Chapter Text
Duke is dead on his feet, standing in the cave exactly twenty-six hours from when Jason and Tim first called him and told him Bruce was missing. His eyes burn. His head aches. He's just watching the dance of the bat colony flying overhead, mesmerized by the patterns they make in the shadows. If he wanted to, he could rewind the light, watch the way they had flown when Duke had stood here yesterday and reacted to the news about Bruce. The way the bats above had clustered and scattered and settled while the bats below slowly started to fall apart, exhausting lead after lead. There's no reason to do it, it wouldn't change anything. And it'd be weird of Duke to use his meta abilities to watch bats. It'd be even weirder to look another day or so into the past just to see Bruce. So Duke doesn’t.
He keeps reviewing the moments from tonight in his head. Flamingo and the way Damian shut down. Arkham and Jane Doe disguising herself as a woman who happened to share the same first name as Duke's mom. Seeing the Joker through his ghost vision, out and free. The weird energy in the Bowery. The fire. Finding Zsasz dead and torn up in Robbinsville, a wide, unnatural smile stretched across his face. Almost like he-
Alfred finishes with the scanner and it beeps, sharp and grating. “All clear, Master Thomas,” his voice is crisp, despite likely being nearly as exhausted as the rest of them. “No sign of foreign technology. Everyone, it seems, is free of Hattertech.”
Duke slowly drags his gaze from the craggy arches of the cave ceiling back down to Alfred. The old butler smiles, his crows feet crinkling but somehow barely reaching the tired iron in his eyes. He claps Duke on the back. “Thank you for your patience. Would you mind terribly, putting the scanner back in its charging dock?”
Duke gives him a weak smile. “‘Course.”
Alfred nods his appreciation, already moving in to scrutinize the rest of the cave's inhabitants with militaristic efficiency. He seems to almost be doing the mental math on his own form of triage. Which squeaky wheel needs the grease? What cog needs to be adjusted so the machine can limp along for one more day? Who can keep themselves together for one hour more? Duke’s exhausted even thinking about it.
Immediately after Damian was scanned for mind control tech earlier, he practically ran upstairs to the manor to feed Titus and Alfred the Cat and his menagerie of other animals. He honestly probably also needed to take a moment to himself. Cass is in the transportation bay, getting Babs’ wheelchair out of the van in the tunnel entrance and helping her transfer into it. Across the main room, Dick has Tim wrapped in a tight, one-armed hug, and Tim is leaning on him with eyes closed, soaking in the contact like a cat in the sun. It would be sweet except for the way that Dick is trying and failing to pry the half-empty two liter bottle of Zesti out of Tim's hand. Alfred eyes the bottle disdainfully, like he's filing the information away and taking personal offense at its presence. Steph and Jason are sitting on some cots Alfred had dragged into the main cavern from the Medbay, so everyone could be involved in the debrief while he checked their wounds. Steph is chattering away and gesturing wildly with a pair of tweezers and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Jason is attempting to tie on his own sling one-handed.
Quietly under his breath, Alfred mutters “Oh dear,” and beelines towards them to wrestle them into some form of responsible wound care. Jason and Steph look cowed as he marches over. It's kinda impressive that Alfred is able to get them to sit for it at all. Making Jason or Steph accept medical treatment is like pulling teeth from a wet cat.
It all feels achingly normal.
Duke almost expects Bruce to come through the door from the locker rooms for the debrief after a long night.He'd look around, and call for the debrief, Batman only melting back into Bruce Wayne when all of the case reports were finally turned in. Then he'd smile softly and pour a gentle sort of intensity into his evening routine, or homework help, or insisting that he personally drives Duke back to Jay’s. That isn't going to happen tonight.
Dick spies Duke just standing there and holds out his other arm, beckoning him over. Duke still isn't nearly as close with Dick as he is with Cass, or Damian, or even Tim, but his body moves almost without permission, drawn to the idea of comfort like it's a physical need, cool water offered after a day in the sun. The second he’s near enough, Dick tucks him up under his other arm, giving up on his crusade against Tim’s caffeine habit. Unexpectedly, Duke's eyes sting. He's so tired. It's warm, wrapped up in Dick's embrace. He smells vaguely like the gunpowder from Red Hood's weapon of choice, sweat, and blood, and beneath that, something unmistakably, soothingly familiar. He can't quite place it. Duke could cry from the sheer exhaustion, and the ache of someone else taking some of the weight.
Pressed up beside him, Tim opens one eye and smiles slightly. “You’ve made a terrible mistake,” he whispers dryly. “ You're stuck here now.”
Dick's arms tighten around them. “Shhh Timmy. Just let me hold my baby vigilantes. I need it.”
Tim huffs like he's annoyed, but his eye closes, settling in for the long haul. Duke's glad. Tim and Dick have been acting weird and snappy towards each other for the past week or so and it's been putting everyone on edge. They don't really fight, not the way Jason and Bruce, or Dick and Bruce, or even Jason and Dick fight. With everyone else, it's something explosive and loud. Something that reverberates. With Tim and Dick, It's more like someone leaks vibe arsenic into the air, and poisons every interaction. All festering tension and unspoken resentment. It clearly comes from a place of love, but it complicates things. And it stresses the entire team out. Hopefully they've finally chilled the fuck out and talked about whatever was bothering them. Like adults.
Although it's not like they exactly had good role models for communication. Bruce might actually be the worst of them all at talking things out.
Speaking of being bad at talking about feelings-
Damian appears, clearing his throat from behind them. Tim stiffens, suddenly pushing away from the hug hard enough that soda spills out of the bottle and splatters across the cave’s stone floor. Dick's mouth forms a thin, unhappy line. The vibe arsenic is back, and Duke could practically choke on it. Guess they didn't talk things through after all.
Damian shifts nervously, holding out Duke's phone to him. “Tt. You left your telephone in the kitchen. The alerts were going off and stressing out Alfred. He kept yowling.”
Duke takes his phone bemusedly, swiping it open. “Thanks,” he says. The kid inexplicably looks relieved.
There's two missed calls and some messages from his cousin Jay around 9:00pm, asking if he was planning to come home last night and warning him to avoid the East side of the Narrows due to gun fire. Probably from the fight with Mask's men where they found the Flamingo. Iz texted him a question about the essay due Wednesday and Riko left him several messages about possible leads relating to a series of daylight robberies of small businesses in the narrows. He shoots out a text to Jay, letting him know he's okay and that he'll be home in an hour or two. He leaves the other two on read. He can answer after the debriefing.
Dick’s breath ghosts over Duke’s scalp, and it’s warm. He’s not so subtly reading the messages over Duke’s shoulder. “It sounds like Luke, Helena, and Kate have things covered right now if you want to get some rest here after the debrief,” he offers tentatively. “I know Alfred has your room ready. And you're probably exhausted.”
Duke pulls himself gently from the hug, an odd pang in his gut. It's not that he feels weird staying here. He practically splits his time between the manor and Jay’s apartment these days. It's just. It isn't his home. Neither of them really are. Home is-was a cozy apartment in the narrows, filled with library books, and shea butter, and the sound of the Armenian family upstairs arguing and singing. Sometimes dad would even sing along. Home is long gone.
Duke glances off to the side, feeling oddly guilty. “Thanks, but I kinda want to visit my parents later, and Jay’s is closer to the hospital.” Dick's shoulders slump the slightest bit. The guilt intensifies.
Tim nods understandingly, pulling out his own phone to check his inbox. “You took the bus here, right? I can give you a ride if you want, I'm planning on heading to The Nest after this.”
“Tt,” Damian scoffs. “Drake, you will surely crash and kill yourself and Thomas if you drive right now.”
“Aww,” Tim mutters sarcastically, typing a series of quick messages into his phone. “I knew you cared.”
“Thomas is an asset,” the venom is weak. “and your burning corpse would likely block egregious amounts of traffic,” Damian tacks on.
Dick puts his face in his hands. “ Can we stop the bickering for five minutes please? Tim, he's right. Either you both take a nap before you drive anywhere, or see if Alfred can take you. I think we're all considered legally impaired from sleep deprivation right now."
“Cause we're always so worried about legality,” Duke says at almost the same time Tim exclaims, “You literally drove here!”
Babs clears her throat from the Bat Computer.
“Hey, we're ready.”
They all fall silent, drawn to the magnetic pull of the monitors. To the promise of a lead.The screen changes, pixels colliding and coloring and scoring the boroughs of the dead and the damned. A map of Gotham.
Barbara clicks something and dots highlight across the map in rapid succession. “ Erithacus street,” she says, words clipped. Another dot appears. “The Narrows.” And another. “ Arkham.” Another. They keep going. “ Newtown. Blackgate. Coventry. Central Coventry Bridge. Gotham Sewerage.” Each point is a death knell. A tomb drawn in Gotham's streets. It’s silent in the cave, like even the bats in the rafters are holding their collective breaths. Barbara turns to face them all, a glint in her eye. “and Robbinsville. These are all of the crimes committed last night against rogues or with evidence connecting them to the Erithacus list.”
Duke's mouth goes dry.
Carved into the map, each point red as arterial blood, is an arrow. An arrow pointing to the north side of Gotham. To Crime Alley. To a backstreet behind a little theater where a mother and a father were once shot and killed in front of their son. The arrow points to the birthplace of Batman.
Barbara continues, eyes shining with the thrill of the chase. Sometimes Duke thinks all the adrenaline and exhilaration he gets from a fight, Oracle finds in tracking clues and digital footprints. This is her stage, her hunting grounds. She whirls, pointing to the screen. “There's a few spots missing, but the pattern is clear. I suggest we-”
“You can put a dot there,” Tim interrupts. She pauses to study him. His expression is carefully neutral, all business, all Red Robin or the ruthless teen CEO of Wayne Enterprises.
“The house fight outside of Monolith square?” Barbara questions.
Tim nods crisply, not turning away from the screen. There's a sharp undercurrent of something beneath the blank set of his face. “Hatter's dead. Joker venom. And uh-,” he grimaces slightly. “And a boomerang. I was about to call it in when you had us report back. Kate’s looking into it.”
Dick's brow creases. “A boomerang,” he says at the same time Jason mutters “Joker venom.”
A lump forms in Duke's throat. While public speaking isn't exactly his favorite, he doesn't usually get nervous in front of the other bats anymore. He used to, when Bruce first started training him and nothing ever felt good enough, but Duke's earned his place. He. He shouldn't be nervous. He just needs sleep and he'll feel normal again. One of many reasons that Duke usually sticks to the day shift, is that he very much needs his eight hours or his emotions are all over the place. Case and point. He clenches his fists, then relaxes his body with an exhale, pushing through the discomfort. “Zsasz died with this giant smile on his face. He had a lot of stab wounds, so COD was pretty obvious, but…” Duke swallows uncomfortably, voice shrinking. “I nabbed a blood sample so we could run toxicology. It could be related.”
Everyone looks at him, the weight of their gaze boring into his frame. Duke feels like he's under a microscope, every micro-expression and shift in body language scrutinized for signs of cracking beneath the report. Jason frowns. Barbara grips the arms of her wheelchair tight enough that Duke can hear the pleather creaking. “You think it might be Joker Venom too?” She asks, her voice deadly quiet.
Duke nods, “Yeah.” he mumbles. Incongruously, Duke thinks of his dad. There’d been a day in sixth grade when everyone in Duke’s class had to present a poem they’d written, about their personal hero. Duke had picked his mom, cheesy, he knows. But he’d been really, really proud of it. That’s why he’d been so nervous. What if everyone hated it? Duke had been practically shaking when he asked if he could stay home sick. His dad had called him on it, and asked what was really going on. Then he’d made Duke practice the poem in the mirror, shouting, and in funny voices, and laying upside down on the couch. Duke had gone to class grinning and confident. “Duke,” dad had said. “ If you have an opinion worth saying, then say it with your whole chest. Chin-up. Voice loud. Stand behind your words and your work.”
Duke misses him so bad it hurts.
The memory cuts in, as they always do these days, with an afterimage of his parents grinning grotesquely, eyes vacant. Duke swallows hard.“Yes,” Duke repeats, firmly this time. “The smile was- is familiar. It’s just a hunch, but that’s why I took the blood.”
Jason nods, eyes a venomous green, “Good work, Narrows.”
Duke gives him a half-hearted smile. Well, it's really more of a stare. So they're both just going to pretend they aren't freaking out about this? He's burning holes into Jason with his eyes.
Jason’s doing that thing he does where he sets his shoulders back and keeps himself super still, like if he's caught fidgeting, everyone will know he's losing it. The way he stands, the steel in his eye- it makes him look like a soldier, and it’s making Duke nervous. Barbara also has this grim, steely glare that sends shivers down Duke's spine. Dick has been practically dissociating this whole debriefing. Tim is back on his wrist computer. Cass has pulled herself up on the cot and is leaning against Steph, head on her shoulder. They look like they're both a hairsbreadth from falling asleep. Damian is scanning the perimeters of the cave like he's expecting a threat to crash through the ceiling at any moment. Alfred is stress-cleaning in the Medbay. They need to get it together. All of them.
Okay. Think it through.
Duke understands why the Joker venom is upsetting. Fuck, he's upset. Duke despises the stuff. But, the use of it breaks the case pattern. The rogues have been killed in ironic ways, mimicking their own crimes. As far as they know, Zsasz and Hatter wanted nothing to do with Joker Venom in their years terrorizing Gotham, even if they had occasionally worked alongside the Joker himself. Could this be a sign from the mystery perpetrator about what's next? An escalation? Is Joker just feeling left out and just adding to the chaos? Where does B fit into this? Or the missing kids?
Babs drums a finger along the armrest of her wheelchair, clearly reigning in her own hurricane of emotions. In the space of a single breath, Duke watches her slot the vortex behind Oracle's neutral veneer. It's as impressive as it is frightening. She pushes a steadying breath out of her teeth. “Send me the results when you've run the sample, Signal.” Oracle directs. “Catwoman agreed to scout out Crime Alley and report back, but for now I think we should all get a few hours of rest, and then investigate potential disturbances along the gaps in the arrow across Gotham.” She pauses, her expression twisting to vaguely irritated. “Harley Quinn heard a rumor that Batman was responsible for some of these crimes. If we can catch someone in the act, we'll be that much closer to finding Bruce and taking down this bastard.”
And so on the debrief continues.
Time seems to slow down to tar around them. It takes another hour or so to review mind control protocols regarding Hattertech, potential compromisation of Batman, and leaks of identity. The forty-five minutes after that entail a thorough debriefing of everyone's versions of the events of the night. Focus is a distant fantasy, hazy filters of apathy easing the tales of gore and loose ends. Dick barely reacts when Jason tells him about Zuko, just a slight tightening of his jaw, a curt nod, and something dark glittering in his eyes. Steph tells them that the fire was at her old apartment, and Duke chooses not to examine how he feels that she didn't tell him back when he was with her at the scene. The others go over their nights. About Dent, and Cobblepot, and the body in the ocean. About all the corpses across their city, of killers and thieves who hurt them, but at the end of the day, were still people. People who needed serious help, but nevertheless deserved to live.
They wrap up with tense silence and tired sighs. It's definitely a weird vibe in the cave, and Dick leaves almost immediately after the debrief is over. There's bubble wrap in the air, and none of them want to be the first to pop it.
It's Alfred, who breaks the quiet. He offers to run the blood sample for Duke, but he's soon roped into Steph’s newly inherited effort to take the Zesti from Tim, so Duke just runs it himself. The results are not unexpected, but it still makes his stomach sink. He still hears laughter in his ears. He still sees his mom and dad’s strained grins and frightened, vacant eyes. Zsasz has a significant concentration of Joker Venom in his blood, overloading his receptors to something adjacent to serotonin syndrome. His central nervous system is fried. Even if he wasn't stabbed to death, he would have been catatonic or brain dead from the sheer amount in his system. Just like Duke's parents.
The instinct to see them sharpens into something painful and urgent. It's clear there's already a target on the Bat’s civilian IDs, what's to stop this psycho from going after family as well as enemies? They already went after innocent kids. Bruce says escalation is almost assured with crimes like these. His parents are sitting ducks.
Duke's ready to head right over, but Steph reminds him that the hospital visiting hours aren't until ten am, and Damian and Cass practically wrestle him upstairs for a nap and some food.
He doesn't expect to sleep, with the adrenaline still coursing through him like an electric current. But the second his head hits the pillow, Duke is out.
He knows he has dreams, but they're fleeting. Vague and ephemeral shifts of emotions and half-formed regret. When he wakes up, it's only with a vague sense of panic and dread, and no real reason or memory of why.
The thin light of an overcast morning seeps through the gauzy curtains of his window. Duke didn't bother to pull the blackout shade before he crashed, and he hadn't wanted to sleep for too long, but Cass had stubbornly turned off his phone alarm every time he tried to set one. His room at the manor usually gets more afternoon light, so it's probably nearing eleven in the morning. He's still tired, and it looks like it's only been about three hours, but anxiety is braiding itself into the rigidity of his muscle fibers.
‘Duke’s room’ at the manor is still pretty sparse. He hasn't officially moved in, but Alfred and Bruce still insist on treating the room as if it's already his. They got him fancy silk pillowcases, and bonnets for his hair. His favorite products are in the showers. He's got a picture that Damian painted for him taped up to a wall, a signed Anderson Silva fighter flag Bruce got him for his birthday, and some various Tarantino movie posters.That's about it. On the dresser are a scattered handful of paint color swatches that Bruce had insisted on him picking out for the room. He took Duke to choose them the day he got partial custody. An unintentional claim on Duke, and to have him make his mark on the household. It isn't a replacement for home. It's just a different sort of belonging. He's trying not to overthink it. Overthinking is generally what convinced Duke to run from all those other foster homes and he doesn't want to run from another good thing.
Cass and Dami are curled up on either side of him on the bed. After they bullied him into a protein shake and a nap, they sandwiched him to make sure Duke followed through. The bed is crowded, with Titus’ heavy head resting across Duke's thighs like a seatbelt. It's- it's nice. He's not used to that much human contact anymore besides when he's sparring. It's not like Jay and Duke are close enough for cuddles.
He tentatively reached out to stroke Titus’ velvety ears and the dog huffs, tilting his chin to give better access. Duke smiles softly, as Damian mutters something in Arabic in his sleep. It's peaceful here. A liminal space tucked into the chaos of the last two days. Damian looks so young, without that permanent scowl he wears like armor on his face. Cass looks relaxed too, all stretched out like a sunning cat. It's going to be almost impossible to extricate himself without waking them, but Duke tries anyway, attempting to pull himself out from underneath the covers. Titus, the traitor, thumps his tail and it hits Damian.
Well, it was worth a try. Duke knew sneaking past two former assassins would definitely not be the easiest task, sleepy though they may be. Damian's green eyes slit open, suspicious. “And where do you think you are going, Thomas.”
“Uh-” Duke says eloquently.
Cass inches closer, awake now too. Her eyes are half-closed and bleary, but she clicks her tongue at him. “One more hour, little brother.”
Duke smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, but I gotta get back to Jay's,” he hesitates. It feels bad to pull the guilt trip, but Damian and Cass will use their puppy dog eyes to keep him here otherwise. They learned from Dick Grayson , and his eyes are near lethal. There's only one route of escape. “and I want to visit my parents.”
Damian's scowl is already affixed. “Surely that can wait another hour.”
“Limited visitation window.”
Cass stretches, long and leisurely like she has all the time in the world. “I'll come.’
“I-” wait, what?
Cass rolls out of the bed and to her feet in one smooth motion, waltzing to Duke's en suite bathroom. “Buddy system,” she declares. “it's protocol. ”
‘Tim's driving me,” Duke says quickly.
Cass tilts her head. “Staying with you?”
“Yes,” Duke says. He doesn't know why he tries it against the human lie detector, but he desperately wants some alone time.
Cass just shakes her head reproachfully. “Ready in ten.” She shuts the door with a definitive click.
Duke lets out an exasperated huff as he clambers over Damian- who grumbles and swats at him- to pull his phone from the bedside table. It looks like Damian or Cass was kind enough to plug it in for Duke after he fell asleep. The charge is back up from thirty-five to a respectable eighty-two percent. And the time is actually a little past noon.
Duke allows himself a second to glare at the door. Technically, the buddy system is a part of their mind control protocol, but he'd assumed that was just for patrol. Some company during the day shift wouldn't be so bad, but twenty-four-seven babysitting is gonna drive him nuts, no matter how much Duke likes Cass.
“Drake is chauffeuring you?” Damian asks skeptically.
Duke blinks, turning his attention back to his grumpy little brother. He’s sporting a black eye from patrol. It looks like he forgot to ice it. “Uh yeah, I think so.”
“Tt,” Damian looks away from Duke, scooting up closer to the great oak headboard. “You should confirm that he actually slept before climbing into a vehicle he is operating,” Damian mutters, sliding his head back down to thump into Duke's pillow. After a second, he whistles sullenly and Titus scoots up closer to him. Damian runs his hand through the dog’s silky fur. His voice is small, when he says, “Timothy is upset.” His hand pauses on Titus' mid back. “Perhaps he is obsessing about the boomerang he found.”
There's a thin undercurrent of doubt, or guilt, or something there. It's hard to tell which, Damian wears them all the same. The insecurity runs so heavily beneath the false bravado that the facade is thin and worn as old paper. Damian protects it viciously, like a tender bruise.
Warmth and unexpected fondness blooms in his chest. Duke scoots a little closer, reaching out to pet Titus as well. The dog's tongue lolls out and he rolls over to expose his soft belly. “Y’know,” Duke starts, a teasing lilt entering his tone. He runs his hands up and down Titus' stomach. “I didn't know allergies to feelings were genetic.You can just say if you're worried about him.”
He knows it's a mistake the second the words leave his mouth. Immediately, Damian's face closes off, faster than a bear trap slamming shut, and just as painful.
“Tt, I do not know to what you are referring, Thomas. Now, if you'll kindly silence yourself, some of us are trying to sleep.” He huffs, turning over and pulling the comforter up to his chin in one motion. It's such an unmistakably childish movement that Duke almost smiles despite his irritation. Why won't anyone in this house just talk to each other?
Duke tucks the covers around Damian's pointedly still form, and rummages through his drawers for a set of clean clothes. He ends up finding a weird mix of clothes from Dick, and Bruce, and whatever he borrowed the last time he stayed the weekend. He has Bruce's Batgirl hoodie that Steph bought him last Christmas, a pair of basketball shorts that are definitely not Duke's but he doesn't know whose they were originally, and the socks… well they have that cartoon dog from Bluey on them, but no one is gonna see them anyway. The Greenday tee is probably Tim's considering it's a little tight around Duke's shoulders but mostly fits. It's…not a great outfit but Duke can change when he gets to Jay's. The shoes, at least, are his.
Duke goes looking for Tim. He's not in his room, or the kitchen, so Duke opens the clock in Bruce's study and heads down to the cave. Sure enough, Tim is hunched at the bat computer typing away. He doesn't acknowledge Duke. There's a scan on the boomerang structure and trace chemical compounds found on its surface. It looks like Tim was running it on a reverse search against their substance database. On another monitor, Tim seems to be running a trace on some kind of signal. The blue light of the screen draws out the shadows in his face. He looks like a ghost.
Duke stops a few feet short of the chair. “So, " he says, pulling up another seat and kicking Tim's chair to face him. "Why do you have beef with a twelve-year-old?"
Tim's brow furrows, body turned but head swiveling so his eyes can stay locked onto the monitor. "I-" he drags his gaze over to Duke, looking genuinely baffled. "What are you talking- I don't think -" he glances back at the screen. "We're good, I think?" Tim stops. "Are we talking about Damian? Isn't he fourteen?"
"He's spiritually twelve," Duke says, slumping down into his chair, and kicking his feet up onto the armrest of Tim's. "You're good?" He asks disbelievingly.
Tim leans forward, fingers dancing rapidly across the keys- inputting code to isolate a tracker signal it looks like. "Yeah? Why wouldn't we be-" realization breaks across his face, then guilt. He turns to face Duke. "Oh . Um-" he leans back slightly, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eyes. "Damian and I might've been fighting?"
Duke rolls his eyes upwards. Searching for patience. "You think ," he says dryly.
Tim winces. "I might've punched him."
Well that explains the growing shiner. "I noticed," Duke says, kicking off Tim's chair to spin around in his own. The ceiling whirls above him, a craggy circle of grayish light. The bats are flying again, spooked by Duke’s voice. "What this time?"
Tim sounds sheepish. "Uh, I think maybe not enough sleep and too much brat." He takes a breath like he's trying to convince himself. "And he hit first, but I think we're good now."
Duke stops his chair, kicking to turn the other direction. "And Dick?"
Tim sounds startled. "Okay, I was pretty sleep deprived, but I'm ninety percent sure I didn't hit Dick."
Duke stops the chair, enjoying the way the world seems to go on spinning without him. "No," He finds Tim's face in the movement and levels a judgmental eyebrow raise. "I mean why are you fucking fighting?"
Tim blinks twice. "We-we're not?" He glances back at the screen. "I don't think so, anyway?" He sounds more sure now, albeit a little hesitant. "I mean, things are definitely a little weird right now but I wouldn't say we're fighting. I think we're good?" He tears his eyes from the screen back to Duke." I'm not mad at him, if that's what you're asking."
Duke swears trying to get anyone in Wayne Manor to talk about emotions is like pulling teeth. " Weird how?" Duke says, drawing out the words like Tim is stupid.
Tim kind of gestures in an all encompassing motion. He opens his mouth to answer, but the signal locater beeps and he turns back to the screen, locking in his focus.
There's silence between the clacking of the keys before Tim stops suddenly. "Got you."
Duke leans in. "Got a lead?"
Tim saves the data to his laptop drive and clicks closed the window. "Maybe." He rolls to his feet, stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. "I need to look into it a little more with some of my stuff from the nest. You still want a ride to Jay's?"
Duke watches him carefully. He's hiding something, that much is clear. But he trusts Tim. "Only if you actually got some rest ."
"Okay, rude. I did, but if you're so worried -" he fishes around in his pocket. "You have your learners permit, right? You can drive." Tim grins and tosses him the keys, and it is only by the grace of Duke's precognition that he's able to catch them.
Duke blinks, then grins back disbelievingly at Tim. "Redbird?" It's a distraction, he's being distracted. But damn does he want to drive that car.
"Yep! Uh-" Tim falters. " You've driven before, right?"
Duke levels him with a stare and points at the transport bay packed with batmobiles, motorbikes, and a literal plane. Duke’s driven nearly all of them.
"No, I mean following traffic laws," Tim leans over, rifling around beneath the base of the bat computer desk for his bag. "I don't want another speeding ticket."
"Yeah, Jay took me," Duke hesitates. "And Bruce."
Tim stands up, sliding his laptop into the bag. When he turns to face Duke, his mouth is pulled into a flat line, something intense and almost manic behind his eyes. It's gone a second later, like it was never there. Tim smiles again. "Alright then, ready to go Ducky?"
"Ugh, " Duke wrinkles his nose. "Try a different nickname, that one's terrible. Yeah, I'm-"
For half a second, Duke considers leaving Cass behind. He could just hop in Redbird and drive away. It's not like Tim's brought up the protocol. He either forgot or doesn't want to be asked where his own "mind control buddy" ended up. Cass would find him though, and she'd make Duke pay for leaving her.
Duke scratches his head, looking longingly towards the transport bay. "I'm just waiting on Cass."
She meets them in the manor garage. When she inevitably asks where Tim's buddy is, he just says that Steph is catching up with him at the nest. Cassie doesn't call him out, so it probably isn't a lie, at least directly. Duke decides not to pry.
Ten minutes later, the three of them are speeding down the highway towards Gotham. It feels good to drive. Exhilarating. The cherry red sports coupe is sleek and aerodynamic and it drives smooth as butter. Tim's a good driving instructor, too. Well, with the exception of pointedly calling Duke 'Ducky' after each tip. It's almost enough to distract Duke from Batman being missing. Or the nagging, prying feeling that his parents are gonna be dead when Duke gets to Gotham Mercy. Almost.
Duke opts to skip Jay's and head straight to the hospital, Bluey socks and all. He needs to see his mom and dad now. Needs to confirm that they're safe with his own two eyes.
Tim takes over the driver's seat at the visitor drop-off, zooming off with an exaggerated salute. Cass watches him leave with eyes dark. "Plotting."
"Yeah," Duke agrees . They go in.
Duke's mind and his body always seem to separate at the hospital. Not when he’s injured, never when he’s injured. There’s distraction if there’s pain, and it grounds him into the moment. Something to focus on besides the incessant buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the wave after wave after wave of input being fed into his senses. When he is a visitor at a hospital though, his mind is a meat-grinder and the light crams him to the bursting with unintelligible information. The ghosts here linger and fade almost at random, blending moments past and future into a homogeneous sequence of despair and apathy. It’s dizzying, but his feet know the way.
When he focuses again, the setting is familiar. Same sterile linoleum floors. Same uncomfortable plastic chairs. Same beige curtains. Same occupied hospital beds. He wishes that seeing them made him feel any better. They're still breathing, but that's about it. No glimpses of the clever, compassionate people Duke remembers show on their faces. No sign that they even remember they used to be people.
Even so, Duke talks. He talks and he talks and he talks, but he doesn't know what he says. He rarely does, letting out a stream of consciousness instead of any real form of conversation. It's not like they can hear him, but sometimes he tries to pretend they can. Today is not one of those days. Today, Duke just needs to let it out.
The window shade is open, gray light bouncing off the harbor and casting blended shadows across Elaine Thomas’ cheeks. They're hollow. She is hollow. Ashen and waxy skin stretched too wide over painfully bared teeth. No one bothered to turn on the overhead light, but the glow of the exit sign is tinging everything green and the glare of it across the enamel of Doug Thomas’ own frozen smile is tilting the reality of the hospital room so very far away. The buzzing of overhead speakers and the beeping of machines could be in space for all Duke is aware. All sound drowned out in the vacuum.
In the green glow, and haunted by his own living ghosts, Duke’s thoughts are as scattered as leaves in the wind. When Jane Doe stole the face of an Elaine, was it a coincidence? A threat? Can anyone even hurt Duke’s parents more than they've already been hurt? Driven to catatonia by joker venom and fated to rot in a hospital bed? And then there's Zsasz. His body in Robbinsville had been carved to pieces with a jagged blade. But… but he’d been smiling. And not a small, self satisfied sort of thing. A great, big, say-cheese, manic sort of smile, fixed onto his face like a mask. Duke had enlarged the light of the sample to see inside on a microscopic level with his own eyes. He wanted to be sure. And he-
Click. The lights stutter on, jarring painfully across Duke’s eyes and drowning out the green with fluorescent white. He blinks a few times, getting used to the glare. It’s stupid that he has literal light powers but his eyes still take a few seconds to adjust from darkness to light. Someone should fix that. actually…trauma usually levels Duke up, so maybe a new stab wound would fix that issue. If went and got into some kind of fight-
Something hits Duke’s forehead. It's small. Duke blinks down bemusedly at the- paper straw? Yeah, the wrapped paper straw that just fell into his lap. He slowly tilts his head upwards, eyes following the trajectory to land on Cass who is standing in the doorway holding a paper cup. She picks up another cup from the counter where she must have set it when she turned on the light. She pads over, face carefully blank as she scans across the empty husks that used to be Duke’s parents. Duke doesn’t know if he imagines the sad little shake of her head. They aren’t really smiling. Not like the green light made it seem. He must have imagined that particular detail. Sometimes they do smile like that or giggle in seizure-like fits, but both their faces are blank and placid, like they’ve been sleeping for hours.
Cass leans over and plants a kiss on top of Duke’s head, and worms one of the cups into his hands. Duke accepts it gratefully, looking away from the bed to poke the straw through the lid and take a sip. He wrinkles his nose and looks imploringly back up at Cass. “Sprite?” He frowns, betrayed. “ I said something with caffeine.”
“Little brother, still growing,” Cass says, tossing him back a shit-eating grin.
Duke snorts, then sputters when Sprite nearly goes up his nose. “I’m already taller than Tim,” he points out.
She shakes her head in mock disappointment. “Why he is short. Too much Zesti,” she leans over him so they are eye to eye, then reaches out to flick Duke’s forehead pointedly. “ Not enough sleep.”
Duke grins at her, rubbing his forehead. “Well I definitely have him beat on that front so I think-"
Mom shifts in her hospital bed, and Cass and Duke both freeze. They are statues for the space of three breaths, before Duke forces himself to look away, blinking out the sting in his eyes. They do that sometimes, his parents. Just little movements. Muscles spasming and neurons firing. It's normal. Expected, the doctors say. Elaine and Doug aren’t technically considered brain dead, but they aren't really ‘there’ either, so sometimes their bodies move. Even knowing it can happen, Duke’s heart still freezes every time with something painfully, pathetically close to hope. It feels like the universe is playing a particularly cruel joke each and every time it happens.
Cass’s hand rests on Duke’s shoulder, warm even through the layer of his sweatshirt. He eases out the air that's gone solid and stale in his lungs
Suddenly this little room is suffocating. Duke doesn’t want to look up and see his parents' forms, twitching like they're dreaming and could wake at any moment. He doesn’t want to see their faces peeled wide with a smile that looks painfully frozen onto their faces. He actually just doesn't want to be in here anymore. Duke stands, and Cass lets her hand fall back to her side without protest. Duke pushes his drink back into her hand, wiping the lingering condensation on his pant leg. “I’m, uh-,” Duke clears his throat, looking down at the floor, then daring to glance back up into Cass’s eyes. They’re sad. Concerned. Pitying. Duke looks away. “I’m gonna grab something from the vending machine, be back in a few.”
He’s out the door of room 213 before he can even catch her response.
Duke walks until the familiarity of motion eases his sanity back beneath his skin. He’s in a long hallway, buzzing lights and deep shadows. Someone is maybe talking. There's a jungle with monkeys and tigers painted on the walls. Pediatrics, probably. The voice talks again and Duke forces himself to focus on the sound. It grates his ears, low and gruff.
“Hey. You lost, son?” It says, with an irritated enough tone that Duke thinks this probably isn’t the first time he’s been asked.
Duke surfaces enough to bristle at the nickname from a stranger, teeth setting in irritation. “Don’t call me that,” he mutters, whirling to glare at the man who- of fucking course. At the cop, condescending down to him.
Duke doesn’t recognize him, which doesn’t mean anything good. He knows the faces of everyone Gordon stamped with his seal of approval. Duke still prefers to do his own research on them before he forms any opinions though, since he and Gordon have had some very different life experiences, but even if Gordon has sent this guy, Duke doesn't like him. The man is tall and broad. Everything about him feels square and block-like, from his mustache, to his jawline, to his beady, cold eyes that seem to say 'give me a reason, kid.'
“I said, are you lost son?” the man repeats again with thinly veiled impatience.
Duke’s smile is more a bearing of teeth.”Nope! Not lost,” He says with false cheer. Duke hesitates. It’s a bad idea to antagonize this cop, but he says anyway. “And not your son.”
Duke watches the man’s impatience solidify into disdain. He shifts his bulk towards Duke, unmistakably threatening. “This is a restricted wing, son. You can’t-”
The door to the room behind the cop slides open, a nurse stepping out. “Let me know if you need anything else, Jason,” they say with a warm smile. Duke blinks, taking in the whiteboard on the door to the room.’ Edwards’ is sprawled across it in green dry erase marker, with a magnet of a ladybug on the corner. One of the kids from the Erithacus list, found at the scene of Flamingo’s murder. Duke wonders distantly if his feet knew the way here too. Was it coincidence? Some new form of precognition? Sheer luck? All of the above?
The nurse smiles bemusedly, looking between the cop and Duke. “Oh, hello.” They seem to come to some sort of conclusion at Duke’s body language, and shift slightly to put themself between Duke and the cop, their back to Duke. “Something the matter here, officer?” they ask brightly, tilting their head.
Duke’s not in uniform. He's a normal looking teenager and he has no reason to be in there right now, besides pure instinct screaming at him to talk to Edwards. His body took him here. Duke hasn't gotten this far by ignoring his gut .
"This is a restricted area," the cop says, looming into the nurse's space.
"Jason's allowed visitors as long as they’ve been vetted," The nurse says firmly. They turn slightly to Duke and smile, warm and encouraging. “Are you on his visitation list?"
Duke wracks his brain for the file on Edwards. Kid disappeared thirteen days ago off of Erithacus street. He played the oboe in his middle school orchestra. Placed second in fifth grade science fair. Not a ton of friends. A foster kid, re-homed 4 times. Duke can relate. When questioned, Edward’s foster parents claimed he'd just ran away. He was reported missing by one of his foster siblings that he was fairly close with after about a week; a seventeen-year-old named William Johnson.
"I'm Will. His foster brother?" Duke tries, hoping desperately that the nurse hasn't met the other boy.
"You got any form of ID?" The cop says scowling.
The nurse frowns and plants their feet, arms crossing. They're small, with warm brown skin and big gold-rimmed glasses, but they've got a presence that seems to command the room. They feel safe. "He's a kid, officer," The nurse says with a defiant frown. "And it'll do Jason some good to have a familiar face visit him. He's been so quiet."
The nurse takes another step forward, crowding the cop's space. They wave Duke in. "Go ahead Will. Jason'll be glad to see you." They turn to stare the cop down, all 5 feet and 1 inch of menace.
Duke gives the cop a gloating smile, and slips through the door.