perilous?” Renee prompted for clarification.

“Due to his proximity to the explosion last night, we were monitoring his brain for any potential swelling or bleeding as a result of the concussive blast.” Dr. Bethune explained. “When we were closing we noticed some concerning readings on Dick’s EEG. Once we were able, we administered the drugs to bring him out of anaesthesia and attempted to reduce the ECMO flow rate to see how well his heart and lungs functioned. Neither were successful.”

The crushing weight of those words were worse than the memory of the dirt of Jason’s own grave pressing in around him.

“Dick is not breathing on his own.” Dr. Knowles continued sombrely. “Nor has he shown any sign of waking. He does not respond to physical or audio stimuli and his pupils are fixed and dilated.”

“You’re saying he’s in a coma.” Stephanie said beneath the tears on her cheeks.

“We’re afraid so, yes.”

“When will he wake?” Damian demanded, sounding like the child he never got to be.

“It’s unlikely that he will.” Dr. Bethune told them sympathetically. “You need to understand that Dick is suffering from severe hypovolemic shock; he has lost more than forty percent of his total blood volume. Even with blood transfusions, it’s taken its toll on his body. His heart had stopped accumulatively for forty-one minutes before we put him on ECMO. Right now, we don’t know to what effect to his brain the oxygen depravation has had.”

“There are also the medical directives he has in place.” Dr. Knowles added. “Kate tells me she informed you all that the use of ECMO had activated his DNR order.”

“There’re more?” Cassandra wasn’t crying, and her expression was carefully controlled, but there was no masking the anguish in her voice.

“Several,” the man nodded. “The ones most relevant to this situation are the duration in which Dick would allow artificial measures to prolong his life, and the authorization to harvest all viable organs and tissues immediately after death.”

“Dick didn’t want machines keeping him alive while his body wasted away.” Kate told them as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Not when his death could serve a purpose.”

Uncaring that he was in public, Jason felt the tears touch his cheek as he gave a wet half-laugh. “Even when he’s dying, Goldie’s still taking care of someone else.”

“How long do his directives give?” Bruce asked cooly from behind Jason. Anyone who didn’t know the man might have thought it callous and uncaring, but Jason could hear the barely constrained grief pressing against the man’s ironclad control.

“We’ve already had to take him off the ECMO.” Dr. Bethune admitted. “I would have liked to have kept him on it for at least forty-eight hours, but that would have required the addition of a dialysis machine to prevent kidney failure. Unfortunately, the conditions of Dick’s DNR precluded the use of any additional intervention.”

“Dick’s going to die.” Tim’s whisper was barely audible and yet it still silenced the room. Jason reached out to his younger brother, putting an arm around his shoulder, and drawing the other man into his side. Tim came easily, desperate for comfort that would never be enough.

“We have him on the ventilator still.” Dr. Knowles spoke again after a moment. “His blood pressure was already low and has dropped since he was taken off the bypass machine. But, for now, his heart is managing the strain. As long as his condition doesn’t worsen, there is a small chance that he could come back from this. However, the directives that he and I put together are detailed and explicit. Given the existing condition of his heart, the extent of his injuries, the measures taken to keep him alive thus far, and if there is no notable improvement in his condition within the next twenty-four hours, all life support is to be ended and natural death allowed to occur.”

“He’s being settled in a room as we speak and being made comfortable.” Dr. Bethune said compassionately. “If there are others who would like the opportunity to say goodbye–”

“I want to see these directives.” Bruce interrupted harshly.

“Bruce.” Alfred said softly, but firm. The older man was practically cradling Damian on his lap, the teen’s face hidden against Alfred’s shoulder while his body shook in silent sobs. “Enough. Do not waste what little time we have left.”

Stephanie choked on a sob and fell against Selina who wrapped an arm around her with tears of her own. Cassandra’s lower lip was quivering and she rose from her chair, hurrying out of the room. Duke got up and went after her.

Dr. Bethune excused himself from their grieving family and a misty-eyes Montoya whispered to Kate that she would pass on the news. Katie thanked her, kissed her, and clung to her hand for a moment before letting her go.

“I’m so sorry, Kate.” Dr. Knowles said to the woman when she approached him. “I’ve tried to find any avenue we may have overlooked.”

Kate offered the physician a weak smile and shook his hand. “I know you would have tried everything possible Jack. Thank you, for taking care of him.”

“I’ll have one of the nurses let you know when you can go be with him.” Knowles told her. “Dick and I spoke of the possibility of end-of-life care and he made me aware that for the Romany people, family does not end with blood. Or a piece of paper. He asked that the hospital observe his cultural traditions. As such, any who wish to say goodbye are welcomed to do so. Immediate family may stay in the room with him for the duration. However, out of respect and consideration for our other patients I ask that you only allow a few at a time and that they do not linger in the hall. This room has been designated for your use and they may wait here if they wish to stay until the end.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Jack.”

“This can’t be happening.” Tim muttered thickly once the physician was gone. “This– we found him. We saved him. He’s not supposed to–”

“There’s still time.” Batman growled behind Jason and he looked up in time to see Bruce reaching for his JLA communicator. “I can call in Dr. Mid-Nite or Zatanna.”

“Bruce,” Selina whispered through her tears.

“Tim, you can reach out to Raven through the Titans.”

“Father, stop.” Damian pleaded brokenly.

“There’s the cryochamber in the Cave we used to house Talon in, we can keep Dick–”

Jason pulled away from Tim and surged to his feet, turning, and grabbing his father’s arms with a hard shake. “Dad, that’s enough!”

“No!” Bruce’s voice cracked and the desperate man broke out of Jason’s hold. “No, it’ll never be enough!”

“Where was this determination before, Master Wayne?” Alfred demanded forcefully. “You stand at the eleventh hour and only now do you wish to call on the powers that could have made all the difference had you only reached out to them in the first place.”

“I can’t let him die!” Bruce roared, his face finally crumpled as tears sprung visibly to his eyes. “He’s my son, Alfred! I can’t – I won’t–”

“Except it’s not about what you want, Dad.” Tim said emotionlessly, but the tears were streaming down his cheeks none the less. “It’s not about what any of us want, not anymore. We – we had our chance and we…”

“I was wrong!” The communicator fell to floor as Bruce grabbed on to the back of the sofa, his head drooping to his chest. “Oh god! I was wrong about everything and I… I was wrong! Is that what you want me to say?”

Jason didn’t think the man was talking to anyone in that room in that moment.

“We don’t want you to say anything, Bruce.” Kate said tearfully as she walked over to her cousin and pulled him into a tight hug. “But I know you will only come to hate yourself more than you already do, if you don’t say goodbye to your son.”

“I was wrong,” Bruce moaned brokenly against the side of her neck, his arms coming around Kate’s waist and holding her close. The usually strong man seemed to wilt against her smaller frame, his shoulders beginning to shake as he wept. “I was wrong…”

Jason slumped back into the sofa, one hand covering his face as his own tears fell and the other clutched tightly in Tim’s.

He thought he’d known death.

He’d felt death’s hand, had seen the empty husks it left behind. But he’s never had to watch its inevitable approach, knowing that at any moment what little life remained in Dick’s body was going to fade. Knowing that there was nothing in heaven or on earth that would take him away from his brother’s side. Not until death had taken its bounty.

The knock came far too soon and still not soon enough. The woman that entered regarded them with compassionate understanding and asked if they had any questions before she took them to see Dick. Jason appreciated that she used his preferred name. When none of them had any, she debriefed them on what to expect. Even then, it was jarring to see Dick lying in that bed.

He was so pale.

There were far fewer leads and cannulas from his body to the machines, most of the equipment being moved to a corner and hidden behind a partition. He supposed it made sense, since they weren’t going to be used. The panel keeping the breathing tube in place was adhered to the bruised skin of his cheeks, his chest rising and falling only because of the machine pumping oxygen into his lungs. Dick’s torso was wrapped in fresh bandages from his collarbones to beneath the blanket that covered his legs. There was an air cast on his left arm, and several of his fingers were bandaged and splinted.

“My dear boy,” Alfred whispered, the first of them to approach the bed. The man leaned over Dick to press a kiss to his forehead, stroking the curling strands of freshly washed hair away from the unresponsive face. “You are more loved than you could possibly know and I have been and ever shall be proud to call you my son. Rest well, Master Richard, and carry my love with you until we meet again.”

Jason couldn’t do it.

Tears burning his eyes, he retreated to a corner of the room away from the grief and pain. From his spot he could see the single monitor left in the room, the silence rhythm of the heart monitor far too shallow and slow. He knew enough about the numbers there to know that, despite what the Doctors had said, it would not be long before Dick...

Selina was next after Alfred to brave the distance to the bed, brushing her fingers carefully over the back of Dick’s hand. She bent demurely at the waist, her lips caressing against Dick’s temple, and whispered her goodbye for Dick’s ears only. The tears dripped from her chin as she touched his forehead with her own. “Akana mukav tut le devlesa.”⁽¹⁾

On her way toward the door, she paused next to Alfred and hugged the man briefly. “Stay with him for as long as you need. I’ll get a few of the others and we’ll see that the manor is ready for what comes next.”

“You were the second woman he loved as a mother, Miss Kyle.” Alfred told her with a watery smile.

With a little sob, Selina smiled. “Thank you for saying so.” 

Jason watched the oldest of them dip his hand into a pocket and hand off a small set of keys to the woman. “In my quarters is a lockbox on the lower shelf of the bookcase. The pertinent information is in an envelope with his name on it. I– Thank you, Miss Kyle. I shall call you when– when Richard is ready to come home.”

With a kiss to Bruce’s cheek as she passed, the statuesque woman departed.

Through the glass wall into the corridor, Jason saw Duke, Cass and Renee coming back together. They spoke with Selina as she neared, Duke glancing at the room briefly before saying something with a shake of his head. Instead of continuing with Cassandra and Renee, he followed Selina out of sight.

“I tried to tell him he would be welcomed,” Renee said quietly to Bruce as she entered. “But he felt, as he did not know Dick, that he would be intruding. He went with Selina to help at the house.”

Cassandra entered hesitantly, almost as if she were afraid, and stood at the foot of the bed. She placed a tentative hand on one of Dick’s covered feet. “I do not know the words.”

“There’s no specific words to say.” Stephanie told her softly and joined her at the bedside.

Cass shook her head and a tear dropped onto her cheek. “Before, I would say to Dick ‘I do not know the words’ and he would. He would look and he would see me. He would teach me how to say with words and not only my body. I don’t – I don’t know the words…”

“Yeah,” Stephanie swallowed hard with a sniff. She placed an arm around the petite woman’s waist, leaning her head on Cass’s shoulder, and wiped the tears from her own cheeks. “Yeah, he was really good at stuff like that. I’m sorry I was such a bitch, Wing. You didn’t deserve–” Her breath shuddered in her chest and new tears fell in place of the others. “I love you, asshole. Even if you looked better in half my clothes than I did. I still had the steadier hand at a cat-eye liner.” 

Jason exhaled with an involuntary urge to laugh, which he managed to hold back even if he did quirk his lips in a faint smile. Leave it to Blondie to make everyone smile at a time like this.

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Tim admitted when the girls had moved to the wall, the pair sliding to sit on the floor still wrapped around one another.

“Then don’t.” Kate told him from the chair she had taken, her girlfriend in the seat beside her. “Dick once told me that the Romany don’t say goodbye. Why bother when they’re going to see each other again? Minutes, days, years, it didn’t matter how long they thought it might be.”

“Is that why he only ever said ‘see you later’?” Renee asked with a partial smirk on her lips.

“Being here is enough.” Damian said, standing beside Alfred who had taken the last chair, and looked to Cass and then to Tim. “Words have never mattered to Richard. He is always happy just to have us stand beside him.”

Tim choked on a sob, a sound mixed with grief and guilt. “Haven’t done much of that recently.”

“You regret it?” Jason asked, speaking for the first time since he entered the room. His voice wavered and he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t. Not when he wouldn’t have the family he did without Dick Grayson. None of them would. They owed everything they had built to the man. He would not pretend that he was not just as affected as the rest of them.

Not when the numbers on the monitor in front of him were lower than they had been only a minute ago.

He looked away, watching instead several heads bobbing in tearful silence. “Then he forgives you; forgives us. You all know he would.”

“He’d be mad as hell for a while.” Kate agreed quietly. “But he forgave the lot of you a long time ago.”

Another sob escaped Tim’s lips and he staggered back to the wall when Cassandra grabbed his hand, pulling him down next to her. Stephanie reached across the other girl and took hold of his other hand.

Bruce stepped out of the doorway and to the side of Dick’s bed. He looked down at the fading man, face tear streaked and looking much too human for the man beneath the Batman. Jason supposed, in this moment, that was all he was. A mortal, fallible, powerless man that could not stay deaths hand any more than the rest of the world.

They all watched as Bruce lowered himself carefully to the mattress, mindful of the few remaining wires and tubes, and cradled Dick’s face tenderly with his palm.

“When you first came into my life,” He began so quietly Jason wouldn’t have realized he’d spoke if he hadn’t seen Bruce’s lips moving. Bruce cleared his throat, stroked his thumb delicately back and forth over Dick’s cheekbone, and continued. “You used to creep into my room whenever you had a bad dream. You never approached the bed, I don’t think you even knew I saw you there, you just lurked in the shadows with a blanket you brought with you and curled up on the floor until you fell asleep again.”

Jason was captivated, as were the others, none of them ever having heard the man speak of those early days with new ward.

“I was so young, maybe too young, because I didn’t know what to do. Some nights I could barely manage my own nightmares, how was I supposed to help you through the dreams of your parents’ dying? All the parenting books I had Alfred buy, all the therapists I consulted, said it was a normal way for a child to process death and grief. That the best course of action was to talk to the child, to talk to you, about the dreams. That you needed to accept their deaths and the sudden and drastic changes in your life.

“So, the next time you crawled through my door in the middle of the night, I asked you if you had a bad dream. When you nodded and came a little closer I asked if you had dreamt of your parents’ death.” Bruce made a sound that was a cross between a sob and a laugh. “You looked at me like I had said the most asinine thing ever and scoffed at me like I was an idiot. Why would you dream of their dying when they came to visit you? That’s what you said to me. You said that, when someone dreams of a loved one that had passed on to heaven it was because they wanted to come for a visit.

“I don’t remember if you ever told me what your bad dream had been about, but you regaled me with the story of the last time your parents visited your dreams. How the three of you played together, shared a meal, told stories of your new home and the weird things you’d find there. You were never afraid when you dreamed of your parents, even when you would climb the circus riggings and fly with them. Because, you said, in your dreams you could fall forever and never touch the ground.

“I excused it as the innocence of a child, or possibly a natural affinity for lucid dreaming, but I think…” Bruce’s lips thinned when he pressed them together and inhaled shakily through his nose. “I think I’d like to believe it was real. Because then, if you ever want to visit me, I can hold you and tell you I love you and that I’m so fucking happy you got to be mine. Even if it wasn’t for nearly long enough.”

With a fist pressed against his mouth, tears dripping freely onto his knuckles, Jason had to look away.

“Everything good in my life,” Bruce continued through his tears. “Began with you. This family is what it is because of you, and I will never let anyone or anything take it away from me again. When you came into my life I never could have imagined the effect you would have on me and what I believed was my destiny. Because it’s not Batman, it’s not saving Gotham or even the world. It’s Jason. It’s Tim. It’s Cassandra, and Damian, and Stephanie and Duke. It’s them, Chum. My children, my heart, my purpose, and I won’t ever forget that again. But you, Dickie…”

The man visibly shuddered as he leaned down and pressed his lips into Dick’s dark curls. “You were my first. My heart, my purpose, my destiny. I love you, Dick Grayson, and I am sorry that I ever made you believe otherwise. You are, and forever will be, my son.”

The minutes fell away one by one.

The Waynes remained in quiet vigil as Jason watched the numbers change.

Far too soon, when even he knew the numbers were far too low, the string of light pulsing with Dick’s heart…

Stopped.

A small blue light lit up in the corner of the screen. His heart breaking as he saw through the glass one of the nurses perk up, look toward them, and her face fall with understanding. She said something to the others and reached for the phone while another stepped out and started toward the room.

“Dad…” Jason called hoarsely, pushing out of the corner, and letting his eyes fall onto his brother’s peaceful face.

“What is it Ja–” Bruce cut himself off when he saw the devastation Jason knew was plain on his face. He stood as the he saw the nurse in the doorway and snapped his head back to his son on the bed. “No…” 

“Father?” Damian watched with tears streaming down his cheeks as the nurse approached the opposite side of bed and pressed his fingers against the inside of Dick’s wrists.

After only a few seconds, the nurse let go and straightened Dick’s arm. He reached for the machine next to him, the one pumping air into Jason’s brother’s lungs, and turned it off.

“NO!” Damian screamed, bucking away from Alfred, and lunging for the bed. “No, do something!”

Bruce intercepted the teen and wrapped his arms around his son. “He can’t, Damian. He can’t! He can’t..”

“No! Please!” The boy begged, fighting against his father’s stronger grip. “Please! Baba! Baba don’t go! Don’t go, Baba!”

His sisters were sobbing, in their chairs Kate and Rene were clinging to each other as they cried. Tim was frozen on the floor, his eyes staring straight ahead unseeing. Alfred stood and held on to Jason, the old man’s grief painted on his face. Bruce…

Bruce was breaking.

…

… …

Fuck that!

Jason stepped away from Alfred’s comfort, grabbed the nurse and bodily moved him away from the bed, taking his place. He clasped his hands together, pressed them in the center of Dick’s unmoving chest, and started CPR.

“Jason!” Kate was out of her chair only a second before everyone else was scrambling to their feet.

“You can’t do that!” The nurse hollered. “SECURITY!”

“I am not a goddamn doctor!” Jason snarled through clenched teeth, tears clinging to his cheeks. “Fuck the DNR! I am not letting my brother die!”

“Fuck yeah!” Stephanie bolted for the equipment in the corner and the crash cart that had been tucked away.

“Good girl, Blondie!” Jason grinned as she wheeled it closer to the bed while she was rummaging through it.

“Stephanie!” Renee snapped. “You do this, you can kiss you career as a doctor goodbye!”

The girl looked at Dick, then at the pandemonium outside the room Jason’s actions had caused. Her face split into a wide grin. “Worth it!”

Tim surged past her, taking the AMBU bag from her when she held it out to him. He clipped it to the breathing tube and started pumping in time with Jason’s chest compressions. “Steph, push one milligram of atropine!”

“Way ahead of you, Drake.” The woman was already depressing the plunger of the pre-dosed syringe into Dick’s IV pump.

Jason let his world narrow to the body beneath his hands. He stared at Dick’s face and pursed his lips together. “Wake up, you goddamn sonuvabitch! We are not losing you again!”

He was vaguely aware of the shouts of different voices, of orders to stop, of Bruce’s bellow.

“Get you fucking hands off my daughter!”

None of it mattered.

“Pause chest compressions.” Stephanie instructed and only then did he realize that the bandages around Dick’s chest had been cut away, revealing several long lines of stitches that were seeping blood onto Jason’s hands, and adhered the AED pads to his skin. “Checking for – oh, holy fuck! Shockable rhythm! CLEAR!”

With a press of the button Dick’s body spasmed at the electrical current coursing to his heart.

“Jason, Tim go!”

Without question, he restarted the chest compressions while his younger brother continued to pump the air into Dick’s lungs.

Noise droned in the background.

“Come on, Big Bird,” He muttered as he panted for breath from the exertion of crushing his brother’s chest. “Come on… come on…”

“Please Dick…” Tim begged from next to Jason.

Stephanie guided them through a second shock of the AED and he started his third cycle of compressions. There were more people now, he could feel their presences pressing in around them but Bruce’s indominable strength kept them all at bay while they fought to save their brother.

“Pause compressions…”

Jason was panting like he had run a marathon, his vision blurred with tears and from staring unblinking at Dick’s face for any response.

“… there’s a pulse!” Stephanie gasped and then yelled. “He’s got a pulse! Blood pressure 70 over 50 and climbing! Hey! Asswipes! Get a doctor in here stat! Timmy, don’t you dare stop pumping!”

“Not a fucking chance!”

“Get pressure on the cuts.” A wad of gauze was pressed into Jason’s already bloodied hands and he followed the woman’s instructions without questions. “We can’t risk him losing any more blood.”

“Jason,” Tim gasped and bobbed his head toward Dick as there was a loud scuffle behind him. “Jason, look!”

Strong hands were suddenly grabbing onto his arms and dragging him away from his brother.

His conscious brother!

A sliver of blue was watching from fluttering lids as Jason was pulled from the room. He saw Bruce being dragged further down the hall with his hands cuffed behind his back. Cassandra was standing calmly as she was being similarly restrained, the security officer cuffing her sporting a split lip and bloodied nose. Stephanie was disheveled, her hair wild, but she was grinning victoriously as a guard picked her up around the waist and carried her out of the room.

Off to the side, having only watched the proceedings, Kate was steadying a shocked Alfred while Renee had her arm around Damian. The four of them were stunned but nothing dimmed the relief in their expressions.

“Touch me and you’ll kill him!” Tim’s growl echoed through the door when the security guards reached for him. “I’m the only thing keeping him breathing!”

The head of Cardiology pushed through the crowd of bystanders – staff, visitors sticking their heads out of their room, several of their friends having arrived during the commotion – and toward the room. “What the hell–”

“He’s awake!” Jason shouted at Dick’s doctor, uncaring when his hands were pulled behind his back. “He’s awake!”

Knowles’ eyes were wide and he rushed to Dick’s side. Everything stopped as the man lifted one of Dick’s eyelids and flicked a quick flash of a penlight across his vision. “Dick, can you hear me?”

Even outside the room, Jason saw the deliberate single blink of his brother’s eyes.

Knowles positioned his hand beneath Dick’s and gripped it gently. “Dick, squeeze my hand if you understand what I’m saying.”

The motion wasn’t visible, but Jason could see the moment Tim’s face practically lit up. Even the doctor was holding back a grin.

“Dick, one for yes, two for no: do you rescind the do not resuscitate order?”

No one dared to move.

“Thank you, Detective Grayson.” Knowles kept his hand beneath Dick’s as he turned to the gathered crowd. “I want a crash team in here now! Get him back on the vent and prepped to reinstate ECMO. We’ll reassess everything else then.” He turned his attention back to his patient who Jason could see was starting to go under again.

Nurses and aides were running around them as they were escorted toward the exit. Tim, cuffed and held between two security officers was no less pleased than the rest of them and it damn well showed. They each held their head high as they were marched out.

“What the fuck just happened, Jay?” Roy asked as Jason was led past.

 Jason smiled.

“We got my brother back

Chapter Text

 

When the fire’s at my feet again

And the vultures all start circling

They’re whispering ‘you’re out of time’

But still, I rise

This is no mistake, no accident

When you think the final nail is in

Think again, don’t be surprised

I will still rise

 

Rise – (State of Mine)

“Good morning, Gotham.

“The city is still reeling this morning from the massive explosion last night that destroyed the Cape Carmine Lighthouse Heritage Site. Only the timely intervention of the Justice League and several of their Green Lanterns prevented greater loss of life and property damage.

“The explosion, which took place just before 11:00pm, was part of the terrorist attacks in Gotham yesterday. One of several bombs throughout the city, the currently unnamed terrorists had taken eighteen people as hostage. Spread through the city in locations unknown, a deadline was given, and undisclosed demands levied.

“GCPD officers and members of State Anti-Terrorism Units worked alongside Gotham’s own vigilantes to locate and disarm the explosive devices and rescue the hostages placed in immediate danger. As a result, they were unable to prevent the armed insurgents that swept our city streets in what some witnesses are calling a massacre.

“Deputy Police Chief Margaret Sawyers has confirmed that the individuals responsible for yesterday’s attacks were intent on destabilizing Gotham City’s gangs and organized crime. There are confirmed sixty-one dead and another thirty-seven injured. Many of the injured appear to be innocent bystanders, though all fatalities had criminal records and held known gang affiliations.

“All, that is, but one.

“Seventeen-year-old Gabriela Aldana, high school senior and part-time barista, was kidnapped from the local coffee shop where she was employed and used as one of the terrorists’ hostages. Miss Aldana lived with moderate persistent asthma and the stress triggered an attack. Tragically, she passed away before Red Robin and members of the South Side Regulators – who had been working together in the attempt to free the hostages – could reach her.

“A memorial for Miss Aldana has been erected at the local high school where she attended as well as outside her family’s apartment building in the Cauldron.

“Currently, Miss Aldana is the only hostage to have lost their life during yesterday’s horrific events. However, we are being told that Gotham City Police Detective Richard John Wayne-Grayson, who was abducted from his home in Old Gotham in the early hours yesterday by the men behind these attacks, was recovered by the Justice League only moments before to the explosion that rocked our city. Detective Wayne-Grayson was taken by Superman to Gotham City General Hospital where, this morning, he is still undergoing surgery to treat injuries obtained during his captivity. He is currently listed as in critical condition.

“Prior to returning to our city to join the GCPD’s Gang and Narcotics Division three months ago, Senior Detective Wayne-Grayson served as a highly decorated officer with the Blüdhaven Police Department. After five years of exemplary service, Detective Wayne-Grayson and his then partner, current Blüdhaven Police Department Major Crimes Commander Amy Rohrbach, held an 86% successful trial rate with 78% conviction.

“Many of Gotham’s residents remember Detective Wayne-Grayson as the eldest son of Gotham City’s own Billionaire Bruce Wayne. Adopted more than twenty years ago by the then infamous playboy, orphaned eight-year-old circus performer Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson soon became one of Gotham City’s favoured sons. He left at the age of sixteen to study abroad and spent time in New York, California and Chicago before settling in the city across the bay.

“Members of the Wayne family were seen entering Gotham City General Hospital shortly after midnight this morning. Witnesses inside the hospital have reported that Detective Wayne-Grayson’s adoptive father, Bruce Wayne is surrounded by friends and family as they anxiously wait for news on his son’s condition. Representatives for the family have released a statement thanking the public for their prayers and well wishes and ask for privacy during this difficult time.

“We will keep you updated as we know more.

“For Gotham City News, I’m Noor Rashid.”

The television clicked off and the man dropped the remote on the lounge as he leaned back on the plush cushions. The yacht he had been watching the city from rocked back and forth in the morning waves, soothing when he felt anything but. Yamato tapped a fingernail against his front teeth in thought before turning to his assistant. “Why was I not told that I held in my grasp the first-born son of one of this country’s wealthiest men?”

“It was never mentioned in the file we obtained from the Blüdhaven police.” The captain of the mercenaries he’d hired explained. “Our sources were all from outside of Gotham and unaware of the connection. Apparently, they’ve been estranged and no contact for several years.”

Yamato hummed and rose out of his seat, walking over to the large windows where he could just make out the city lights through the rain. “And Detective Grayson’s prognosis?”

“Unfavourable.” His assistant admitted. “Our people inside the Hospital report it is unlikely he will survive.”

His tongue clucked against his teeth, and he shook his head, mentally reprimanding himself for acting rashly. “I want him monitored regardless. If Detective Grayson miraculously lives, I think I would like to pay him another visit. Our time together was regrettably short. In the meantime, send my condolences to Mr. Wayne for the loss of his son.”

“You’re not going to do that.”

The voice surprised Yamato, second only to the surprise he felt when he turned and saw the individuals that had replaced his people.

A woman in black and purple held a small crossbow aimed at him.

A man cowled and wearing all black held his assistant off the ground by the throat, the death of his associate obvious by the visible strength of the grip and unnatural bend of the man’s neck.

A second man in bright white and yellow with glowing white eyes, held the mercenary leader on his knees, the body twitching with two smouldering holes through his forehead.

“Grayson has a lot more friends that your sources will have missed.” The same voice drew his attention to a third man leaning against the doorframe to the stateroom. A man with no discernible features, only a dizzying spiral where his face should have been. He was wearing a middle eastern headscarf and casually picking beneath his fingernails with the tip of a curved and freshly bloodied dagger. “37 may be an idiot, but he is our idiot.”

Yamato felt a headache coming on just by looking at the man and staggered to his hands and knees. He wanted to vomit on the shoes that filled his vision, the feeling only worsening when a hand fisted in his hair, and he was forced to look up into the faceless void of the man now holding a razor’s edge to his throat.

“Who are you?” He demanded weakly.

He had no idea what kind of expression the man made, but there was no denying the vicious smirk he could hear in his words. “You may call me Patron. My associates and I will be asking you a lot of questions about your organization’s interest in Detective Grayson.

“And you, Mr. Itō, are going to tell us everything.”

***** ***** **A COUPLE DAYS LATER** ***** *****

Jason was waiting on the sidewalk across the street of the hospital’s main entrance when Roy exited with his daughter. The archer watched his friend drop his cigarette and step on the smouldering end before following them toward the parking lot. The restraining order the hospital had in place kept the man on the other side of the road, the closest he and the rest of those involved in what happened could come until the hearing. Roy could feel Jason’s eyes boring into him as he helped Lian into her booster seat in the back of his car then climbed into the driver’s seat.

A minute later, he slowed down which allowed the anxious man to slide into the passenger seat. “How is he?”

“Still sleeping.” Lian answered as they pulled out into traffic, picking up her tablet from the seat next to her. “Miss Kate said Uncle Dickie’s new machine is going to help him get better though.”

The look Jason levelled at Roy begged for more information. Flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror and seeing his daughter putting on her headphones, Roy sighed and clicked on the radio just to make sure. “He developed a fever last night.”

“Fuck.” The back of Jason’s head thumped against the seat’s headrest as he scowled. “Sepsis?”

He shook his head. “Peritonitis. They found swelling in his abdomen, which is not surprising considering the gut shot he took. They’re treating it with antibiotics and put him on dialysis, so his kidneys don’t have to do all the work.”

“How’s his heart?”

“Getting stronger.” Roy assured his friend. “There hasn’t been another cardiac event since they got him back on the ECMO and life support is taking most of the strain for Dick’s body. He’s still critical, but stable.”

For a moment the only sound in the car came from the radio and Lian’s tapping on her screen. Roy kept his eyes on the road and traffic, merging onto the exit for the bridge that would take them north toward Jay’s apartment. At a red light, he glanced over at his friend and the worried expression on the other man’s face.

“He’s going to be okay.” He said when they were moving again.

“Is he?” Jason sighed and turned his head to watch the buildings as they drove past. “He’s alive, and maybe he gets better, but he’s not okay Roy. I don’t think he’s ever been okay. If he had been, why the fuck wouldn’t he tell me about Bruce?”

Pursing his lips, Roy stared ahead at the road with a frown.  “I’ve known Dick Fucking Grayson for the better part of twenty years, and I have asked myself that question more times than I can count. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ The fights with Bruce, the injuries, the shit he’s had to deal with, for a long time the only way I ever learned anything was when he was heavily medicated or drunk. And the instant he realized that he stopped drinking with anyone else.”

“I found him in a shitty motel room outside Atlantic City once,” Jason told him like he was confessing. “About a year or so after I came back. He’d gone off grid, none of the others had heard from him, Oracle couldn’t even find him. Alfred asked if I’d look for him. Took me another two days and, when I finally found him, he was so much worse than drunk. I’d never imagined I’d see him like that, surrounded by booze and pills and filth. Honestly, I’m surprised I found him alive. The shit I learned that night, the things he’d survived while I was gone…”

“I knew about Bruce.” Roy admitted, then hurried to clarify when Jason snapped a furious glare his way. “I suspected. All of us original Titans did. There were too many questionable bruises and injuries and excuses. We’d – I’d thought it had stopped after you died.”

“He just got better at hiding it.” Jason huffed and looked back out the window. “How much other shit has he hidden from us that we’re never going to know because no one else documented their abuse of him like Bruce did.”

“Does it matter?”

“Shouldn’t it?” The man snarled.

“When I thought Dick had been killed by the Syndicate,” he started after he’d gathered his thoughts. “It was a wakeup call. I’d spent so long hating him and cutting him down every chance I got that, when he was suddenly gone, I realized what my anger had cost me.”

Seeing that Jason was honestly listening to him, Roy continued. “Dick was the brother I needed. Always there no matter what I said or did to him when I was high, never turned me away when I was crashing no matter how angry he was with me. He was the first person I went to when Jade left Lian with me and even when we were on the outs I never once questioned my decision to make him her Godfather. When I believed he was dead I thought I’d never get the chance to fix what we had broken between us.”

“You were just as mad as I was when he came back.” Jason groused, though it was lacking the usual heat in his voice when they talked about the subject of Dick’s ‘faked’ death.

“Damn straight I was!” He ranted. “I made sure he knew just how pissed I was that he’d made us mourn him. But I also made sure he was aware of just how much I’d missed him and how fuckin’ glad I was he wasn’t dead. And when he took off the mask, went full civilian, I refused to let him cut me out. Lian was not going to lose her Godfather a second time and I was not willing to lose my brother again.”

Quiet descended in the vehicle for a minute before Jason spoke again. “He has a fucking DNR, Roy. He died, right in front of me, and I was supposed to just let it happen. I don’t… He’s Dick Fucking Grayson. He’s not supposed to give up. He’s meant to fight and beat the odds and always come out on top with that Golden Boy halo of his untarnished.”

Stomach twisting at just the thought, Roy pursed his lips into a frown. “He’s supposed to still be there when we realize he’s just as mortal as the rest of us.”

“Yeah.” He heard the other man swallow hard and clear his throat, voice noticeably thick. “How do we come back from this?”

“You work for it.” He admitted honestly. “You fucked up. All of you did. You expected Dick to just take the shit and abuse like he always did, but for once in his life Dick put himself ahead of the rest of you. But he’s still alive, Jay. And so long as he stays that way there’s a chance to fix what’s broken between you. Just be there, talk to him, apologize for what you need to, and show him that things are going to be different. Because knowing what you know now, you can’t go back to how things were. You start fresh, no preconceptions on who you think Dick Fucking Grayson is supposed to be. If you’re sincere, it won’t take long to get your brother back. Because once he loves you – and despite everything we all know he still loves you assholes – nothing can ever change that.”

***** ***** **A COUPLE WEEKS LATER** ***** *****

“All right, Detective, that’s you settled.”

As the orderlies left his new room after they locked the bed wheels into place, the nurse finished adjusting the head of the hospital bed, so Dick was laying semi-upright. The man, the critical care nurse that had overseen his daytime care while in the ICU, ensured he was comfortable before placing the controls within reach of his cast-free hand and checked there were no kinks in the IV lines one last time.

Feeling utterly exhausted, despite never once getting out of the bed during the room change, Dick smiled tiredly. “Thanks for everything, Calix.”

“It was a genuine pleasure, Detective.” The smile the health professional gave him was wide. “Quick rundown before I hand you off to the floor. You know Tonya; she’s still going to be your primary cardiac nurse and she’s grabbing your day shift LPN who, if I’m remembering the floor staff, is Eliza and she’s a beast. You’ll love her. Laurelle texted and said she’ll swing by tonight before her shift to say goodbye, as well as talk with your night nurse. Barring an emergency, Doctor Knowles is scheduled to be by in a few hours. Though, by all accounts you are on the mend, so I think it’s just a matter of staying the course now.” During the man’s spiel two women, both in nurses’ scrubs, entered the room. One Dick recognized.

Tonya was an athletic woman, a few years younger than him, with warm brown eyes. Her sandy-blonde hair, as always, was tied in a single braid against the back of her neck. “How goes, Detective?”

“Tired.” He admitted with a measured breath. “And there’s a little pain in my abdomen, between my left hip bone and the surgical scar. Shallow, mild, constant, and it’s tight not stabbing or burning.”

“Should I be worried about how comprehensive that was?” The second woman said with a wry smirk and approached the bed. She was a little older with a touch of grey in her dark messy bun and had dark eyes. “Detective Grayson, my name is Eliza Kinnear; I’m the Unit Charge Nurse and I’ll be your primary day nurse while you’re with us. May I look at the incision sight and can you tell me when the pain began?”

“This isn’t my first circus.” He nodded even as he tugged at the hospital gown he was still forced to wear, lifting it away from his hip as she grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the shelf overhead. “The pain started a couple minutes ago while we were in the elevator. Almost like a stitch in my side, but not quite the right spot. If feels like the persistent ache after I’ve stubbed my toe for the third time in five minutes, if my toe was just to the left of where I’d been shot.”

The trio chuckled at his attempt a levity which he appreciated. He’d never had an easy time admitting his pain, but he wasn’t fool enough to hide anything now. Eliza slipped on the gloves easily, gingerly tapped and pressed where he directed her. “No hardness, no signs of inflammation, is the skin sensitive at all or does the pain increase with touch?”

“No.” Dick helped her smooth the gown back into place.

“Temp is good, heartrate and BP are good, blood-ox is a little low though.” Tonya commented from across the bed from Eliza, next to his heart monitor. “That could be a factor; I’d like to put you back on the oxygen for bit. Just until Doctor Knowles can check things, make sure everything still all good.”

“You’re due for your next dose of pain meds in an hour.” Calix added. “It might not be enough if things are beginning to knit back together in there.”

“I’ll make a note for Doctor Knowles to reassess the medication for pain management.” Eliza removed her gloves. “I’ll come right back with the nasal canula. I can, if you’d like Detective Grayson, give you a small dose of acetaminophen.”

“If it gets any worse.” Dick leaned back on the bed and tried to smile disarmingly at his new nurse, but as worn out as he still was it was a weak attempt, and he knew it. “Any chance I’ll get you to call me Dick? These two refuse and won’t tell me why.”

“It’s because they’re young and immature.” Eliza grinned at the other two who nodded. “However, as you’re slated to be with us for at least another three weeks I have no problem calling you Dick. It was my grandfather’s name before it became ‘offensive’, and I don’t have the same hangups. But only if you call me Eliza.”

“I need to get back to my floor.” Calix shook Dick’s hand carefully when it was offered. “Don’t ever let me catch you in one of my beds again.”

“I’m a Gotham City Cop.” Dick reminded him with a shrug. “No promises.”

“I have other patients I need to check in with,” Tonya told him when the man was gone. “But I’ll be back with Doctor Knowles. I leave you in very capable hands, Detective.”

“Thanks, Tonya.”

“I’ll be right back with that nasal canula.” Eliza excused herself and Dick was left momentarily alone.

No wall of glass, no mass of machines beeping and monitoring his slightest move, no twenty-four-hour rotation of his friends determined he was not alone for one second while in the ICU. Though as far as he knew, Wally only left because Dick was deemed well enough not to be constantly watched and was being moved out of the ICU. Into a regular room. A room with four walls, one window, a solid door and only one bed.

Private.

So, Dick closed his eyes and enjoyed the quiet of his new room.

Quiet that didn’t last long.

A hesitant knock on the frame of the door had Dick not bothering to hold back his sigh and opening his eyes. The nurse wouldn’t have hesitated, he would have heard Wally if he was coming back, and considering public visiting hours weren’t until the afternoon it meant this was someone who was new or shouldn’t be there.

Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Tim stood uncertainly in the doorway; Jason visible just behind him.

“Hey.” Tim hadn’t been that timid since Dick first met the boy that demanded he return to Gotham and be Batman’s Robin.

Of everyone who could have been outside his room, these were probably the last two people he would have expected. “Hi.”

“Can we come in?” Jason asked and – okay, wow. There was something wrong about how unsure the man sounded.

“Uh, yeah.” The answer was automatic, even after the years and distance (figurative and literal) between them.

With a little nudge from the taller man behind him, Tim stepped into the room with Jason on his heels. Tim stopped at the foot of the bed, Jason just at the corner, neither coming any closer. For a minute, no one said anything. The pair just looked at him and Dick found he didn’t have the strength to break the growing tension in the room. He just looked back at them and waited.

“Visiting hours aren’t for another two hours, gentlemen.” Eliza snapped, breaking the awkward silence as she returned with a sealed, sterilized coil of clear tubing. The nurse barely spared them a glance as she passed them on her way to the head of Dick’s bed. “Do I need to call security?”

“We’re his brothers.”⁽¹⁾

“I know who you are.” Eliza admitted as she broke the seal on the pack. She glared at them briefly before dismissing them and turning her back to them. “I don’t think there’s an employee in this hospital who doesn’t know who either of you are. Not after the stunt you boys pulled.”

“We were saving his life.” Jason snarled, though it sounded more out of habit than any real upset.

“And in the scheme of things I am certain he, and everyone else, is grateful for it.” One end of the clear tubing was attached to the flowmeter on the wall above the head of the bed. “But that still doesn’t change what you did. Nor does it change that both of you have been banned from this facility unless you are a patient.”

“The ban was lifted this morning.” Tim corrected the woman sounding nothing like the confident CEO he was meant to be. “We just came out of a meeting with the Medical Director and members of the hospital Legal Office.”

The woman hummed noncommittally while she adjusted the tabs on the cannula and positioned it beneath Dick’s nostrils. “I’ve got you on twenty percent for now, Dick. If there’s any irritation let me know and we’ll add the humidifier.”

“Thank you, Eliza.” He offered her a faint smile of appreciation as the tang of compressed air tickled his nose. He glanced at the two other men who were watching with obvious concern and this time held back his sigh. “Can you give them a few minutes? I don’t think they’re here to cause trouble.”

“They better not be.” Nudging the bed remote closer to his good hand, Eliza tapped on the plastic for emphasis. “Call me if you need anything, Dick.” She paused next to Jason on her way to the door, levelling a stern frown at both him and Tim. “Two minutes. Do not stress him.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Both younger men acknowledged and nodded.

The door closed behind the woman with a resounding click.

“Why are you back on oxygen?” Tim asked before the uncomfortable quiet could return. “Are you okay? Has the doctor seen you? How long–”

“Can we not?” Dick interrupted before the man gained too much steam. “I’m barely staying awake right now so, let’s just skip past the part where you act like you care and you tell me why you’re here.”

“We’re a giant pair of assholes and we wanted to see you.” Jason readily admitted, which surprised Dick. “Last time you were, well, kind of dead.”

“Last time you ignored my medical directives because you couldn’t deal with my choices.” Dick huffed, only to immediately regret the words.

“You’re mad we didn’t let you die?” Tim gaped, anger tinting the incredulity of the question.

“Of course not.” He shook his head, breathing purposefully through the nose to calm himself. He couldn’t do this, not yet. “Look, I get it, okay? If it had been either of you or any one of the others, I would have wanted to do the same. Except the outcome doesn’t change facts, and the fact is you didn’t do it for me. Did I want to die? No, never. Am I happy to be alive? Absolutely. And I’m alive because of you, but don’t fool yourselves for one minute thinking that you did this for me. Guilt, remorse, regret, whatever your reasons it doesn’t matter. You did it for yourselves.”

Jason’s expression was unreadable, but Tim’s face fell noticeably at his words. “Dick, I–”

“Now is not the time, Drake.” Wally propped the door open as he entered, a canvas bag in one hand and a thermos in the other. He walked to the bed, placed the bag on the floor against the wall and the thermos on the rolling table. “I grabbed a few things from your apartment now that you can have them. Also, some beef pho from that little place in Meizhou you like. Just the broth and noodles, and the lovely nurses at the desk have already okayed it. But if they ask, Iris made it for you.”

“Thanks, Wally.” Exhaustion bleeding into his limbs, Dick slumped against the pillow beneath his head. While his friend dragged one of the chairs closer to the bed, Dick regarded the two men still standing. “Five years ago, you made it perfectly clear how little you thought of me and how much you wanted me out of your lives. I don’t know what’s changed and honestly, right now, I don’t have it in me to care. I’m in pain and too tired to deal with this.”

“We shouldn’t have come.” Jason placed a hand on Tim’s bicep and tugged him away from the bed. “We really just wanted to see you, now that you’re out of the ICU.”

“Hey,” Dick halted them after a few steps. “You’re my brothers. I love you and that is never going to change. You know that, right?”

“We know.” Tim nodded and shared a look with Jason. “Maybe, when you’re feeling up for it, we can come see you again?”

“Only if you want us to.” Jason hurried to add. “We’re just… we’re really glad you’re alive, Dick.”

From the moment he walked away from Spyral, that was all he had ever wanted to hear from his brothers. He knew his actions, his lies, had hurt them, but during his stint as Agent 37 he had held on to the belief that their relationship was stronger than that. He’d been wrong. And despite how a part of him warmed at their words, it was tempered by the memory of five long and lonely years.

Still, he offered them a faint smile. “I’d like that.”

***** ***** **A COUPLE MONTHS LATER** ***** *****

“Hello, welcome wagon!”

The walls had been painted a different colour.

It was a strange detail to focus on, but it was the first thing Bruce noticed when he followed his cousin and her girlfriend into the condo.

“Dami, it’s just Kate and Renee. She texted they were going to swing by when Renee was done her shift.”

It was the first time in a very long time that Bruce was hearing his son’s voice in person rather than a recording. It sent a thrill of nervousness to his chest and he allowed the women to outpace him as he closed the high-quality steel door behind him. He was relieved when seven of the ten locking pins automatically snapped into place.

“You’ve been home less than eight hours, Master Richard.” Alfred said primly from further in the condo. “You will not begrudge us our caution.”

“At ease, kid.” Dick’s partner said with a smirk as she and Kate walked out of the hall and out of Bruce’s sight. With his heart pounding inside his chest, Bruce followed a moment later.

“Good evening, Montoya, Kane.” Damian greeted the women and was lowering his sword onto the coffee table just as Bruce came around the corner into the living space. His youngest son faltered, eyes wide, but otherwise managed to school his features. “Father, I did not know you intended to visit.”

“We found him in the parking lot.” Kate explained as she walked the canvas bag hanging from one hand to where Alfred was puttering in the kitchen. “He looked so pathetic standing out there we thought we’d rescue him.”

Dick was laid out in the corner chaise of the sectional, several pillows propping him into a comfortable sitting position. His son’s skin was pale, though it seemed more from the lack of sunlight rather than ill health, but his eyes were bright and clear. The memory of the bruises and injuries Bruce had last seen marring Dick’s body were gone, having long faded since that day months ago. He was dressed for comfort, a light pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, with his left leg elevated on a couple of throw pillows. The leg was encased in a sturdy knee-brace from midthigh to halfway down his calf, and within his reach was an ornately carved wooden cane. Bruce recognized the meticulously detailed robin that served as the handle for the blackthorn walking stick as the one Damian had been painstakingly whittling the past week.

“I can go, if you’d rather me not here.” He assured his eldest son who was staring at him with a guarded expression.

“No,” Dick blinked several times and shook his head, motioning to his leg. “No, it’s fine. I’d offer to get you a drink but–”

“I think I can manage that while preparing dinner.” Alfred scolded gently from the other side of the island. “Master Bruce?”

“Nothing for me, thank you Alfred.” He said, staying close to the hallway while everyone else moved about Dick’s home with obvious familiarity. “I, uh, I won’t stay long. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Stick around, Bruce.” Renee said from where she was setting a small terracotta planter containing a pale succulent on a shelf near a slightly larger aloe plant.

“Please.” Dick bobbed his head toward the rest of the seating. “Alfred is making sax suklo and galuski⁽²⁾, if you have the time to stay for supper?”

Hesitating for a moment, Bruce tried not to read into the invitation more than the courtesy it was. Only when Damian pointedly arched a questioning eyebrow and flicked his eyes toward Dick did he acquiesce. “I do, thank you.”

“I’ll get you some water.” The teen took the sword with him as he walked into the kitchen area.

“They’re not a subtle as they think they are.” Dick said quietly as he watched the others congregate on the other side of the island, giving Bruce and Dick as much privacy as they could without actually leaving the room.

 The cushions of the sofa were comfortable as Bruce lowered himself onto it a few feet away from his son. “I heard your surgery went well.”  Though there were a thousand different things he wanted to say to the man, he settled on the safest for the moment.

Dick nodded. “Repaired the damaged ligaments and replaced the broken cartilage with a prothesis. The orthopaedic surgeon anticipates a full recovery.”

“That’s good.” He hated how hard it was to talk to the boy he had raised. “How long until you can have the brace–”

“Bruce.” Dick interrupted him gently. The expression his son wore reminded him how, out of all his children, Dick could always see right through his bullshit.

“I’m sorry.” Bruce practically blurted before the other man could say anything else. “I’ll never be able to take back how much I’ve hurt you, but I want you to know how very sorry I am. There is no excuse for the way I treated you, the things I’ve said and done to you. I’m – I’m trying to be better, and I’d like the chance to prove to you that I can be the kind of father you deserve.”

With a sigh, Dick’s eyes closed, and Bruce watched him massage his fingers against his forehead. A familiar tell that his son was going to say something he thought Bruce wouldn’t like. “It’s not that easy, Bruce. You took my family away from me.”

“I did,” He admitted, hoping that Dick could hear the sincerity of his words. “I’ve done reprehensible things to you for far too long and I will never ask or expect you to forgive me. But I almost lost you, Dick. I had to say good-bye to you knowing there were far too many things I had left unsaid. First and foremost, that I love you and am so damn proud to call you my son.”

“But for how long this time?” The Adam’s apple of Dick’s throat bobbed as the younger man swallowed and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “I can’t keep doing this, Bruce. Back and forth, one day your son and then the next barely an acquaintance, desperate for approval that you’ll never give, never knowing if something I’ll say or do will have you beating me down, or flaying me with your words, or throwing me away again. I don’t want to be cruel, but I– I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you.”

Bruce had fully expected the reluctance and uncertainty. It was no less than he deserved. “I don’t want you to just accept what I’m saying. But I swear to you Dick, I am going to do everything in my power to show you that I can be a better man, a better father, than the one you knew. I’m doing the work this time and getting the help I need. It’s going to take time for you to believe me, as much time as you need it to. I will not risk ever losing you again, Chum.”

The hand that Dick reached out to him was shaking, and Bruce didn’t hesitate to grab onto it and squeeze it gently.

“We have been banished from the kitchen.” Kate appeared on the other side of Bruce, nudging him closer to his eldest while still holding the hand.

A tray with several empty glasses, bottles of water, cans of various sodas, and a basin of ice was set on the coffee table while Damian wedged himself between Bruce and his cousin, once more narrowing the space between him and Dick. “Now that Alfred has the lamb, he believes the meal will be ready in a little more than an hour. I propose we allow Richard to choose what we are watching while we wait.”

“No,” Montoya snarked, settling herself on Kate’s lap. “I cannot take another episode of Desperate Housewives. The absolute inanity of those women–”

“There’s always Grey’s Anatomy.” Kate suggested.

“I think I’ve had enough medical dramas for a while.” Dick griped and leaned against Bruce’s side.

Letting go of his son’s hand, Bruce put his arm around Dick’s shoulder and adjusted their positions until they were sitting comfortably. Muscle memory had his fingers carding through the hidden curls at the nape of Dick’s neck, a forgotten habit from when the position had been a familiar one. “What was that show we used to watch when you were younger? The one in that coffee shop in New York?”

“Friends.” Damian offered and nodded his approval while reaching for the remote “A sound choice, Father.”

“Haven’t seen that in a while.” Kate agreed. “Start from the beginning of season one?”

Conversation was light and comfortable and for the first time in far too many years, Bruce felt at peace. It wasn’t going to be easy, fixing the fracture to his family that he had caused. He didn’t doubt that there would be setbacks and failures, but he was nothing if not determined. He had meant it, every word, when he told Dick he would do everything and anything to rebuild their relationship.

Nothing was ever going to take his son away from him again.