Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Morning dawned in Gotham, the sun shining sickly light over a city that had, against all odds, survived another day. The GCPD received an anonymous call reporting a dead body lying in Crime Alley. Dead bodies weren’t uncommon in Crime Alley. This one was.

Jim Gordon was just getting off his shift when he was called out to Crime Alley. It’s an emergency, they’d said. Emergency didn’t cover finding Batman’s dead body growing stiff in a back alley. There was no doubt that he was dead; he’d clearly been so for a while. Rigor mortis had set in and he was lying in a pool of slowly congealing blood. The cowl was still on, but the rest of his costume was ripped and tattered. All of it was stained with blood.

“What do we do?” asked Officer Stolls. He was young—he barely believed in the Bat—just had the misfortune to be the closest officer to answer the call.

Jim had been commissioner back when Bane had thrown Batman’s broken body in the streets. He remembered how the city got when it thought he was dead. He looked away from the body, shoving down the stormy mess of feelings roaring through his head. “We keep this quiet as we can,” he said.

They took pictures of the crime scene, got Batman’s body bagged up as quick as they could. Hid it in a back corner of the morgue where hopefully no one would run into it.

Jim Gordon went home, tired to the bone. Even so, he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Grief hung over him, held back by only a thread, but he couldn’t let it overwhelm him yet.

Jim had spent close to two decades working with the bat. The veil over his eyes was held in place by a careful web of plausible deniability and outright denial. For the first time in his life, he pushed it all away and called his daughter.

“...Dad?” Barbara’s voice was thick with sleep. She’d probably just gone to bed. He almost felt bad for waking her. “What issit?”

“Batman’s dead.”

“What?” There was no trace of sleep in her voice now. “When? Are you positive it was him?”

“Found the body this morning. Sure as hell looks like him.”

There was a long string of muffled curses from the other end of the line. Jim politely pretended he hadn’t heard them.

“The body?” Barbara asked.

“Sitting in the Gotham morgue until we can figure out what to do with it.”

“Dad…” she trailed off. “Do—? Did you—?”

Did you take off the cowl? He knew she was asking. Do you know who he is? Do you know who I am?

“His mask was on when we found him,” Jim said. “It felt wrong to take it off.”

There was a soft noise that might have been a sigh of relief, might have been the wind.

“I see,” Barbara said. “And Dad?” Another pause, thick with the things they both knew but wouldn’t say. “Stay safe.” she said at last.

“As much as I can.” Jim said. “Love you, Babs.”

She yawned. “Love you too Dad.”

The phone clicked off. Jim sat at the kitchen table and finally allowed himself to mourn the man that against all odds, he’d called his friend.

That evening, when he went into the precinct, Batman’s body had vanished from the morgue. Gone too were the pictures of the crime scene, the written report, and any evidence that there had ever been a call made about a body found in crime alley. There was a slip of paper on Gordon’s desk, with a picture of a bat on it. He threw it away. The matter was out of his hands now.

—

The ringing of his phone woke Dick Grayson from his sleep. He groaned. The fact that it was ringing at all meant that it was probably important, but he was too tired to want to deal with anything right now. Besides, it was too early. He squinted at his alarm clock. Who called at seven in the morning anyway?

“Wha’izzit?” He mumbled with a yawn.

“Master Dick,” Alfred’s voice at the other end of the line was crisp and clear. “I think it would be best if you returned to the manor.”

If Dick had been more awake, he might have noticed the way that his voice was just a tad too proper, like it was a shield rather than normal habit. As it was, Dick was tired. He’d been out later than he should’ve last night, tracking down the leads he’d let slip while laid up; he’d only mostly recovered from the  mystery attack that had left him injured in the first place. The last time he’d been at the manor, he’d gotten into a fight with Bruce — the sort of screaming row he’d thought they’d stopped having after Jason died.

“Well tell B that if he wants my help he can ask me for it himself,” Dick snapped.

“I’m afraid—” Alfred stopped. “It’s—”  For the first time, it occurred to Dick that there was something wrong with this conversation.

“Master Bruce is dead,” he said finally.

It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold water all over him. Dick was suddenly very awake. “What.”

“He’s dead.” And now Dick could hear the grief sealed behind the cool calm of his voice. “The police found Batman’s body this morning.”

“Is—?”

“I don’t believe they know his identity.”

Dick breathed out. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

— 

The body belonged to Bruce. Dick knew from the moment he saw the bloody face looking up at him in the Gotham Morgue. The cowl was damaged, but still in place. Even through it, Dick would know his father anywhere. He resisted the urge to vomit as he and Alfred wheeled the body away and brought it down to the cave.

They still ran the tests. Bruce would’ve insisted on it if he— if he weren’t— Dick found he couldn’t finish the thought. They came with one positive result after another, each one feeling like another shovel of dirt tossed down in his grave.

Tim arrived halfway through, still wearing the Robin costume from his stay with the Titans.

“Dick,” he said. “I...” and then he trailed off. He was staring at the body.

It wasn’t pretty. Dick and Alfred had taken off the cowl. Stripped off most of the costume. Cleaned the body up somewhat. It didn’t change the fact that it was Bruce. That Bruce was dead. That his body was still beat to hell even if there was less blood all over it.

“He’s dead,” Tim said, his voice too small. “He’s really dead.” He stepped closer, never tearing his eyes away from the body. “I thought— I was hoping—”

“The tests are still running, but they’ve been conclusive so far.” Dick couldn’t keep looking at the body; he watched Tim instead.

Tim was still wearing the mask. Still staring down, the look on his face too blank. “Batman isn’t supposed to die.” A hand went up to his face, rubbing at his eyes. “He shouldn’t be dead.” Dick could hear his voice cracking on the last word. He took a step closer, arms open in a silent invitation. “I know,” he said.

And then Tim was in his arms and he could feel his body shaking slightly as he held him close. Dick held him like he might disappear if he let him go. He needed it, with Bruce’s body lying there.

“He shouldn’t be dead!” Tim sobbed. “Why is he dead?”

“I know,” Dick said. “I know.”

Behind them, the computer dinged. Another positive result.

Eventually, Tim calmed down and pulled away. His mask was loose from the tears. He pulled it off, scrubbed at his face with his arm, and took a couple deep breaths. “What happened?” he asked.

And wasn’t that the question? “We don’t know,” he said. “Someone called it in to the police this morning. The body was found in Crime Alley. Barbara’s looking, but she hasn’t been able to track down any footage so far.”

“Cowl footage?”

“Not recoverable.”

Tim nodded. Dick could see him trying to draw the role of detective over himself. It wasn’t fitting well.

“The photos the GCPD took are over in that folder,” Dick added.

Tim picked up the folder but didn’t open it. He was staring out into the darkness of the cave. “He shouldn’t have died,” he said again. It sounded different this time he said it. “I should’ve been there.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Dick said, though he felt the same way.

“No,” Tim shook his head. He wasn’t looking at Dick now. “We fought, before— before. Bruce was, you know how he is. He was being Bruce and I was, I just. That’s why I left for the Titans. I couldn’t. I needed a break. But he’s dead,” his voice was small again. “And I should’ve been there. I shouldn’t have left! What if it’s my fault that he’s dead? Because I wasn’t there to watch his back?” He sounded like he was about to start crying again.

“Tim, it’s not your fault. Batman can take care of himself.” Dick winced as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

“He’s dead!”

“I should’ve been there, too,” Dick said. “I— we fought.”

He’d swung back down to Gotham because Cass had been attacked, because Tim had been attacked. Because Alfred was dropping strong hints that Bruce was driving himself into the wall with this particular case. And then he’d been attacked. “I know how he gets when one of us gets injured.” He still remembered the fight that had led to him becoming Nightwing. “I should’ve stayed. I shouldn’t have let him get to me.”

“I told him, he wasn’t my dad,” Tim admitted. “During the fight, I told him he wasn’t really my dad and that he couldn’t tell me what to do. And now he’s dead, and that was the last thing I said to him.”

“I’m sure he knows you didn’t mean it,” Dick said. “I told him—” A lot of things, he was good at going for the jugular when it was him and Bruce, he knew what to say to make it hurt “— I told him that he could go and get himself killed if he was too much of a stubborn bastard to ask for help. I told him I wouldn’t care if he died. I think he knew I didn’t mean it.”

“And the thing is,” Tim said, staring at Bruce’s corpse again. “If he’d asked again, I think I would’ve said yes.”

And now he’d never get the chance. Dick offered another hug. Tim took it. “We’ll get through this,” he said. “I promise. We’ll figure this out.”

—

Rumor spread quickly in the superhero community. Donna was the first to call. “Is it true?” she asked. And then, “I’m so sorry, Dick.” He’d cried on her shoulder in a way he couldn’t when he needed to be strong for Tim. For Tim who had lost his second father in six months. There were more calls after Donna, all of them the same.

There would be no funeral for Batman. Letting the world know that he was dead would be practically penning an invitation for chaos. Clark and Diana took it in hand to organize a memorial though, something small and private for those who did know. It was a relief to have one less thing to carry. Dick had enough to shoulder already. Alfred had given his notice; the man was too old to have outlived the boy he’d once raised. Dick didn’t begrudge him for it, but there was so much that needed to be done.

There would be no funeral for Bruce Wayne. Not yet at least. Bruce had made contingencies for everything, including his untimely death. Bruce Wayne and Batman couldn’t die too closely together. Instead, with the help of J’onn J’onzz, he’d leave on a worldwide cruise that would end in tragedy.

They buried his body on the manor grounds with only a plain stone marking where he lay. Dick and Tim dug the grave together, side by side in silence, shovelful by shovelful in the cold fall air.

They’d gotten a woman who Barbara said was discreet to do the autopsy. Dick knew enough to do one in a pinch, but not to Bruce. Never to Bruce. It didn’t tell them much that they didn’t know already. Time of death: somewhere between 10pm and 2am, towards the beginning of the night for them. Cause of death: blood loss. His throat had been slit. He’d been scourged with some type of whip, though not one the woman had been able to identify. Whatever it was, it had to be strong enough to get through the layers of kevlar and body armor.

It was a mystery. It didn’t match the M.O. of any of their usual rogues. No one was bragging about bringing down the Bat. Catwoman used a whip, but not the sort that would do the sort of savage damage that had been done. Besides, she had been out in Europe when he died, and even when her relationship with Bruce had been at it’s rockiest, she’d never wanted him dead.

It was frustrating. It was insult added to injury. If Bruce had been alive, Dick couldn’t help but think that he would’ve been able to solve it. But instead he was dead and it was just him and Tim and they were floundering. It hurt.

There was so much that Dick needed to pay attention to. To take care of. Nightwing and Robin were still going out at night; they couldn’t let the city grow complacent. There were the stories they needed to manage for the press. There were matters of business at Wayne Enterprises that Bruce had listed out in his dozens of contingency plans.

There was Tim.

Dick knocked on his brother’s door.

“Come in,” was the muffled reply.

Dick stuck his head in. “Hey Tim, you have a minute?”

Tim was sitting on his bed, files spread out over the wrinkled blankets. Dick recognized the autopsy report. The crime scene pictures that haunted his nightmares. Tim shrugged. “What is it?” He began to gather up the papers.

Dick took a seat at Tim’s desk, leaning forward against the back of the chair. “You know that Bruce never officially adopted you,” he started slowly. “And now that he’s dead—”

“I know,” Tim said quickly, “you don’t need to—”

“Timmy, just let me say this, okay?”

Tim stared down through the files in his hands. “Okay,” he said after a pause. “Okay.”

“Look Tim, you’re my brother. Nothing’s going to change that. Even if it’s not on paper, you’re still my little brother.”

Tim nodded.

“But we can’t pretend that Bruce is alive forever and when that happens...” Dick trailed off. Officially, Bruce had become Tim’s guardian after ‘Uncle Eddie’ had died in the destruction of Blüdhaven. Unofficially, their relationship had been... something much looser. There had been a lot of space between them. Space that had been slowly closing before Bruce had died. And now...

“I can get emancipated,” Tim said. “That way we don’t have to worry about me getting moved somewhere else.”

“That’s one option,” Dick said carefully. “Or, I was thinking, if you’re okay with it, we could make things official between us. Something more permanent.”

“Like what, forge the documents to say Bruce adopted me before he died?” He sounded dubious.

“Or I could adopt you,” Dick said.

“You?”

“Just as a formality really. It doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to.”

“You want to adopt me?” He still sounded a little stunned.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Dick said. “But I want us to be family officially. I don’t want to lose you too.”

Tim blinked. Opened his mouth a couple of times, closed it again. “Dick, I...” He flopped back against the bed staring up at the ceiling. “I...”

“You don’t have to answer now, you can think about it.”

“No, I- I think I do want to make it official.” He rolled over so he was facing Dick. “It’s just, it’s a lot, you know. Like, am I going to have to change my name? I am going to be Timothy Drake-Grayson now?”

“You could probably take the Wayne from my name if you want.” He’d shoved it in the middle when Bruce had adopted him. Richard John Wayne Grayson. So he’d have it there. So he’d know.

“Yeah.” Tim blinked and went back to staring up at the ceiling. “I guess I could. I don’t know.”

“You’ve got time to think about it,” Dick said. “I’ve still got to call up the lawyers and everything.”

“I will. Think about it, I mean. This whole thing, it feels kind of weird.”

“Good weird I hope?”

“Yeah,” Tim smiled. It was a small one, but it was there. “Good weird.”

—

Rumor spread quickly in a town like Gotham. Barely anyone had seen Batman’s body, but that didn’t mean no one had. It had been more than a week since the batsignal had been lit. People noticed that. They noticed that while Robin and Nightwing had been spotted out and about, Batman hadn’t.

Rumors spread. People began to whisper. Maybe the Bat was busy. Maybe something had happened. Maybe it was like after Bane and he was all laid up. Maybe he was dead. The city was growing more restless by the night. Common criminals getting just a little more bold; rogues planning bigger scores than usual. The city was a pot on the verge of boiling over. The sword of Damocles hung over their head, a single thread all that was standing between them and disaster. Dick was ignoring the whole situation for as long as he could. There was too much he needed to do. Too much that Bruce had left him with. Tim, on the other hand.

“Gotham needs Batman,” Tim said, pointedly as they were suiting up one evening.

“No,” Dick said. He knew where this was going. He didn’t even need to be trained by the world’s greatest detective to know, he just needed to know Tim. “I won’t. Batman’s dead.”

“Batman can’t die,” Tim said with the simple surety of fact, like he was saying that night followed the day.

“He can and he did.”

“Batman’s a symbol. Gotham needs him.”

“And maybe Gotham can learn to keep chugging along without him!” Dick snapped.

“Look, Dick—”

“Tim,” Dick took a deep breath. “Tim, Bruce is dead.”

“That doesn’t mean that Batman needs to die with him.”

“Tim...” The taste of Blüdhaven’s ash on his lips, the scent of its smoke stuck in his hair. He washed it and washed it and washed it, but it never seemed to come out. He’d become Nightwing because he knew that he could never be Bruce. He didn’t know how to say any of that. “Let’s just get out there, okay?”

Tim gave him a long look. “Fine,” he said after a moment. “Let’s go.”

—

“Gotham’s getting worse,” Tim said later that evening, as they paused for a breather.

Dick made a noncommittal noise. “I can’t be him,” he said. “I know what you’re asking and I can’t be him.”

“You did it before,” Tim said.

“That was temporary. That was putting on a mask. You’re asking me to do this for real.”

A pause. Silence stretched out between them, or at least as close to silence as the city ever got. “Is there anyone else who can?” Tim asked softly at last.

It was a rhetorical question.

“Maybe Gotham can survive with the Bat. Maybe she doesn’t need him.”

Tim shook his head. “No, she does.”

—

The thing was, among all the contingency plans, among all the fake wills and the real wills and the convoluted instructions Bruce had left in place for the event of his death, there had been a series of messages. There’d been one addressed to Dick, to Tim, to Alfred, Barbara, and Cass. Dick didn’t know what any of the others said, but in his, there had been a video recording of Bruce. Dick had watched as Bruce said that sometimes it felt like raising Dick had been the only thing he ever got right. He’d said that he was proud of him, that he knew Dick could be a better man and greater hero than he’d ever been. Bruce hadn’t said outright that he loved him, but that had never been the man’s style. Dick could still hear it in every word that came out of his mouth.

The video had been recorded months ago, back before Blockbuster, before Chemo. It didn’t fit right, the message meant for a different version of Dick. After the video, there’d been a list of requests. That had been updated more recently. Take up Batman was nowhere on there. Look after Gotham was. Look out for Tim was, not that Dick ever needed Bruce to tell him to do that in the first place. But not take up his mantle. He’d never asked that; he’d accepted when Dick had offered, but he’d never asked.

When he entered the Batcave that evening, there was a batsuit sitting out. He could tell at a glance it wasn’t one of Bruce’s. He put on the Nightwing suit and left it lying there. He didn’t say anything about it and neither did Tim.

The thing was, Bruce never asked him to take up his mantle. He did, however, ask him to watch after Tim, and Tim was a Robin without a Batman.

Dick dreamt of a woman dressed in black with ashes in her hair. She cried out in mourning and tore at her flesh with long dirty nails, blood dripping down and down and turning black as it dripped to the floor. He dreamt of Bruce, lying dead and bleeding in the same alley where his parents had died. His throat was slit and yet he spoke with a voice like death itself. Watch my city , he said.

The woman in black stood across from him, a black crown shaped like a bat held in bloody outstretched hands. Dick took it and put it on his head and it burned, burned, burned until he woke up, hot and sweaty, heart beating hard in his chest, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.

You’re the only thing I ever got right , echoed Bruce’s voice in his head. The batsuit still lay out, taunting him with his presence. Tim was right, the city was getting worse. The thread holding the sword of Damocles over their heads was getting thinner and thinner by the day. Take care of my city , Bruce had said. Batman needs Robin , Tim had said, way back at the beginning. Yeah, well, Robin doesn’t need Batman , Dick had said. But that had been Dick, and that had been before everything changed.

Dick put on the suit. He wondered if wearing it was supposed to feel like being buried.

“I knew you could do it,” Tim said when he saw.

His reluctance had had nothing to do with capability. Dick said none of that though. “Let’s go,” he said instead. “Gotham waits.”

—

Jim rubbed at tired eyes in the dim light of his office. It was a late night made later by the fact that he knew he was alone. Officially, he should’ve gone home by now, but all that waited for him was an empty apartment. He knew he wouldn’t sleep; he’d spent the last nights staring up at the ceiling and wondering what a Gotham without the Batman would look like. It had existed years before, when he was a younger man, when he’d first come to Gotham. It was hard to remember now.

There was no warning noise, no creak of a window or rustle of air, but he could still pinpoint the moment that he was no longer alone. Jim Gordon turned. Standing in front of the window were Robin and a man dressed black. He was wearing the bat.

“Commissioner,” the man who was not Batman said.

Jim sighed. There was a script he was supposed to follow,  a dance he knew all the steps to. He was too tired now to do it. “Who are you supposed to be?” he asked.

“I’m Batman,” the man said. He was younger than Batman had been, Jim noted. He was built slighter and held himself a little stiffer than the original had been.

“You sure about that?”

The man shifted his weight slightly, almost imperceptibly. “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

They both knew he was lying.

Jim took off his glasses and rubbed at tired eyes. “Do I know you from somewhere, son?”

“We’ve worked together for a long time, Commissioner.”

He was telling the truth this time. If Jim tried real hard, he could probably place his voice. Instead he turned, dug out a cigarette. It was a terrible habit, Sarah had always been getting on him to quit, before... Well, before. Now? Now, a man was allowed his vices in times of trouble, wasn’t he?

“That so?” Jim said as he pulled out his lighter. Really, it was bad manners to light up indoors, but his guests always left the window open anyway.

The rustle of shifting fabric from behind him. “Call if you need me.”

Jim closed his eyes, took a deep draw. “Suppose I will,” he said on the exhale. He knew he was alone. “I suppose I will,” he said again and let the words sink into the empty room. He was getting too old for this.

—

“What if we never solve it?” Tim asked, staring up at the sky. “What if we never learn who killed him?”

They were lying out on the manor grounds, enjoying the crisp fall afternoon. It was... Dick wasn’t sure what day it was; it was all too easy to get lost in the endless cycle of nights. Crime scenes and criminal lairs, fights in back alleyways, blood on gauntlets that were too stiff on his hands; he’d fly through the night air, but it didn’t feel like freedom like it had when he was Nightwing or Robin, it felt like a controlled fall. Days blurred together. Alfred had left for England, leaving behind a manor mostly closed up that still felt too large and empty.

It was probably a school day. Tim hadn’t gone to school since the one he’d been attending in Blüdhaven had been destroyed. It was one of those things Dick should probably do something about at some point, but couldn’t bring himself to care.

Dick refocused. Tim had asked a question. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we’ll find them, sooner or later,” later probably, he privately thought. Tim needed to know why Bruce was dead. He wouldn’t let it go. Dick? Dick just needed the world to stop moving long enough for him to find his footing. He closed his eyes, listening to the soft sound of wind in the leaves. “Or else they’ll come out of the woodwork and introduce themselves.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Tim continued. “If they’d wanted us to know, then we’d know already. But we don’t. Who would even want to kill Batman and then just disappear?”

Dick made a vague noise, eyes still closed. He could tell Tim was gearing up for a rant.

“And then there’s the location, did they know...?” Tim trailed off. He didn’t need to finish. Did they know he would bleed out on the same ground as his parents? “How many people even know?”

Dick snorted. “More than should,” he said wryly.

“There’s Hush,” Tim said, “But he’s still locked up, he wouldn’t be able to. Selina, but she... she wouldn’t,” his voice was small.

“No,” Dick said. He opened his eyes, focused on the sky above, on Tim, sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest rather than the bloody pictures that kept coming to mind. “Not like that.”

“If Ra’s weren’t dead, I might suspect him.”

“Hmm, I think he’d say something too. That or Talia would. There’s Bane,” Dick offered, “but as much as I hate him, he seemed to be honest about setting that aside last time.”

Tim gave a half attempt at a smile. “It’s too subtle for him. Who else even is there, the Riddler? I mean I don’t think we can rule him out, but still.”

“I don’t think it’s him either.” Dick hesitated. “I think the Joker might know,” he said. “But it’s not really his style is it?”

“And nobody’s seen him since—” Tim shrugged, “Well, you know.” He paused. “There’s the Red Hood,” he said. “Jason.”

“It isn’t him,” Dick said. “No one’s seen him in months either and if it was,” he hesitated. “He’d want us to know. I mean wasn’t that the point of the whole thing? That he wanted us to know it was him?”

Tim shrugged “I guess. You were there for more of it than I was. And we don’t really know what happened between them in the end, do we?”

“No.” Silence stretched out between them.

“I think, what I’m really afraid of,” Tim said after a while, “is that whatever killed him is the same thing that attacked us because how do you even go about tracking that down?”

Dick remembered stopping on a rooftop, a figure in front of him. He remembered a voice, or maybe a cacophony of them. He remembered falling.

“And why would they kill him but not us? I looked at B’s notes for everything and he didn’t know anything about it either. If he couldn’t solve it, how do we ever stand a chance?”

“Hey, you’re a great detective.”

“But I’m not him,” Tim said and Dick couldn’t deny that fact. “You’re not either.”

“I’m not.” And wasn’t that what it boiled down to in the end? He wouldn’t be able to fill the hole Bruce left behind no matter how hard he tried. “Maybe it just means we’ll take longer though.”

Tim didn’t look convinced. To be fair, Dick really hadn’t been either. “Maybe,” he said.

—

The memorial was a quiet thing. Clark and Diana were there of course, and then the handful of other heroes who knew that Bruce Wayne wasn’t really cruising around the Atlantic and that Batman hadn’t just taken a brief hiatus from working with the Justice League. It was held in the back room of a little bar in the middle of nowhere, owned by a man who wouldn’t ask too many questions. They all showed up in civilian clothes and drank to a good man who’d been a bit of a bastard when he’d been alive.

“I think he knew he was going to die,” Diana said softly at one point late in the evening. The three of them—Dick, Tim, and her—had drifted together to a little table in the corner. There was a half-hearted game of darts going on in the other corner; people drifted in and out of groups, remembering.

“What do you mean?” Dick asked. Beside him, he could feel Tim’s attention focus.

Diana had brought some Themysciran wine with her. Now she swirled it absentmindedly in her glass. “Sometimes you can see the way that Death hangs over a warrior, the knowledge deep in their bones that they will not be walking away from the next battle. The last conversation we had—I had hoped I was imaging it.”

“What was he talking to you about?” Tim asked. He’d been nursing a beer the entire evening, more because he felt like it was the sort of thing he ought to do than any real desire to drink. Occasionally, he’d take a sip and grimace before going back to ignoring it.

“He was asking me about the Eumenides. If it were possible to stop them once their hunt had begun.”

Dick thought back to the stories Donna had told long ago when she was still Wonder Girl and he, the Boy Wonder. “The Furies?” he asked.

Diana nodded. “The Gracious ones,” she said.

“You can’t can you? Stop them, I mean.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You’re saying they might have been what killed him?” Tim asked. The mystery of who was responsible for Bruce’s death had been hanging over the whole party.

“I don’t know.” Diana said. “Bruce never struck me as the sort of man to accumulate the debts they collect, but if he was caught in the crossfire. Perhaps then.”

“The debts, those are blood, right?” Dick asked. “But not just any blood?”

Diana nodded. “Familial blood.”

“Then it couldn’t have been that,” Tim said.

Diana took a long drink. “I wish I had pressed him more, when we talked,” she said. “But he told me not to ask and I did not.”

Dick snorted and took a drink of his own. “Yeah, well, B never says anything when it’s really important then, does he?”

Tim sighed, Diana shook her head, and the conversation moved on.

—

“He mentioned the Furies in his notes,” Tim said once they’d gotten back that evening. “The ones on whatever attacked us. He had it linked with notes on a bunch of weird accidents happening to Wayne Industries properties.”

“What did it say?” Dick asked, as he rummaged around in the kitchen cabinets. It was late, but neither of them were ready to turn in just yet, and they couldn’t go out, not tonight. Dick pulled out a couple of mugs, set them on the counter. Started searching for a kettle.

“I don’t remember. It was vague. I remember I ignored it because the only other Fury in the files was an associate of Maxie Zeus and he hasn’t been a player in Gotham since before the quake.” He sighed, slumped further against the kitchen table. “Still doesn’t make any sense. If it was them, why attack us? Why kill Bruce?”

“It probably was them,” Dick said. “You remember, it didn’t feel human.” The Titans had gone up against gods before, it had almost felt like that.

“But why?” Tim asked. “Diana said they only go after people who’ve killed family.”

“I don’t know,” Dick said. He knew the blood on his own name, none of it was family, not staining his hands in the way he knew it needed to. “But Bruce clearly knew something.”

“Batman doesn’t kill.”

And Dick knew that too, knew it deep in his bones. But. “Diana said he knew was going to die.” For the first time the piece of knowledge sank in. It felt like something raw and burning in the pit of his stomach. He slammed a hand against the counter. It didn’t feel like enough. “He knew. That has to mean something.”

“She didn’t know for sure!” Tim said. “Maybe she was wrong.”

Except she hadn’t been, because the little pieces were coming together now. Bruce’s convoluted in-case-of-death instructions had been updated recently, not the videos, but other parts of the instructions, updates in the days before his death recently. Dick had noticed at the time, but he’d dismissed it as a symptom of Bruce’s tendency to prepare for the worst. Now? Well, everything in those last few days was starting to make a sick sort of sense.

“No, he definitely knew. His in case of death files— those had all been updated recently.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Look, you know Bruce. Tell me that if he knew he was going to die, he wouldn’t handle it in the worst way possible. Tell me he wouldn’t go off on his own because he was too much of a stubborn, self-sacrificial bastard to ask for help.”

“Shut up!” Tim said.

Part of Dick knew that it was a bad idea to keep talking, but he was angry and his mouth had a way of running away from him. “He knew and now he’s dead and it’s his own damn fault.”

“I said shut up!” And Tim was on his feet, shoving the chair away and storming off somewhere in the manner.

The pot on the kettle started to whistle, loud and shrill, and Dick was left faced with two mugs of tea he didn’t actually want to drink and the urge to break something sunk into his bones.

Dick went looking for Tim, once his temper had cooled down some. He found him curled up on a couch in one of the less used family rooms, watching a poorly-choreographed fight scene play out on the tv screen. He scooted over as Dick approached and sat down next to him on the couch,

“Sorry,” Dick said. “About earlier.”

Tim shrugged; he didn’t look away from the tv screen. Dick let the silence stretch out, put an arm out laying it on the back of the couch, resting over Tim’s shoulders, an open invitation. Tim took it, drawing a little closer to Dick, not pressing in, but there. He snorted as one of the characters threw a particularly bad punch on screen.

“I don’t know why you like to watch these,” Dick said. He winced at a move that would’ve resulted in broken bones if the guy was attempting it for real.

“It’s fun to judge them,” Tim said.

“They just make me cringe.”

They fell back into silence. On screen, the fight came to a close and an even worse-choreographed motorcycle chase sequence began. Somehow the stunts managed to be both improbable and boring.

“Hey,” Tim asked, once the action was over and the characters moved on to talking about stuff. “If you knew you were going to die, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

There was a right answer to the question and a wrong one. About the sort of decisions made in split seconds in fights. About Blüdhaven burning and dead, a corpse of its former self and him running in anyway. He swallowed. “Yeah,” he said softly, staring at the screen, not seeing what was on it. “I’d tell you. I’d want to say goodbye.” It was a promise as much as an answer. “You?”

Tim leaned in a little closer. “Yeah, I would.”

—

“Here,” Tim said the next morning. Well, afternoon really, with the hours they kept. He shoved a folder at Dick.

Dick was sitting at a table in a room he’d turned into his makeshift study, papers spread all about. (He couldn’t use Bruce’s study, he just… he just couldn’t.) He took the folder; it was a welcome distraction from all the other paperwork he had to do. Inside were the adoption papers, all filled out. Tim stood there, looking nervous as Dick skimmed the page.

And then, oh. Oh. Dick looked up. “Are you sure?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah,” and then, anxiously, “do you mind?”

Dick stared back down at the name written out. Timothy Grayson Drake. It felt... he didn’t know how he felt other than it was a lot. “No,” he said. “Not at all. Just, you’re sure you don’t want Wayne?”

“You were always my brother more than Bruce was my dad,” Tim said.

“But he could’ve been,” Dick said. “He thought of you that way, towards the end.” He wasn’t sure why he was pushing other than the fact that being father and son had always been something so fraught for him and Bruce. He didn’t want it to be that way for Tim. He wished things had been simpler for them.

“When we fought, I told Bruce he wasn’t my dad and he just let me,” Tim said. “If— no. He knew and he just let me. He didn’t try to stop me. He just— he just let me go.”

“You know how he is,” Dick said. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t love you.”

“No! I mean, I know how Bruce is, but. Dick, you’re my brother. I know that. I don’t know about everything else. I just, I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Dick said, “okay.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Tim asked. “I don’t—”

“No,” Dick cut him off before he could get any further. “Tim, Timmy, I’d be honored to give you my name. Honest.”

“Oh,” Tim said. “Thank you.” He just stood there awkwardly. Dick scooted back his chair and opened his arms. Tim shuffled over. “Really,” he said as he leaned into Dick’s arms.

“You’re my brother,” Dick said. “How could I say no?”

—

There was another Batman in Gotham. It had taken Dick and Tim an embarrassingly long time to notice. In retrospect, the signs were there, but it took Jim Gordon making a pointed comment about not sending petty criminals to the hospital (he’d never trusted any Batman that wasn’t Bruce) for them to finally realize what was going on. Who knew how long he’d been acting, but they were on the scent now. They’d find him, sooner or later.

Batman and Robin dropped down into an alley. It was still; the only other inhabitants were a pair of would-be robbers, unconscious and cuffed together.

Dick crouched down by the pair. “They’re alive,” he said.

Behind him, Tim let out a low whistle. “I see what Gordon meant.”

Dick agreed, mentally tallying up visible injuries. There was significant bruising already beginning to form at minimum. Likely broken bones as well.

“It almost reminds of B,” Tim continued, “right after, you know. Or Azrael.”

“Well it couldn’t have been either of them, could it?”

Tim shrugged, “Just saying.”

Dick stood up. “Come on, we’ve got to do this quickly.” They may have beaten the police there, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t on their way.

The scene revealed little. There were signs of a scuffle, wet footprints scattered across the brick. The cuffs were sturdy, closer in design to the ones Bruce had developed rather than police standard.

“Hey, check this out.” Tim was holding a batarang. “Doesn’t look like one of ours.” He tossed to Dick.

It was heavier, a little sharper, slightly poorer quality overall. He experimentally threw it at the far end of the alley and it lodged between the bricks. “It’s weighted right, though,” he said. “Whoever made it had a pretty good idea at what they were doing.”

Tim nodded. In the distance, there was the sound of sirens. “Looks like we’re out of time.”

They grappled up to the rooftops as a police car pulled up near the entrance to the alley.

“He can’t be far,” Dick said. They’d been on his trail for a while, circling closer and closer.

“Should we split up?”

Dick shook his head. “No, we stick together.” With an unknown in Gotham, it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

Tim nodded. “Lead the way.”

They found him on a rooftop, staring down into the street below. He turned as they approached and for a moment Dick couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, Jason hadn’t been the only one to dig his way out of the grave. The resemblance was striking: height, weight, build, costume. The face was wrong though, he was wearing an expression Bruce would never wear.  

“I was wondering when you two would show up.”

The illusion broke. Dick knew that voice, that mocking tone. “Jason,” he said coolly. Beside, Tim tensed, shifting into a more battle-ready position.

“Dick.” Jason just grinned, a mocking facsimile of what Bruce had used to be. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”