Chapter Text
Sarah
There was just something so distinctly soothing about the way that Dick was holding her. Sarah hadn’t dared attempt to pry herself away from him - she knew better, Dick’s hugs were all-encompassing and only ended when he was ready to end them - since falling into his arms, but she wasn’t complaining.
The desperate way his fingers clutched at her was telling enough.
“Dick,” She said softly, bringing her hands to cup the back of her brother’s head. “We have to go. Babs and B need our help.”
Dick pulled away just long enough to take a deep, slow breath and readjust his domino before they were both heading for the elevator that would lead them deeper into the GCPD building.
Bruce was going to have her head for going back into the field with a barely stabilized ankle. Oh well. She’d done worse.
Like keeping the secret about Jason being alive from him.
“You stay with Babs,” Dick called over his shoulder as they approached the room that Bruce had placed Barbara in to do her surveillance. “I’ll follow B to the Clock Tower. That’s where Scarecrows forces went.”
Sarah nodded and slowly eased herself into the chair beside Barbara. “I suck at tech, but I’ll be the first line of defense,” She retorted. “Oh…. Only if I had my guns…..”
“Way ahead of you,” Barbara commented. She tapped Sarah’s shoulder and pointed to the table beside the doorway where Dick stood watching their encounter. Sitting on the table was two silenced pistols and her abandoned escrima sticks. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d used them. “I’m sure you’ll need all of those. I think you may have older armor here too. To replace what The Knight broke.”
“How did you-“
She grinned wickedly. “B’s influence. I always come prepared. Had my dad stash it here a while ago for safekeeping.” Barbara lightly knocked her knuckles against the computer screens. “Ah, there we go. Lost a couple of servers in the madness but they should be up and running again by the time B gets back here.”
“I thought Scarecrow was launching an attack?” Dick interjected. “Isn’t that what you said?”
All three of them froze as Batman came running back into the room, skidding to a stop when he laid eyes on his kids and his associate. She could see him fighting the internal urge to smother her in his hold as her brother had only moments beforehand.
“B?” Sarah asked hesitantly. “Everything okay?”
“I am fine. You are not.” He remarked pointedly. “Don’t you dare even think about putting those guns into those holsters. I won’t have you get injured any-“
Barbara stiffened as tremors rocked the building around them.
“What was that?!”
“Trouble.” Batman motioned to Nightwing with a quick flick of his hand. “At the very least, she can keep Oracle safe with her nonlethal rounds. I need your help scouting outside.”
Sarah watched her brother’s smooth transition from Dick - the overbearing, concerned brother who didn’t want to let his sister out of his sight - into Nightwing with ease.
The monitor in front of Barbara lit up with Scarecrow’s aspect as another tremor rocked the building.
“Gallant police force of Gotham, I have a message for you. You are not safe. You are not protected. Batman and all his little Bats will not save you.” He paused. “This is the beginning of the end for you, Dark Knight.”
Barbara promptly ended his broadcast. “Like hell it is,” She muttered. “The Batcomputer is back online, Batman. I’ll do what I can.”
Sarah waved one of her pistols. “As will I. The cops will be safe. I promise.”
Something soft and proud flashed in the blues of Bruce’s eyes as he and Nightwing took off together back through maximum security and outside of the building to where the Batmobile was.
Now all they had to do was wait.
***
Oracle’s skill with a computer was impressive. Everything she did was impressive. Sarah kept watch on the front doors of the main room of maximum security while she worked, both guns aimed at the doors from her spot perched on Cash’s desk.
Barbara had managed to find a vulnerability and had hacked nearly every single drone without so much as breaking a sweat.
It was extremely impressive.
Until infantry had been put on the roof and Nightwing decided he was going to disobey Batman and ask her to come out onto the roof.
It’s just a fractured ankle that’s splinted and medicated to high heaven. No biggie. As long as I don’t do anything too strenuous… I should be fine. No acrobatics.
Bruce was not impressed when his daughter emerged onto the roof and stood at the far end with both guns drawn.
“Phoenix, I explicitly ordered you to-“
“Don’t care! Kick some my way! I’ve got the nonlethal rounds!”
Nightwing and Batman worked well together, she’d give them that. Sarah hadn’t seen them work in the field like this since before Dick had been kicked out of the Manor after his little stunt with Two-Face.
Dick always cheered whenever a bullet would soar over his shoulder and impact the thug he was fighting only to send them dropping to the ground in an instant. It made his work a lot easier.
Sarah was laughing from her spot on the railing. She hadn’t even moved and had still managed to make that shot clear from the other side of the roof.
Then one of the Brutes dropped by the next chopper and decided to hone his focus on her.
Her empty clip fell to the ground and was replaced by her real ammo. The one Barbara had kept out of sight until Bruce was gone before directly laying it in her hands herself.
“I’m gonna skewer you, little Bat!”
“You can sure try, tough guy!” She waved her guns in her general direction. “Come on then! I’m not getting any older!”
By the time Bruce realized what she did, everyone else on the roof was incapacitated. Dick didn’t even have enough time to warn her before two shots were flying through the air and impacting the Brute in the chest and the head.
His body collapsed onto the surface of the rooftop and blood began to pool under his head.
Batman was breathing heavily by the time he reached his daughter. They’d had multiple arguments over the last several years about her choices in using guns - as Batman did not kill, but that did not mean his partners didn’t - and he had been clear in his demand of her not being involved in the fighting as she was still injured.
Sarah was clasping the railing with one hand and shakily grasping her pistol with the other, blue eyes wide as her eyes flickered between Bruce and Dick.
She didn’t need to say anything to know how angry he was. Anger tended to roll off her father in waves when she did something he didn’t approve of, but Sarah being twenty-six did often tend to keep him from blowing something like this out of proportion.
None of them dared to utter a word until Oracle appeared on the gauntlet comms to warn him that Gordon’s voice had been used to get into the movie studios.
Which meant that Scarecrow now had another victim to use against Batman.
Robin.
“Nightwing, I want you to go back to patrolling to find Penguin’s last cache. We need to put him away before the night’s end.” Batman’s cold, hard eyes flickered back to where his daughter now stood. “Phoenix, if you’re going to be so damned stubborn and refuse to listen to me, then I’m having you take the bike to the movie studios. We need to get Robin.”
I won’t lose another child tonight.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Sarah nodded and slipped back into the elevator to go down to the garage to call Alfred. The only way she’d be getting the Batcycle here was if the Batwing dropped it off.
Her heart swelled when his face appeared before her. If there was one expression Alfred wore often around Bruce and his grandchildren, it was anguish. He always looked sad.
But that was often shadowed by the love he had for them.
“Miss Sarah?” He murmured in disbelief. “I know I may be an old man, but I do not think myself old enough to see the dead.”
She tipped her head back and laughed. “No, Alf,” Sarah mused. “I can assure you I am very, very alive. I need the Batwing to drop the Batcycle off outside the GCPD garage. I’m afraid I have to follow Batman to Panessa on it. My ankle won’t hold up otherwise.”
He rose a brow questioningly. “Let me guess. You injured yourself?”
“In my defense, Scarecrow’s men did it. They busted up my ankle. It’s been splinted! And I’m on some seriously good painkillers. I’m fine!”
It was almost identical to the way he’d gently scold her when she had her dessert before her dinner as a child. The sight of it made her long to run back to Wayne Manor and give him the hug he most definitely deserved after such a night.
“You be careful tonight, Sarah,” Alfred chided. “And return home when the night is through. You gave me a good scare and I deserve compensation.”
Sarah grinned brightly as the Batwing’s engine roared overhead. “A Grayson hug?”
“A Grayson hug will do just fine.”
***
Bruce
His heart fell into his stomach the moment he entered the main room of Panessa and found himself staring at Scarecrow’s symbol drawn across the cell Tim had previously been occupying.
Tim.
“So, there goes another boy wonder lost to another supervillain!” The Joker exclaimed. “If it’s any consolation, I can’t see him matching my incredible work of Jason. Scarecrow will probably just pump him full of fear gas and then slit his little throat.” He clucked his tongue disapprovingly and nodded behind him as the elevator opened for a second time and his daughter rushed out. “Or she’ll just shoot him in the head. Either way, your little Phoenix will rise to burn the old bag who took out your other Boy Wonder!”
Sarah brushed past him and laid her hand on the glass, then her head.
He grew fearful when she didn’t utter a word.
The Joker sympathetically patted her shoulder. “There, there. Dry those eyes!” He turned to look at Bruce over his shoulder. “When are you going to learn? Any time you let someone come between us, they end up dead or crippled or brainwashed into killing you!” He exasperatedly flailed his hands at Sarah. “And in her case, they end up becoming completely different people driven to an early grave by rage!
“Take a hint, old boy. We may have had our differences… but you and me? We’re made for each other.”
Batman stiffened when his gauntlet comms beeped and Scarecrow’s face appeared. “Looking for someone?” He asked. “You should know by now that nowhere is safe. The Commissioner was so eager to betray you earlier when his daughter’s life depended on it. And now I have your Robin, the caged bird. I had your Phoenix who barely made it out of our headquarters with her life. Had The Knight not stepped in to intervene, she most likely would be another one of the many victims Batman could not save. It’s fascinating that your fears would drive you to lock your ally in a prison cell.
“Now those same fears will make you do as I say. There’s a storage depot in Kingston. Go there, alone. Prepare to take off that mask or all your friends will die.”
A long moment passed before Sarah spoke up.
“I’ve spent almost my entire life watching you flit between being Bruce Wayne and being Batman. I’ve seen more than I ever should have had to see at such a young age.. and I still came back. After Jason died, after Tim, after everything you made me endure being your daughter… I still came back.” Bruce paused as she pressed her chin to her shoulder and met his eyes. He didn’t often see her cry, but when he did, it made him regret continuing to wear the mask at the cost of his children. “You give up that mask, Bruce. Give it up because Tim is your son and you do not need to put any more of your children at risk because of your pride.”
She’s pleading with him. Imploring him to do the one thing he’s always wanted to do but struggled with: Being a good father to his kids.
“Sarah, I’m only going to ask you this once.” She knows it’s serious when she finally does turn to face him and finds that she’s staring into her father’s face, cowl off. “Unless your brother or Alfred calls for you, stay here. They shouldn’t come back. If they do… you have my permission to do whatever is necessary to keep yourself safe.”
Sarah swallowed the knot in her throat. She had never seen Bruce look quite so desperate.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
Shaking hands wrap around his wrists. “Bring Tim home,” She murmured, leaning up to envelop the upper half of his body in as tight a hug as she could. “And bring yourself home too. We still need you.”
Bruce nodded and bowed his head to press his face into her hair. Lilac and jasmine. Her usual shampoo.
He let that scent burn into his mind years ago. It’s a needed comfort now.
“I’ll be back. Stay in contact.”
And then he’s gone, leaving nothing but the heaviness of his presence lingering behind in the quarantine cells. The last thing Bruce remembers before Oracle’s face is appearing in front of him is the desperate, worried gaze of his daughter following him out of the movie studios before she is again alone.
She seemed to want to tell him something.
Something important.
“You left Tim in a cell?!”
“He wasn’t safe!” Bruce exclaimed.
“And he is now!? He’d take a bullet for you, Bruce! We all would! But you left him defenseless and didn’t give him a choice. I’m sorry Bruce but you have to get him back. Whatever it takes.”
The Joker appeared and Bruce resisted the urge to groan outwardly. When would he just give up and leave him alone?
“So, it’s decision time, Bats! Give yourself up to Scarecrow and get us both killed? Or is it time for the new dynamic duo to hit the streets?” He asked.
Bruce removed his grapple and shot into the sky.
“Alfred, I’m going to give myself up to Scarecrow. It’s the only way to save Robin and Jim.”
“Consider your decision wisely, sir.” Alfred remarked. “There could be no coming back from this.”
Bruce knew that tonight would end one way: It would end with him giving up Batman. And after seeing his daughter die, nearly losing both of his sons, and reuniting with his lost boy… He was not willing to sacrifice them again for his own selfishness.
He’d given it up if it meant his babies were safe.
So give up the cowl, he would.