Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He had many skills; he was aware of them, how they made him who he was; he spent hours honing them, perfecting them for use.

 If you asked the Justice League if the Batman had any “superpowers”, you’d get varied answers, very few of them having to do with his skills.

 ‘Intelligence’, ‘spookiness’, ‘he’s Batman’, ‘wealth’, and so on.

They would be wrong, entirely wrong.

 If the Batman was superhuman in anything about him, he was superhuman in his focus. Everything else- intelligence included- was acquired, acquired as a result of his focus.

Bruce could avoid anything he didn’t want to think about by simply turning his full and undivided attention on some kind of work. It was how he dealt with his post trauma problems, how he drew himself from the past, essentially how he managed to function. He looked like he had it all together, and he did, he was Batman, but somewhere inside he was aware of the mental damage he was operating under, and how he wouldn’t be a functioning adult if it weren’t for his uncannily strong focus.

 And yet, it had its cons.

Bruce had managed, inadvertently so, to repress most memories he had of his childhood, of his parents. He had refused to reminisce, because he couldn’t, because it hurt, because he couldn’t face the fact that they weren’t there any longer and so he trained as though his childhood hadn’t happened at all, and now- now. Now, all he remembered of his mother’s voice was how she had shrieked his father’s name as the gunshot rang through the alley; he vaguely remembered the scent of his father’s cologne but it was laced with his first memory of the stench of blood, so much blood.

 So the second time round he lost family, he made sure he would remember.

 Jason’s room was untouched. His uniform was cased and displayed in the Batcave. But even apart from that, he was everywhere.

 New books. Jason. Flowers from the grounds. Jason. Car tires. Jason. Peppermint tea. Jason. Distress calls. Jason. The color red. Jason. Crowbars. Jason.

Bruce wouldn’t distance himself from any of it. Every reminder of Jason chilled him to the bone, filling him with the desperate feeling of fumbling in the dark for a hand gone cold. He would bear all of it, he wouldn’t allow himself to forget Jason, he wouldn’t allow his lingering memory of his son to be the cold, bloody weight in his arms.

Of course, he didn’t know that he’d get to make new memories.

Jason, holding him up by the throat. Jason, towering over him like a monstrous caricature of his little boy. Jason, punching him repeatedly. Jason, screaming his failures in his face as if he already didn’t scream them to himself at night.

 Focus, Bruce told himself, going over the cases which Red Hood had “closed” before he had had his confrontation with Batman.

 Bruce tried to frown at the body count, but his face hadn’t quite healed yet. There were stitches all over his face and on his lower lip, plaster to make sure his nose healed perfectly straight- no lasting damage, he hoped, although he had faith in Leslie’s ability to reconstruct the visage of Brucie Wayne.

He sipped the peppermint tea that Alfred had made for him before he’d gone up to bed, after his customary warning that Bruce was not to step outside in the Batsuit for any reason or he would be facing consequences and Master Clark would most certainly be informed of his misbehavior (Bruce had tried to scowl, but had ended up grudgingly agreeing that he was still in no shape to go on patrol).

He was compiling all his Red Hood related information in an organized file when an alert drew his attention to the fact that his security system had been disabled.

 Selina, he realized. The only person who could and would disable his security system was Catwoman- so did that mean she was back in Gotham?

 Apparently so, but he checked his cameras anyway.

 Static footage.

Definitely Selina, he thought, getting up to go upstairs and make sure, anyway. As much as Bruce wouldn’t mind dying right now, Batman couldn’t afford any kind of complacency.

 He made his way upstairs, senses straining to pick up any kind of presence in the Manor. He got nothing.

 The first place where he checked was his bedroom- if it really was Selina, that’s where she was most likely to be.

 It was empty, and just as Bruce had left it. Bed made, windows closed. Nothing on the nightstand except for a lamp. For a few moments Bruce felt certain that he’d left a copy of “’Salem’s Lot” on the nightstand, but his tired brain dismissed the thought, and he went to check the security panel on the wall.

 Accessing his advanced settings, he found that the heat and motion sensors in the cave had gone off, notifying him of the presence of a heavy set man.

 Grabbing the katana in his closet, Bruce ran downstairs, but by the time he got to the cave the intruder had disabled lockdown and left.

 Stranger than that was the fact that the cave seemed untouched, but his mug of tea (which he was certain he had left half empty) was now entirely empty.

Chapter Text

“Not because of all the families he’s ruined, not because of all the graveyards he’s filled!” cried Jason. “Not even because he took me from you?”

  Jason’s words, his voice, played over and over in Bruce’s head.

J’onn was leading the team meeting with some kind of information about emergency medical aid, the Watchtower’s facilities and how to use them. It was clear that Bruce wasn’t listening, that he thought the meeting was a waste of time (they’d been over the medical equipment before. The monthly refresher was entirely unnecessary), but nobody really had it in them to say anything to him about it, not even Diana. There was purple bruising around Batman’s mouth, and he walked stiffly. A tired bat was a hand grenade with a loose pin, but an injured bat was an activated land mine.

   How had he wound up thinking about Jason, again?

Earlier in the day, he had been contemplating briefing the team about Red Hood; who he was, the dangers he posed, potential ways to incapacitate him, if need be. But he’d decided against it. Jason was a vigilante gone rogue- and although legally, he was a criminal, as well as a criminal in Batman’s books, Bruce was certain that he wouldn’t pose a threat to the League- he wouldn’t even try to, save perhaps another patricidal attack on Bruce himself.

 And really, he’d rather die than have a League member swoop in and save him from that.

 For courtesy’s sake, he tried to look more invested in what J’onn was saying, but his mind was on several things at once, all of those things involving his kids.

 He’d been avoiding Dick since the confrontation with Red Hood, but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up. Sooner or later, he’d have to talk to the boy, no matter how painful it might be to tell him the entire story.

 And Tim, well, Red Hood had already shown he wasn’t all too fond of his “replacement”, having- Tim.

 Oh, shit. Tim.

He was supposed to have had made lunch for Tim before leaving for his meeting. Alfred was in England, taking his one mandatory annual holiday, and Bruce was supposed to feed Tim.

 By the time the meeting was over, it would be past Tim’s lunchtime. Bruce wasn’t worried about Tim going hungry, no. He felt guilty, because he knew what Tim would say if he tried to apologize for his mistake.

“I’m used to taking care of myself,” Tim would say, nicely, and Bruce would be reminded just how often he ended up neglecting this already much neglected boy.

  Still, he decided, an apology was in order to Tim.  He watched J’onn take his seat as Clark rose to say something, and wondered how he’d tell Tim sorry. Maybe Tim would like a new car? But…no. Alfred had explained to him just how little material gifts did for boys who wanted words of approbation and affection. Bruce, who felt a Bugatti expressed both sentiments quite appropriately, had grudgingly agreed to try talking to his kids the next time the opportunity arose.

He passed when asked if there was something he wanted to add to the meeting, and hurried away to the teleportation pods before Clark and Diana could catch him for some post-meeting socializing. They both had it in their heads that the three of them were some kind of trinity, and Bruce was having no little groups of friendship within the League.

Not that he could stop the others.

It was late afternoon, and the Batcave was empty except for the bats strung up from the ceiling, fast asleep. How Bruce envied them.

 He was quick to change out of the cape and cowl, and to pull on some comfortable sweatpants and a shirt. No Wayne Enterprises work today- it was his official day off as “Brucie”, which meant he’d be doubling down on all his Justice League work, including his half-finished mission report from last week.

 But first, Tim.

Bruce found him in the living room, cleaning his camera lenses.

 “Hey, B!” he said, turning to Bruce with unusual energy.

 “Tim, about lunch,” Bruce began, cutting directly to the chase.

 “It was great, thanks,” grinned Tim. “I had no idea you knew how to make any more complex than toast.” He reached for the mug he had beside him on the table, taking a sip.

 Bruce froze. He knew Tim wouldn’t be sarcastic or snippy about not being left food, which meant that there had been food. Food which Bruce had apparently cooked. He said nothing else to Tim- turning on his heel, he made for the kitchen.

 Had Dick come in whilst he was gone? Likely, but then, why would he leave before Tim got home?

As expected, there was food in the kitchen. Fresh cooked food, with utensils in the sink. Tense, Bruce collected a sample and took it down to the Batcave.

   An array of tests later, he came to the conclusion that the food was not poisoned. Now that he knew Tim was not dying, he turned to review the security footage.

 It was all clean. Looped.

 Was his security lax? Was his intruder a super genius?

Was his intruder not an intruder at all, but someone with access?

Jason, said a voice in his head.

Jason, indeed, but…why?

 The question, along with a bright ray of hope that he tried to quash, buzzed in his head as he made his way up to his bedroom for a short session of transcendental meditation to clear his head before he got to work.

 He went inside, and his eye immediately caught two anomalies.

  A flower crown on his dresser, made of fresh flowers from what Bruce suspected were his own grounds.

 An electric mug, plugged into the socket above his nightstand. He approached the mug cautiously, and pulled the lid off.

 It contained nothing but the dregs of tea which someone had already drunk- peppermint tea, he gathered, from the scent that wafted up to him.

  Why?

To mess with his head, of course. To ‘yank his wings’.

 Bruce grimaced, unsure what to make of this, and decidedly unamused.

He was even more unamused when, later that evening, he found a whole wheel missing from the Batmobile.