Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gotham, dark and perpetually crime-ridden, is not yet equipped to handle the new world.

Stories have started popping up from all over the country. People with abilities far beyond those of a normal human are appearing in newspapers, fighting a new kind of criminal. Killers, thieves, and the occasional domestic terrorist, all dressed up in bizarre costumes like the worst Halloween trick ever.

The people using their extraordinary abilities to stop them are hailed as extraordinary heroes—superheroes—despite being anonymous and, usually, being dressed in equally bizarre costumes.

A story has started being passed around Gotham about their own home-brewed superhero. A man that they say strikes in the dark and leaves common criminals unconscious and bound for the police to find by the side of the road. When Gotham’s own costumed criminals appear, this is the man they say stopped them—the myth they call the “Batman”.

Most of the costumed criminals are declared insane, and sent to serve their time at the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. But Arkham Asylum was built to hold serial killers, not former DA’s missing half their face or a gang-leader who fell in acid and decided to re-theme as a clown. These people have connections outside Arkham Asylum, they have intellect that hides behind their insanity, they don’t follow typical patterns, and they have the ability to get out.

The insane clown calls himself the Joker, and he’s obsessed with the myth of the Batman. When he stays in Arkham, he has time to think. And when he escapes…

There’s a little girl. She’s about eleven years old, and she ran away from her new foster placement a week in, missing her parents.

A man in gray armor, a black cape, and a black cowl with little pointy ears on top finds her. He tells her that the police are looking for her.

She tells him about how her whole world has fallen apart since her parents died.

So the Batman sits with her and tells her that he felt the same way—that the same thing happened to him—that that’s why he became Batman in the first place. That he’s sorry he couldn’t stop it from happening to her.

The girl agrees to go with the police, and then back to her foster home.

Six weeks later, the Joker breaks out of Arkham, and an old member of the Red Hood Gang, now a police officer, tells him what’s in the police report filed about a runaway girl who spoke to the Batman.

The Joker kills the girl.

Duke Thomas is eight years old and lives in a neighborhood in Gotham called the Narrows, with his parents Elaine and Doug. His mom works as a social worker, and has a healthy appreciation for the new Wayne Enterprises run charities that are slowly starting to funnel money into their little slice of the city. Doug works in construction, and pays better attention to little details than big concepts the way Elaine does. They make a great pair.

The Joker decides that, if he’s going to defeat Batman, then he needs to understand him first. He looks over the police report: it has the most information about Batman that’s ever been officially recorded so far. The Batman was eight years old when his parents died in front of him, and that’s what made him the way he is. Plenty of eight year olds have had their parents die, so it doesn’t tell Joker much. Gotham is a hellhole. But the Joker, well, the Joker is a chemist, and he understands the value of repeating an experiment.

Duke Thomas is eight years old and happens to have two loving, living parents.

Naturally, the Joker kidnaps the little family.

He wants Batman to watch, so he sets them up in the last warehouse Batman arrested the Joker in, trapped behind clear glass. Elaine holds her son close, and refuses to cry.

Batman arrives, breaks the glass, and jumps in front of the bullet himself.

But the Joker has rigged up a just-in-case plan, or maybe just another trap to catch Batman in. He laughs, and pressed a button, and runs out of the building. The warehouse starts filling with Joker Toxin, and Batman is only fast enough to save Duke.

His parents collapse, laughing.

Bruce Wayne is twenty-two years old, and has been operating as Batman for almost a full year.

And already, the Joker, an insane man who is obsessed with becoming Batman’s own personal nemesis, has found a weakness to exploit.

The boy is eight, the same age Bruce was. His parents aren’t dead, but they’re now victims to a toxin that hasn’t been seen much before and is known to be fatal in large doses. Batman gives Duke Thomas to the police and gives his parents to the ambulance. They’ll be treated at Thomas Wayne Memorial Hospital, and Bruce will fund their treatment himself.

When he follows up a week later, he finds that Duke has been regularly running away from his group home to sit at his parents’ bedside. They’ve been put into medically induced comas in order to mitigate the effects of the toxin—there’s a high chance that they might never wake up.

Bruce looks at this kid, eight years old, having lost so much, just like him, except without the resources, without the support, abandoned to the frequently corrupt social services in Gotham—and, well, he can’t just leave the kid on his own.

He shows up to the hospital as Batman and finds Duke there, delicately holding his mothers hand.

“When I was your age,” he says, kneeling next to Duke to get on his eye-level. “I had something very similar happen.”

“I know,” Duke replies. “Joker told us his whole plan.”

Batman nods, solemn. “I had support, and people who knew me and understood what happened. I want to offer that same support to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you want to, you don’t have to stay in that group home,” Batman explains. “You could come live with me.”

Duke is quiet for a minute, thinking.

“And I could still come visit?” he asks.

“Of course,” Batman says.

“Then I think I’d like to.”

Batman tells him to wait just a few days, and then the legal side should be settled. He gives Duke a piece of paper with a phone number on it for the meantime, just in case, and whispers a name.

Four days later, Duke Thomas is legally the ward of one Bruce Wayne.

Chapter Text

Batman, Duke decides, is kind of weird.

Not, like, a bad weird. He says stuff like “call me Bruce” and asks questions like “when is your bedtime, normally?” but forgets things like gummy vitamins and chocolate milk and bubble bath. All things which are, in Duke’s opinion, absolutely necessities. His mom always says (said) (will say again when she wakes up) that little pleasures are good for you, as long as you aren’t spoiled.

Mostly, it’s super obvious that Bruce doesn’t talk to a lot of kids outside of when he’s Batman. Sometimes, Duke decides, this is a good thing. It means that when Bruce gets home from work (CEO work, not Batman work—way more boring), he’s willing to teach Duke things like how to disarm an opponent with a knife and how to brace yourself to escape a chokehold and how to throw someone off of you if they have you pinned to the ground.

Duke considers these to be important skills because, obviously, he’s going to start working with Batman soon. The Joker got away, and Duke has to help arrest him again. He has to do something to get revenge for his parents!

They might never wake up, but Duke tries not to think about that, because if he thinks about that for too long or too hard then he starts crying.

Bruce brings him to visit his parents every day after school, so even if he didn’t do any of that other stuff, he would already be a way better option than that stupid group home where half the teenagers smelled like weed (he knows because his old neighbor did and his dad complained about it), and the adults didn’t care to stop them but always made them follow dumb curfews and had weird rules for mealtimes and made the older kids look after the little ones. And the really little ones cried a lot and it always gave Duke a headache.

There’s another guy in the Manor, too, an older British guy named Alfred Pennyworth. He’s a butler. Duke thought those were made up for the romance stories his mom watched on TV. Except Alfred only kind of acts like those TV butlers, because sometimes he’s in charge instead of Bruce. Bruce says it’s because Alfred was the one who took care of him after his parents died, so Alfred is used to being “something of an authority” in the house. Duke just thinks it’s nice that Alfred slips him cookies after school and helps Duke find his bedroom when he gets lost in this huge house again.

“How did you become Batman?” Duke asks one day, about a month in. He’s been secretly dreaming up his own superhero codename, but he hasn’t brought it up to Bruce yet. Bruce insists that any training is for “self-defense”, because obviously Gotham is dangerous. He just finished showing Duke how to escape a bear-hug from behind.

(The answer is frequently “kick the assailant in the groin”. Duke had no idea. The action heroes on TV always do something way cooler.)

Bruce looks a little taken-aback. “Well, Duke, I told you. When I was your age, a man cornered my family in an alley—”

“No, that’s WHY you became Batman,” Duke interrupts, because if he lets Bruce think about what happened that night too hard he’ll start crying again and pretending he isn’t crying, again. “I asked HOW you became Batman. How’d you learn all this stuff?”

Bruce sits back a little, face stilling into something more serious.

“I trained hard, for a long time. Alfred taught me a lot of self-defense, as a kid, after what happened. That’s what I’m teaching you now. I learned more advanced combat techniques and received training for weaponry and other things while abroad in Europe.”

“Other things?” Duke echoes, curious. Bruce makes a face like he was hoping he wouldn’t have to elaborate.

“Things like chemical resistance training, so people can’t knock me out using typical drugs,” he explains anyway.

Alfred basically materializes in the doorway of the training gym. “I think that’s enough of that, Master Bruce. Children under the age of ten need not be tempted by your harebrained trip across the world.”

“What’s harebrained mean?” Duke asks, because he’s eight and some words are still new.

“It is a word used to describe something foolish, rash, or ill-advised, young Master Duke,” Alfred explains.

Duke nods, and Bruce nods, and they get up and leave the gym and the Cave in favor of eating dinner upstairs.

When Duke has been there six months, he manages to wear Bruce down enough that he’s allowed to look at case files on the big computer down in the Cave. Someone (probably Alfred if Duke is being honest, because Bruce still has only the loosest grasp of what Duke’s mom would call “child-appropriate activities”) has made Duke his own login and set various levels of clearance on all the active cases, and given Duke the lowest clearance so that he can only look at cases that don’t have much gore or at least don’t have pictures of it.

The clearance levels seem to be set up so that Duke can access more as he gets older, or maybe as he gets better. That’s the only reason Duke can guess at for his being set at Clearance Level Ten and Bruce being set at Clearance Level Zero. There’s only three people in this house, after all, so there should really only be three clearance levels. Unless, of course, it’s set up for Duke to progress in some way. It reminds him of a video game.

Duke quickly discovers a talent for linking together clues and, just a few weeks into being allowed to look at cases, blows open a kidnapping ring.

As a reward, Bruce offers to teach him how to hack.

The anniversary of the attack on Duke’s parents is hard for everyone in the house, because Duke makes it hard.

He doesn’t mean to.

The week leading up to the anniversary, he wakes up every night with screaming nightmares, late enough that Bruce is already back from patrol as Batman and comes flying into Duke’s room expecting an intruder. Once he figures out what’s happening, that first night, he simply holds Duke close and says nothing. His embrace is warm and comfortable and Duke doesn’t want him to say anything, he just wants his parents to wake up. He hasn’t had nightmares like this since those first few months after coming to live with Bruce.

He’s nine now. It’s been a year. His parents haven’t gotten any better.

Day-of, Alfred drives Duke and Bruce to the hospital. His parents were placed in medically-induced comas after the attack for reasons Duke still doesn’t fully understand, but it’s better than the laughing. He can pretend they’re asleep, like this.

“I promise,” he swears, holding his mother’s hand, “I’m gonna figure out how to make you better. I’m not gonna let Joker get away with this.”

Bruce makes a little wounded noise from behind him, but Duke doesn’t pay attention. He switches his grip to his dad’s hand.

“I’m not gonna let this happen to anyone else,” he says, and Bruce sighs and Duke ignores him. “I’m with Batman now, dad. We’re gonna stop Joker and every other villain in this city.”

During the car ride back, Duke makes it clear that he wants to join Batman on the streets. Patrol, fights, whatever, he just can’t handle living in stasis like this and pretending everything is fine. He has to do something to help people, or all he’s ever gonna see are his nightmares.

“No,” Bruce says, like a total jerk and also a hypocrite.

“I am not a hypocrite,” Bruce says, sighing deeply. Alfred raises one eye at him through the rearview mirror.

“Batman can’t take care of this whole city alone!” Duke insists. “I want to help! I can fight now, you’ve been teaching me! I can’t let Joker get away with hurting people like this!”

“Duke, you are nine years old. I can’t let you run around as a vigilante, it’s too dangerous. What would your parents say?”

Duke puffs out his chest, holding his head high because he’s sure of this. “They would tell me it’s my duty to help my community however I can.”

“There are other ways to help,” Bruce tries.

“You know I track crime stats on the Computer, right?” Duke asks, rhetorically. “Batman helps way more than anything else in Gotham. And I can do that, too! I’m already solving cases, I’m already helping, just let me do more!”

“Master Duke makes a good point, Master Bruce,” Alfred chimes in as he pulls the car up to the Manor.

“Who’s side are you on, here? I thought you were against vigilantism,” Bruce grumbles.

“I’ll do it anyway,” Duke threatens.

“Yes, that’s rather what I was afraid of,” Alfred says placidly, raising his eyebrow at Bruce again. “It would be a simple matter to increase your training so you could be as safe as possible when you do.”

Bruce seems to deflate, and Duke knows he’s won.

“Not immediately,” Bruce says, voice hard and unyielding. Duke nods in agreement. “I trained for a whole year for the hard stuff, so you have to train for at least that long.”

“Okay,” Duke says eagerly.

“And you wear armor. More armor than I do, because your size and age limit the amount of muscle-mass you can realistically have, which will leave you more vulnerable.”

“Okay.”

“And you get all your homework done on time and keep your grades up, or you don’t get to patrol.”

“Aw, what?” Duke protests. “Batman stuff is definitely more important than homework!”

“Nope,” Bruce disagrees, picking Duke up and scooping him onto his hip to like Duke is still little, a move he uses to make sure Duke can’t run away from a serious conversation. “Batman does a lot, but education and social programs do a lot to reduce crime, too, and there’s only so much I can donate to Gotham’s infrastructure before the WE shareholders start getting mad at me. Keeping up with your education so you understand the world around you will end up being just as important to being a vigilante as the combat training is.”

“Because it’ll help me solve cases?”

“Sure,” Bruce agrees.

When Duke turns ten, they celebrate by inviting Duke’s school friends to a roller-rink and having ice cream and cake. When they get home, Bruce asks him if he’s thought up a codename yet.

Duke makes a face at him. “I’m not being Batkid or Batboy, if that’s what you’re asking,” he declares.

Bruce laughs. “No, no. I thought you might have your own ideas.”

Duke purses his lips, looking down at his hands, making fists and releasing them. He doesn’t want to make Bruce angry, but he has something he thinks he needs to say.

Bruce crouches down and gently takes Duke’s hands in his, stopping him from making fists.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay. Whatever you have to say, I promise I’m here to listen.”

“You know I look at the police reports about Batman,” Duke starts, hesitantly meeting Bruce’s eyes. They’re blue, blue, blue, like a winter sky, and just as piercing as a frozen wind. Duke thinks his normal brown will never be able to hold the same weight with just a stare, but he can keep trying to learn, anyway.

“Yes?” Bruce prompts.

“People are scared,” Duke says.

Bruce gets a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “That’s the point, Duke. I want criminals to be scared of me. It’s why I chose to be a Bat, because that’s what scares me.”

“Which is still dumb, the bats in the Cave are super cute,” Duke rattles off automatically. “But that’s not what I’m talking about, Bruce! It’s not just criminals who are scared. A lot of people you save are scared, too.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Bruce sighs. “Most people still think Batman is a myth. I’m not as visible as some of the other people doing this, like that flying man out in Metropolis.”

“I just think…”

Bruce waits, holding Duke’s hands in his patiently.

“I just think that it would help if people felt safe around you, too.”

“Okay, explain that to me.”

“If people called for help, we could find them and rescue them easier. Especially with things like kidnapping or domestic abuse cases. And if people saw you as a protector, the criminals wouldn’t be less scared, but maybe they’d be less likely to risk the consequences for going against innocents,” Duke reasons.

Bruce tilts his head slightly to one side. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you.”

It’s not a question, so Duke doesn’t answer it like one.

“I think if I’m gonna work with you, I have to be the one to make it obvious that people can trust you. It’ll help that I’m a kid, I think. People just need a signal that help is on the way.”

“A signal, huh?” Bruce repeats, smiling.

“Yeah!” Duke grins. Then he bites his lip. “But I still don’t know what my codename should be.”

Bruce stands up, hauling Duke into a hug as he goes. “Weren’t you listening to yourself, Duke?” he asks, voice happy and slightly teasing. “You’re the Signal.”

Chapter Text

On the second anniversary of the attack on his family, Duke feels more ready to face both his parents and the world.

Tomorrow, he’ll go out for the first time as the Signal.

He’s trained for combat. Bruce has taught him to escape all sorts of grapples and chokeholds and ropes and restraints, just in case he gets kidnapped. He’s been sharpening his mind for detective work since he was eight years old, and by now (through a mix of stubborn insistence and proving himself really good at detective work) he’s gotten himself up to Clearance Level Five.

He’s ready.

Duke meets Lucius Fox for the first time to get fitted for his very own armor. Lucius Fox is the head of R&D at Wayne Enterprises, which Bruce explains means he’s in charge of all the different inventions that WE researches and releases to the public.

And, secretly, he’s the guy in charge of all of Batman’s tech. The Computer, the armored car, the grapple guns and the bat-shaped thrown weapons that act as Batman’s signature. Duke thinks he must be the coolest guy ever.

Lucius Fox is much less impressed with Duke.

“Bruce, why is your ward in my classified workshop?” he asks, regarding Duke with flat, judging eyes.

“He needs to be fitted for a suit. Something heavily armored, to keep him safe,” Bruce answers.

“You are not letting a kid follow you out there,” Lucius says.

“He’s trained. Alfred approves. He’s ready, Lucius.”

“What, you think I can’t do it?” Duke asks, affronted.

Lucius doesn’t look at Duke, but he levels a glare at Bruce. “I am doing this because you pay me, but know I don’t approve, Bruce.”

“I’m not asking for your approval, Lucius. I’m just asking for your help,” Bruce replies.

Lucius sighs, then softens, finally turning to Duke.

“Hey, little man,” he says, voice noticeably warmer. “Got any ideas what you want your suit to look like?”

“I’m gonna be the Signal,” Duke starts, standing proud. “Because I’m gonna show people that help is coming, that there’s still hope. I want to be yellow.”

“Yellow?”

“Yellow! Like a light in the darkness,” Duke insists.

“He reads a lot of fantasy,” Bruce says, for no reason that Duke can see. Lucius nods like this makes sense, smiling a little.

“You know that’s what they call the light that the police use to call Batman? The Batsignal. You want to look like that, kid?” Lucius offers.

Duke thinks about it. Batsignal is a dumb name for a spotlight, and it’s totally stealing his brand, but… “It’s just yellow with a bat in the middle, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Then yeah, that’s what I want.”

Lucius has him stand very still and uses a tape measure to measure all sorts of things that Duke has never had measured before. He lets Duke pick a shade of yellow from a hex code slider on his computer, and then kicks both of them out so he can get to work.

A week later, the suit is ready. It’s yellow, with thick, hard armor on the torso and over the front of his legs, and black weave armor underneath, and to cover his arms and the back of his legs. He gets chunky yellow boots, yellow gloves, a yellow helmet that looks like Batman’s except with a black bat-shaped visor (which Duke finds kind of silly but likes anyway), and a black utility belt. Across the chest of the armor, emblazoned in white and almost glowing, is Batman’s symbol.

Batman makes him test his grapple gun ten times before they leave the Cave.

Jim Gordon considers himself to be a man who is doing his best. He knows that GCPD officers are frequently corrupt, but he himself isn’t, even if he frequently… outsources to a man with a strange fashion sense. Sharp mind, though, and no law that says the Police Commissioner can’t get help from consultants.

He may be stretching that “consultant” definition a bit, but, whatever. He has a new drug ring budding in the Bowery and knows that every beat cop and detective in that precinct is in the pocket of the Maroni family, he just doesn’t have the evidence to prove it. So the Batman it is.

He flips on the spotlight that Batman gave him in order to get in contact for non-emergencies. The hidden phone in his office for actual emergencies has only been used twice.

The yahoos in the office call it the “Batsignal” or the “Batlight”. Jim calls it “convenient”.

Today, when Batman arrives, he has someone else with him.

A really, really short someone else.

“Batman,” Jim asks, exasperated already. “Is that a kid?”

“This is Signal,” replies Batman, because giving a straight answer about anything other than a case might cause God to strike him dead where he stands. “He’s with me.”

“Is that a kid,” Jim repeats.

“The kid can hear you, y’know,” Signal quips.

Jim sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose, praying desperately to stave off the incoming headache.

“Batman, whose kid is that?”

“Obviously I’m my parents’ child?” the child—dressed in bright yellow, by the way, great way to announce that he’s a target!—says. Jim ignores him and wishes he hadn’t left his cigarettes downstairs in his office.

Wait, no. You can’t smoke around the child, Jim, he thinks.

“Legally he is my responsibility,” Batman says, in that gravel voice of his that sounds too serious to actually be telling Jim that he’s legally responsible for a child.

“I’m the Signal!” the kid introduces himself. Jim guesses that’s a vote for “Batlight” being the big spotlight that summons Batman. He feels a little hysterical.

The kid’s skin, only visible on his face, seems to be too dark to be mixed, but what the hell does Jim know? He’s white, he doesn’t see enough mixed kids to be able to tell in the low-light of the evening (or probably at all, if he’s honest). If this kid has Batman’s genes then there was no stopping this, anyway.

Jim takes a deep breath and decides that there’s nothing he can do to stop this anyway, so there’s no point in making a fuss.

“There’s a new drug ring in the Bowery,” he states, getting down to business. “But the only good cops in that precinct aren’t able to get the evidence to me, and I’m pretty sure the rest are getting paid off by the Maronis, which means that this ring must not be competition. I’m not sure if it’s the Maronis making a new move to expand, or if it’s beneath their notice, or another gang they plan to make an example out of. Either way, I’d like to see it stopped before we start seeing a new wave of overdoses.”

Batman nods once, solemn. Signal waves cheerily, and then they both turn and jump off the roof.

Some days, Jim hates his job.

The Signal rapidly becomes part of The Batman’s mythos, his name passed around in tandem with the Batman’s by the people they’ve rescued.

The-Batman-and-The-Signal, they say, like it’s all one word. The-Signal-means-Batman-is-here. If you see a kid in yellow, the gangs learn, that means it’s time to run.

Duke loves it. His plan is working! People see the Signal as a sign that help has arrived. When Duke punches an attempted rapist in Burnley, the victim thanks him profusely and says “As soon as I was cornered, I started looking for yellow.” Duke rides that high for a week straight.

About seven months in, the first kid comes to him to tattle on his uncle, who apparently runs drugs for a gang, and Signal realizes that there’s a whole network of possible informants that he can tap into that Batman never did, maybe never could. Well, until they rescue a group of twenty kids from a trafficking operation, and seeing Signal hanging onto Batman’s cape and off of his arm makes the other kids willing to be picked up by Batman, too.

If Duke knew Bruce even slightly less well than he does, he would never have seen the surprise and momentary panic that the first six-year-old going in for a hug gave him. It was hilarious. Duke wished he had a camera.

Generally, people get used to the little yellow light that flits ahead of Batman, and the despair that permeates Gotham seems to lighten, just a little.

And then, about a year after he starts going out as the Signal, things get really serious.

Chapter Text

Joker makes his home base in Amusement Mile, the defunct theme park on the north coast of the island. He’ll venture out to cause chaos and grab people from all over Gotham. Two-Face sticks mainly to the City Hall District and Old Gotham, though he recruits his goons from all over the city. Both of them have some fingers in Crime Alley, because it’s a hellhole.

This new guy is called the Riddler, and at first he didn’t seem like such a big deal. He ran a protection racket in the Narrows, which was nothing new. But when he starts broadcasting as a costumed rogue, Duke pays attention.

The Narrows is his neighborhood. This guy has kidnapped his neighbors, Duke’s people, and he’s threatening to kill them one-by-one on live television if The Batman and The Signal don’t come and stop him.

He says that if they solve all his riddles, then they’ve proved themselves to be of “superior intellect” and he’ll let the hostages go free. He releases an address, but says if any police show up, then he will kill all the hostages immediately.

He wants to prove that he’s smarter than the vigilante they’ve started calling the World’s Greatest Detective and his chosen protegé.

“We have to go,” Bruce declares, pushing himself out of bed. Alfred sends him right back down with barely a tap.

“You’re in no shape to stand, Master Bruce, let alone set off on a rescue mission. We will simply have to let the police handle this one,” he chides.

“If the police show up, Riddler will kill those people!” Bruce protests.

Duke bites his lip, thinking. Alfred is right, Bruce can’t go. Catwoman tricked him onto a fragile skylight last night and dropped him fifty feet in order to make a clean escape. She got away with a gold-plated statue of Bast, and left Bruce with a broken tibia, three broken ribs, and a concussion.

“I can go,” Duke volunteers.

“You’re not going out on your own,” Bruce says immediately.

“What, are you going to stop me when you can’t even walk right now?” he shoots back. “The Riddler has ten hostages and ten riddles. I’m good at riddles, I can do this. But if we don’t show up, or the cops show up instead, then ten people die.”

“If you get a riddle wrong, he’ll kill the hostage. I can’t put that on you,” Bruce argues.

“If we don’t show up and he kills all ten people, then that’s on us anyway, Bruce!”

“The lad makes a good point,” Alfred says, though he doesn’t sound enthusiastic about it.

“How are you going to get there,” Bruce challenges.

“You’ve been teaching me to drive a bike.”

“For when you’re twelve.”

“I daresay I could drive him. We have spare domino masks for ventures when the helmets are simply not practical. I can use one of those and take him in the car,” Alfred volunteers.

Bruce hesitates.

“Of course, I would need a promise from you that you won’t move and aggravate your injuries while we are both out,” Alfred tells him sternly. Duke resists the urge to giggle as Bruce grimaces, contrite.

“I’ll stay put if you stay in the car,” he bargains.

“Done deal,” Alfred agrees. Duke is pretty sure he wasn’t planning to leave the car anyway.

“I’ll get suited up,” he says, and runs out of the room before Bruce can offer any more objections.

The address the Riddler gave over TV leads them to a warehouse at the edge of the Diamond District, just across the bridge from the area of the Narrows that Riddler controls. Signal steels himself and enters through the front door.

“Ah-ha! Welcome, our guests of honor!” Riddler cheers, aiming a camera at him. “Oh, but what’s this? Where’s the big, bad Batman, little Signal?”

“He’s out of commission tonight,” Signal admits, and it burns to admit any weakness like that while he’s obviously being recorded. He covers it with a grin. “So I get you all to myself!”

“You think you’re smart enough to defeat me on your own?”

Signal looks at the hostages gagged and bound, lined up onstage behind the Riddler, each with a dedicated goon standing behind them and pointing a gun at their head.

“I’m good at riddles,” Signal says, and doesn’t elaborate. Riddler laughs anyway, high and grating, and Duke hates him just a little more. He recognizes one of the hostages. He used to live down the hall from her. She gave out homemade cookies on Halloween, and they were kinda bad, but you could always tell how much effort was put into them. She was at the end of the line, on the far right from Signal’s viewpoint.

“Well! I’m sure we can test that!” Riddler exclaims. “Please, step up to the podium.”

Signal looks at the hostages, then switches his gaze to Riddler and brings his focus forwards. He takes a deep breath. I can do this. He steps up to the podium. It’s green, emblazoned with little question marks everywhere, and has a single microphone. There’s a larger podium next to it that was clearly meant for Batman. Riddler makes a sharp gesture with his hand, and three goons come out of the shadows and cart the extra podium away.

“Right, now we can start! Ground rules first, of course,” Riddler says, keeping up the facade of being some TV game show host. He claps his hands once for emphasis. “There are ten hostages, with one riddle per hostage! If you answer the riddle correctly, the hostage will be spared. But if you answer incorrectly...” he trails off ominously, grinning.

“I get it,” Signal says.

“Then let’s go! Riddle number one: What gets bigger the more you take away?”

Is this a trick? Duke heard that one from his dad when he was, like, five.

“A hole,” Signal answers.

“Correct!” Riddler calls. Though the hostage can’t see them, the goon behind them lowers their gun. It’s the pair on the far left of the stage, so they’re probably going left to right. Good. That means Riddler is serious about sticking to the terms he set, probably.

“It belongs to you, but other people use it more. What is it?”

You as in every individual, Duke thinks. What does everybody have that they don’t use?

“Your name,” Duke answers.

“Correct!” Riddler calls. He still seems to be having fun—his grin hasn’t dropped at all. The second goon lowers his gun.

Duke takes a deep breath. He can do this. He’s good at riddles.

“What thrives when you feed it, but dies when you water it?”

Immediately, his brain tries to think of what animals might be hydrophobic. Any with rabies, but technically they still need water—maybe something saltwater-based? But that would still be watering it—and then he remembers that this is a riddle, and so it’s probably some kind of wordplay.

“A fire.”

“Correct!” The third goon lowers his gun. Okay. Duke is winning so far. He can do this.

“Your third riddle is: I can be cracked, made, told, or played! What am I?”

What the...? Duke thinks. Something that can be cracked, so… broken? Made… told… and played, like a game? Or maybe like a recording… oh!

“You’re a joke,” he says.

“Well, no need for insults!” Riddler laughs. “But yes, a joke! Well done.”

The fourth gun lowers. Duke can’t stand this. He’s so tense. He wants to run to the hostages, take out the goons… but he wouldn’t be fast enough to free more than two before the others all get shot. He’s not physically restrained, but he can’t help but feel trapped.

“Now, riddle me this! Poor people have it,” Riddler starts, gesturing to the hostages behind him. RUDE. Plenty of people from the Narrows are middle-class! And if they are poor, it’s not something that deserves that kind of condescending eyebrow-raise. Everybody is just doing their best! “Rich people need it. And if you eat it, you die! What is it?” Riddler asks.

Rich people need it? But rich people don’t usually need anything… oh, duh.

“It’s nothing.”

“Give the kid his prize!”

The fifth gun lowers. One of the hostages sobs.

“Riddle six! What can go through glass without breaking it?”

What. What? Signal breaks glass all the time—everything breaks glass. Though there was that one time, when they were investigating the hotel room a visiting congressman had been murdered in… and a laser sight had settled over Batman through the window. The bullet had broken the glass, obviously, but the laser...

Duke stops himself before he can say “lasers” out loud and screw this up. “Light,” he answers.

“Such a clever little hero, huh?” Riddler asks. He looks down at the paper he’s been reading off of, then scowls in Signal’s direction. “You’re correct.”

The sixth gun lowers. Duke carefully doesn’t react; that’s over half the hostages saved, now. Getting through this with everyone intact seems just a little bit more likely.

He has to hope. That’s what he stands for. He has to hope. He can do this.

“Now, onto our seventh puzzle! What has a face, but no eyes, nose, or mouth?”

Okay, really? Again, he’s heard this one from his dad.

“A clock.”

Riddler rolls his eyes. “That was awful fast.”

Dread seizes Duke for a fleeting second. Is there some other answer? Did he get it wrong?

“But correct,” Riddler sighs, and Signal almost sags with relief. He doesn’t let himself, though. He still has a job to complete.

The seventh gun lowers. Three riddles to go.

“It has keys, but no locks. It has space, but no room. You can enter, but can’t go inside. What is it?”

Okay, this one is definitely wordplay. What do the things “it” has have in common? Keys, space, enter. A key could be a password, if there’s no locks… that’s it!

Duke would never have gotten this one without his hacking lessons from Batman. Space and enter are both keys on a…

“Keyboard!” he answers.

“Yes, yes…” The eighth gun lowers. “Now, number nine! What runs all around a backyard, yet never moves?”

Well, dang. Duke lived in an apartment most of his life, and for the past couple of years he’s been in the Manor, which is more “grounds” than “backyard”. Something that runs but never moves? Runs “around”. Like, around the perimeter?

Duke kinda hates that Bruce’s early geometry lessons are actually helping. He’ll never be able to complain about math tutoring again.

“A fence,” he says, figuring “perimeter” is probably Not It since the riddle specified “backyard” and not, like, “property”.

“Correct!” Riddler cheers, though he’s much less enthusiastic than he was when they started. The ninth gun lowers. Signal can practically taste his victory on the horizon—one more riddle and then he can arrest this guy.

“Now, our final riddle! My dearest Signal, what is always in front of you, but can’t be seen?”

It’s like his brain stalls. What’s in front of him? Hostages? The Riddler himself? Is this meant to be about how, as a self-proclaimed hero, he’s always facing a villain or threat? Of course, most of these riddles have been more wordplay than philosophy… and the first one about fire was pretty literal. What invisible thing could always be in front of him?

Oh! Duh.

“The air,” Duke answers, tensing his legs so he can leap towards the Riddler as soon as the last gun is lowered.

“Ah, well…” Riddler starts, frowning. “I’m afraid that’s not correct. I guess you still couldn’t see it!”

What? What? No. He can’t be wrong!

His eyes snap to the woman at the end of the row, the woman who used to be his neighbor and who gives out homemade cookies for Halloween. Her eyes go wide, mouth opening to scream—and then suddenly her face is gone.

The exit wound covers over half of her face, blooming red and brown and fragments of white from just above her nose, and she hits the floor before her scream leaves her throat.

The other nine hostages scream in her place, but Duke can’t hear them.

Duke’s blood is ice, or static, maybe. He’s not warm anymore. He can’t feel his fingers.

He’s been doing this for a year. He’s seen people die before. They overdose, they get shot in gang fights, they bleed out quietly in their homes weeks before Commissioner Gordon brings Batman and Signal onto the case. But it hasn’t been anyone he’s known before. Batman’s kept him from standing close enough to tell what’s brain matter and what’s bone fragment and what’s burnt, popped remnants of eyeball.

Signal launches himself over the podium, kicking off the top of it to get to the stage faster. The goons abandon the hostages, circling around the Riddler like an honor guard. Signal punches, kicks, aiming at throats and groins. He takes down three goons, but the ones lining the walls join the group between him and the Riddler, and none of them hesitate to shoot at him. His armor deflects the bullets, but the yellow paint scratches away, exposing the dark material underneath.

Once he’s taken down three goons, the others all start running.

The Riddler got away, and now his gang doesn’t have to stay behind to protect him. Signal throws one of the signature weapons at the knees of the last straggler, but the guy only stumbles.

“BASTARDS! COWARDS!” he screams after them. It’s all he can do not to cry, but sobbing reaches his ears anyway.

Oh, crap. The other hostages. He forces himself to steady, settle. He can fall apart when he’s back with Bruce. Right now, he has people to help.

“Are you all okay?” he asks, after securing the three thugs he did take down with zip ties around the wrists.

He goes down the line of hostages, doing a quick visual inspection, cutting the ropes around their wrists, and carefully removing the cloth gags.

“That lady is dead!” one of the men shouts hysterically, pointing at the dead woman.

“Yeah. I’m sorry… I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. But are any of the rest of you hurt?”

“Where the hell is Batman, huh?” one of the other hostages demands. It’s a white lady in what looks like secondhand clothes and shoes with the soles worn smooth. “When you showed up alone I thought he was gonna sneak up on them from behind, or something.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said he couldn’t come. I’m sorry,” Signal answers, trying to keep his voice level. That probably would have been what they would have done, except Batman would have been the one answering riddles.

“I want to go home!” an older man cries, looking in the exact opposite direction of the corpse onstage. “This has been horrible, can we go home now?”

He’s not the only one crying.

“Riddler was broadcasting this, the police should have come as soon as they saw he was gone. They’ll get you all home from here,” Signal answers, leading the nine of them out of the warehouse.

It takes a minute, but soon enough six police cruisers arrive. Five of them load the hostages in the back to take them to the station. The last two cops go inside to… inspect the crime scene and take care of the body, probably. Duke doesn’t care. He wants to go home and cry.

He knows one of them will probably come ask him for a statement soon, but, really, the whole incident was recorded. He doesn’t need to be here.

He walks around the corner of the warehouse, spots the car lurking in the shadows much like its owner, and gets in so Alfred can take him home.

Chapter Text

Bruce holds him all night when he gets home, despite his bruised ribs. Duke ends up sleeping in Bruce’s bed for a week, and Bruce benches him while he “recovers” which is totally stupid because Bruce can’t go out either until his leg heals, and Duke isn’t even actually injured.

He goes to visit his parents and kicks Bruce out of the room. Bruce smiles indulgently, but obediently leaves. Duke rants for thirty minutes about how stupid Bruce is for benching him, and then it turns into a confession of guilt about how he got their hall-neighbor killed with a mistake, and he cries himself to sleep right there on the edge of his dad’s bed. He wakes up in Bruce’s Porsche halfway back to the Manor, but he feels a little bit better.

That’s a good thing, because next week is the annual Winter Gala that the city throws, and Duke can’t show up as a civilian looking as depressed as he’s been feeling. That probably wouldn’t look good to CPS, especially since being fostered by Bruce makes Duke kind of a high-profile case. This will be his third Winter Gala since coming to live with Bruce, since he didn’t go when he was eight.

The Gala is usually boring. There’s no other kids there, and none of the adults really want to talk to him, even though he’s in double-digits now (and has been for over a year! He’s eleven!) and super smart because of his Batman-tutoring. The only fun part is getting to watch “Brucie” at work.

Duke has no idea how this guy runs a company if this is what he acts like as a “civilian cover”. Brucie is dumb, kisses lots of girls, and generally makes a fool of himself. He has none of the stoic competence, deadly intimidation, or elegant symbolism of the Batman. Duke watches him as he trips into a woman who seems a little too happy to catch him and thinks, This is the man who invented Gotham’s Symbol of Fear?

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, Ms. Drake,” Brucie apologizes, clumsily regaining his balance. The woman smiles with cherry-red lips, tossing her blonde hair over one shoulder and flitting her eyes down to Brucie’s chest and then back up to his face.

“It’s no trouble, Mr. Wayne,” she says, waving him off. She notices Duke, and her face drops into a more natural smile. “And who’s this?”

“I’m Duke Thomas,” Duke answers, because he had manners even before Alfred made him do etiquette training.

“I’m fostering him,” Bruce explains, before Ms. Drake can ask. “He came to stay with me when he was eight.”

“Well, I’m sure staying with Brucie must be fun,” Ms. Drake says, talking directly to Duke instead of to Brucie about Duke. That instantly wins her some points.

“Well, sometimes he makes me come to these dumb parties…”

“Duke!”

Ms. Drake laughs. “Yeah, I bet. This is the first one I’ve been to in five years.” Her eyes dart to something behind Duke, and her shoulders fall. “And I need to go talk to that man, but it was nice meeting you!”

She strides off across the ballroom, and Duke turns back to Bruce.

“I like her,” he decides.

“Well, I’m glad she has your vote. I’ve had my eye on her for a few years now,” Bruce says. Uh-oh. Bruce doesn’t keep an eye on people unless it’s Batman stuff.

“Why?” Duke asks, hesitantly. If that nice lady is a villain he’s going to be so mad.

“That woman’s name is Dinah Drake, just turned eighteen years old. She’s part of the Drake family here in Gotham, but seems pretty estranged from them. She runs a dojo in Old Gotham. As far as I can tell, the old owner must have been a family friend who took her in after her father died and her mother disappeared,” Bruce explains.

“Her mother disappeared?” Duke asks. He knows Gotham is horrible to everybody, but he just can’t picture that sort of thing happening to these shiny, fake people walking around this polished, fancy ballroom.

“Her mother was a secret government operative who worked under the codename Black Canary as part of a group called the Justice Society of America. Marrying her is probably what got her husband estranged from the larger Drake family.”

“A secret government operative!” This isn’t the kind of thing you just drop on a guy!

“I believe the Justice Society was a group of people like us,” Bruce muses. His tone captures Duke’s full attention, making him drop his shock in favor of listening.

“What do you mean by that?”

“People like the two of us, and that man in Metropolis, and the unknown woman in Washington DC.”

Oh. “A whole team of people like us… you think that’s possible?” Duke asks.

“I think it would be an interesting logistical challenge,” Bruce answers, smiling cheekily. It’s such a typical Bruce answer that Duke is forced to roll his eyes.

“You would be interested in the logistics,” he says.

“Logistics are important, Duke,” Bruce chides futilely, raising one eyebrow. Duke gives him a deadpan look in return, to emphasize how much he doesn’t care.

Bruce can make him study logistics in the Cave, but there’s no way Duke is putting up with that in the middle of a fancy party. Bruce reads this on his face somehow and laughs.

“Come on, let’s go see if they have anything good at the buffet,” he suggests. That, Duke can do happily.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a gala in Gotham without a hostile robbery.

This time, it’s some new guy called Mad Hatter, like that guy from Alice in Wonderland, which like? What? Duke has only seen the Disney movie, so hopefully this wacko doesn’t have a pop quiz prepared.

Yeah, Duke is pretty done with pop quizzes right now. Missing that last question from the Riddler should have made that obvious enough.

This guy has a gun and a weird, big hat, but luckily it seems to be a normal stick-em-up instead of any kind of convoluted hostage scheme. Mad Hatter has a gang of about seven people with him, to point guns and be threatening and go around collecting valuables, but they don’t seem inclined to start shooting unprovoked.

Too bad Brucie Wayne is such a big name, or they could sneak away and come back as Batman and Signal. As it is, there are too many eyes on them.

The goons collecting valuables are using a sack that looks like it might be a repurposed pillowcase, and when they circle around to where Brucie and Duke are, Bruce drops his phone in.

Yeah, Bruce might have a broken leg, but now Batman can track his phone from the Cave and Signal can go bust the gang and reclaim the stolen goods.

Finally, something easy.

The bust starts out about how Signal expects it to; Bruce guides him from the comm installed on the Computer, since his leg has at least healed enough that he can get down to the Cave. He’s started making noise about installing an elevator, which sounds like a DIY project that Duke does not want to help with.

(Bruce says “I’ll guide you from the Batcomputer, okay? So you won’t be alone,” and Duke says “What did you just call the Computer?” And Bruce says “Well it’s the computer that we use… when we’re Batman and Signal, so…” and Duke says “Don’t be weird and lame, B, just log into the comm system please.”)

Anyway.

Bruce guides Alfred (who is once again driving) from the Cave to his phone, which obviously has a tracker on it. It’s a newer brand of phone that can call and text and play tetris and surf the web, and has a little keyboard instead of having the alphabet under the numbers on the keypad. Duke likes to practice his pickpocketing by slipping it out of Bruce’s pocket and then retreating to the library to play tetris. Signal finds the gang base pretty easily and presses the new button on the panel of his gauntlet that calls the police without having to track down a phone. Alfred had it installed after the Riddler incident. It links the hotline that Commissioner Gordon gave Batman to their comms until Signal presses the button again.

He reports his location and the location of the base with the stolen goods, and leaves redistribution and arrests to the police. Since these particular things were taken from Gotham’s richest and most powerful, they probably won’t get snatched from Evidence by dirty cops, and if they do, then well…

Gotham’s richest and most powerful will take care of that.

It feels good to have a clean win.

Except, no. Because when the police show up, they go into the building and then exit without doing anything? So Signal drops down from the roof to ask them why.

“Uh, guys? I’m seeing a severe lack of arrested gangsters or repossessed valuables,” he says.

“Yes, they’re not… here,” one cop replies. The others all nod along, looking a little baffled.

Hmm.

“They’re definitely here, this is where Batman and I tracked them to.”

One cop looks him up and down in a way that immediately makes Signal’s hackles raise.

“Yeah, someone like you would know about how criminals act, wouldn’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Signal asks, because. Because really? He knows that wasn’t a crack about being a vigilante, but good luck proving it with the way that jerk phrased it.

“Is that why you work with Batman?” the same cop asks. “Because your real dad is in jail somewhere?”

“My real dad is—”

“Careful in uniform!” Batman breaks in, over comms. Right. Right. He can’t say anything that might allude to his identity while in uniform, because it’s bad enough that the Joker probably already knows who Signal (and therefore Batman) is.

“I don’t have to deal with this,” Signal says out loud. He turns to look at the gang hideout, which is tagged with a big obvious green top hat, but he doesn’t move so much that the racist cop is outside of his peripheral vision.

There’s definitely movement through the windows now, even though it’s 12:36 AM. Great. Well, actually, maybe great for real? Since the police are already here and the gang members can be arrested immediately.

Except that something in that building made the police think there was nothing there.

Signal enters the building carefully, through the second-story window instead of the front door. It’s an old townhouse that was repurposed years ago to hold offices. Scuff marks on the floor and discoloration on the walls show where cubicles used to stand. The area has long since been cleared out. According to Bruce, the real estate company that used the building went bankrupt and cleared out two years ago, and since it’s in a bad location, the building hasn’t had a stable owner since, and is currently resting in a City Councilman’s pocket as what’s likely a tax break or emergency measure of some kind.

A shadow moves in his peripheral vision. Signal whirls to face it, and a—card?—comes flying out of the cubicle, adhering to the side of his helmet.

“Forget you saw us here, tell the cops the building is empty, and leave the card by the door,” a voice calls out. Signal squints, and the man in the cubicle resolves into the Mad Hatter.

“And why would I do that?”

“Oh, shoot,” Mad Hatter whispers. “No skin contact!”

Signal takes two steps forwards and decks him. Mad Hatter stumbles backwards, tripping over a loose floorboard and falling down. Signal pulls the tactical zip ties from his utility belt with one hand and pins Hatter down with the other.

“Good takedown,” Bruce says. Signal does not smile at that. He is a very serious vigilante, with a very serious mission.

He leaves Hatter there for a minute while he sweeps the rest of the building, locating and quickly downing two thugs. Signal drags all three outside and lines them up against the building, to the surprise of the police.

“What… there was nobody in there!” one cop exclaims. The racist cop, standing nearby, glares as if Signal just magicked up bad guys to make fun of her or something. He ignores her.

“Mad Hatter threw something at me, a device. It didn’t work because he couldn’t make skin contact. Based on what he said right after it hit, I believe it is some kind of mind control,” Signal relays.

“God, mind control? This city gets weirder every day,” another cop complains.

“I grabbed the suspects, but I didn’t do anything else. You guys should sweep the place for evidence and take possession of the stolen goods, so that they can be returned,” Signal says, studiously pretending that he’s not one of the things that makes this city weirder every day.

“I had no choice! How am I meant to treat my Alice the way she deserves if I lack the riches to do so?” Hatter wails from his position, bound against the wall. Everyone takes a subtle step away from him, except for the thugs which are still pretty dazed from their own takedowns.

“Well, sounds like a confession to me,” a cop says, stepping forward with real handcuffs. The others move towards the building entrance. Signal takes that as his cue, shoots his grapple towards the sturdiest-looking gargoyle on the other side of the street, and disappears over the skyline.

Alfred is waiting for him in the car, and Bruce is waiting at home.

It feels good to win again.

Chapter Text

Ever since he came to live with Bruce, he’s been attending Gotham Academy. It’s… okay.

It’s okay.

Here’s the thing: Duke wasn’t especially close with anybody at Gotham Central Elementary, but at least most people there were friendly. He never had any trouble joining games at recess. But in the Elementary Building at Gotham Academy?

All the kids were rich kids. All of them. Rich kids in Gotham are white. Rich kids in Gotham find it weird that he used to live in the Narrows, and ask him about it as if the Narrows is some kind of alien planet, and not literally in the same city they all live in. Rich kids in Gotham aren’t sure if he’s something to be pitied, because he’s an orphan, or envied, because he’s been taken in by Brucie Wayne, or feared, because he’s been taken in by Bruce Wayne the Prince of Gotham.

Turning eleven and leveling up to middle school? Did not help. It’s the exact same problem, but now instead of sticking with one class throughout the day, they’re allowed to pick their schedules, so there’s new people in almost every class Duke is in. It’s not as many people as a normal middle school would have, but he still sees about three times as many other students as he used to. People treat him like he’s less than them and better than them at the same time, and even some of the teachers give him weird looks when they think he won’t notice.

It’s exhausting.

And middle school doesn’t even have recess.

Would asking for a private tutor be admitting defeat?

On the upside, middle school has a chess club and a Warlocks and Warriors club. He thinks there’s a card games club, too, but like hell is he risking his mint Magic: The Gathering cards by playing with middle schoolers that don’t respect him half the time.

Duke opts to join normal PE instead of the Athletic programs, because then he can give half-effort with the other slow kids and not risk his identity as Signal.

He is so totally nailing this double life thing.

He’s daydreaming about cool things to ask Lucius about adding to his suit (it would be so on-theme if his bat-logo could double as a flashlight) when his art teacher calls for the class’s attention.

“Okay, guys! Today, we’re going to start our unit on portraits!” she announces. “We will start by learning basic shapes that make up someone’s face today, and then over the weekend I want you all to choose someone you know that inspires you. Get a photo of them, and then when we come back on monday we’re going to start painting those photos! Sounds fun?”

There’s a general chorus of half-hearted agreement. Duke frowns, wondering who he should paint. Well, actually… if he’s going to talk to Lucius about his suit anyway...

“You want to paint me in your art class?” Lucius Fox echoes.

“Our teacher said to choose someone who inspires us,” Duke explains.

“All Duke needs is a photo, Lucius,” Bruce wheedles, beaming for no reason that Duke can figure out. It’s not like Duke is painting him.

“You sure you don’t want to paint Batman?” Lucius asks, throwing a significant look towards the chestplate of the Signal armor where it’s spread out on the workbench.

“First of all, half of the reason Batman works is because most people barely believe he actually exists. Second of all, Batman was a lot cooler before I had lived with him for over a year,” Duke scowls. And then freezes. “Uh. I mean. No offense, Bruce.”

“How?” Bruce mutters. He sighs, then says a little louder, “No offense taken, sweetheart.”

“Alright, alright,” Lucius laughs. “Take your photo and get out of my workshop. I have LEDs to install.”

“Oh, is that your real dad?” the girl next to him in art asks, blatantly staring at the photo of Lucius he has pinned in the corner of his canvas.

“Uh,” Duke replies, having been really focused on doing his pencil outline.

“God, Elise, if he wants to be inspired by some nobody from the Narrows then let him, my mom says he probably won’t adjust to his new station for another year or so,” the next girl over snaps.

“Actually, this is a picture of Lucius Fox. You know, the head of Research and Development at Wayne Enterprises?” Duke snaps back, in a voice closer to a Bristol accent than he’s ever managed before. Both girls flinch a little, though the one further away huffs performatively and makes a show of focusing on her own portrait.

“S-sorry,” Elise whimpers.

Duke knows he won, but he doesn’t feel like it.

“It’s whatever,” he says.

When Alfred picks him up that afternoon, he’s quiet through the whole car ride. He knows he isn’t normally, and Alfred clearly does too, if the blatantly concerned looks he keeps glancing at Duke through the mirror with are any indication.

When they get back to the Manor, Duke runs straight upstairs to the Blue Sitting Room, where Bruce normally is after school. Sure enough, Bruce is on the couch, so Duke runs right up and tucks himself against Bruce’s side.

“Woah, buddy!” Bruce exclaims, shifting them so he can hug Duke and pull him onto his lap. “What’s going on? Are you okay? Did something happen at school?”

“Some girl talked bad about the Narrows and I snapped back at her.”

“Did you get in a fight?”

“No, we both just said one thing. And I think I won, I just don’t like it.”

“Why don’t you like it?”

“Because one girl asked if my picture was my dad and the other girl called my dad a Narrows nobody and I snapped back about it being Lucius, but if I had done this before my parents were in a coma then it totally would have been my dad, and I don’t like that I won just because Lucius is ‘better’, or whatever, or like, better to them, ‘cause Lucius is really cool but so is my dad and also the way I said it sounded super mean, just like the way all the mean rich kids talk, and I don’t like that I only won against them by being like them! It doesn’t feel like I won at all,” Duke pouts, finally running out of steam.

“Oh, boy. That’s a lot of feelings, sweetheart,” Bruce says, running one hand soothingly up and down Duke’s back.

“All the feelings are bad,” Duke cries.

“You’re allowed to defend yourself, Duke,” Bruce says quietly, once Duke has gotten his frankly embarrassing sniffing under control. He’s eleven, he shouldn’t be nearly in tears over one bad conversation at school.

“I don’t want to become just like the people I’m defending myself against,” Duke mumbles.

“The fact that you even realized you did that shows an amazing amount of self-awareness, sweetheart,” Bruce assures him. “And remember when we were still working on training your form?”

“Awareness of the body leads to control of the body,” Duke repeats, by rote.

“The same is true of the mind; if you are aware of your own mind, and know what sort of things make you angry, or sad, or even happy, then you can keep track of your own reactions and change the ones you don’t like. It will take an incredible amount of discipline—”

“I have discipline!” Duke interrupts.

“I know, but preventing your own bad reactions is different than maintaining your body or even studying for school or for our downstairs work. Emotional reactions are instinctual and instant. This is something that will take time.”

“I can do it,” Duke insists.

“I know, but give yourself some grace with this, okay? I still have to work at it sometimes.”

Duke takes a deep breath, and then another. He feels a lot calmer than earlier.

“Okay,” he agrees. If Batman is still working on this skill, then it’s okay if it takes Duke until he retires.

It won’t take that long, but still. It’s nice to have some wiggle room in his training for once.

He finishes his portrait of Lucius and decides he might not want to do art as a career. Lucius insists on hanging it up in the workshop anyway, which. Like. Duke is flattered, but why.

It looks, just… so bad.

About a month passes where nothing of particular note happens. Then, Batman and Signal follow a runaway purse thief around a sharp turn into an alley that’s already full of knockout gas.

They wake up in something that almost looks like a jail cell, except for the extremely weird looking door. It’s wooden, with visible cuts that outline strange, uneven panels. Also, it’s on the ceiling instead of the wall. Also also, the walls are clear plexiglass instead of bars, so really it doesn’t look like a jail cell at all.

“Hello, Batman! And welcome back, Signal!” Riddler shouts, stepping out from behind a curtain across the room dramatically.

“Riddler,” Batman says, voice flat. Signal says nothing, but clenches his left fist. If he opens his mouth he’s gonna start shouting.

“I found this nice abandoned apartment, and I thought, well, it’s the perfect place to trap the Dynamic Duo! See, Batman and Signal, you’re in my Puzzle Box of Doom!” Riddler announces.

“Puzzle Box of Doom?” Signal asks. “You couldn’t come up with anything better?”

Riddler ignores him. “There’s a clock on this wall behind me,” he says, gesturing to the digital clock that is indeed on the wall behind him. It’s not turned on. “In just a few more minutes, a fifteen-minute timer will be displayed on that clock. That’s how long you have to solve my little Puzzle Box door! If you don’t get out by the time your fifteen minutes are over, then the space you’re in will flood with poison gas!”

Batman thumps the side of his fist against the cell wall, the plexiglass not budging but muffling the sound ominously. Signal idly hopes that Batman didn’t just hurt his hand. “What’s the point of this, Riddler?” he growls.

“Well, first of all, it will prove that I am truly the most clever man in Gotham. Secondly, at the end of that fifteen-minute timer, the bomb my men planted in the sewers under the vault door of the Gotham First National Bank will go off, and so I’ll soon be the richest man in Gotham, too!” Riddler crows.

“That means we have even less than fifteen minutes if we want to stop the bomb!” Signal realizes.

“Well, ta-ta for now! I have to go get into position at the bank,” Riddler says, giving a condescending little wave and flouncing out of the only visible exterior door.

In the corner, the clock lights up with red, blocky numbers reading 15:00.

“I’ve never done a puzzle box,” Signal admits.

“We’ll add it to your training,” Batman replies. He reaches out and rotates a circular panel of wood. It doesn’t seem to do anything from where Signal’s standing, but Batman makes a satisfied grunt.

They get out of the puzzle room when the timer reads 02:46, swiftly exiting the building to find themselves on the edge of the Narrows, towards Robinson Park. Gotham First National Bank is located in the space where the Diamond District meets Old Gotham. With the way they travel, they might be able to make it, but they’ll be cutting it close.

“Signal, you’re on evacuation,” Batman orders, absorbing the situation as soon as he crosses the threshold to the outside of the building and recognizes their location. “I’ll get the bomb.”

“On it, Batman,” Signal replies. He already has his grapple out, and he takes off, flying high. A speck of gold against the perpetual smog of the Gotham skyline.

Batman continues the countdown in his head as he likewise grapples towards Old Gotham. The vault door is far back enough in the bank that there will likely be few casualties. Signal will start evacuation from those likeliest to get hit and end with those who are least likely to get hit, but still in the building.

01:50, blinks the timer in his head. He is halfway through the Diamond District.

01:10. Batman enters the sewer main that runs down the length of Cobblepot Avenue, which is the main street dividing the Diamond District and Old Gotham. That sewer main branches off into both neighborhoods, eventually terminating on Gotham’s coast. He flips open the cover of his wrist-computer, pulling up his realtime GPS coordinates overlaid with a map of Gotham. The buildings aren’t labeled, but there’s no need—the bank is the largest building on the street, originally erected in the 1920’s as a sign of Gotham’s growing wealth and enviable opulence.

00:45. He approaches the turn off. Three steps, and then a right turn into a smaller sewer line. He is finally starting to adjust to the smell. These boots will need to be deep-cleaned, as will the cape. It might be better to just incinerate them.

00:30. His wrist-computer tells him that he is about even with the middle of the building above. He flips the cover closed. The bomb will be nearby. He is short on time. If he fails, Duke should be safe in either the main area of the bank or on the street outside. Bruce’s Will ensures that Alfred will be provided for. Lucius will get the company and custody of Duke, along with access to a bank account set aside as funds to be used for Duke’s care, and a different account for the care of Duke’s parents.

00:20. He kicks around the bottom of the sewer to check for obstructions. He feels like a kid playing in the world’s worst mud puddle. He will need five showers after this.

00:10. He locates the bomb tucked behind a loose brick in the wall of the sewer. It’s a block of C4 with a simple timer attached to it.

00:08. Simple enough. He removes the timer from the C4. Without a trigger, the plastic explosive is relatively stable and can be turned over to the authorities for appropriate disposal.

Ugh. Now he has to get out of this sewer.

Duke remembered to call the police on the way to the bank, but it took them a minute to get out there. He was able to evacuate most of the people inside, but when he was almost done, Riddler arrived with a whole posse of armed goons.

Is that something people say? Posse? Duke heard it in a western movie they watched two days ago, and it definitely sounds better than gang. Or group.

Anyway, that was also when the police arrived, which was pretty funny. Signal had never seen goons move like ants do after you kick their anthill, before.

Riddler held up a timer. “It’s too late!” he cried. The timer read 00:10. “In ten seconds, a bomb will go off beneath the vault, and I’ll have all the wealth I could ever want!”

Signal strategically stayed hidden, glaring holes into the back of Riddler’s skull. It made him feel a little better.

His timer ticked down to 00:00 and there was a distinct lack of any explosions.

Riddler frowned, then flipped the timer around and inspected the back real hard like maybe it was just running fast.

Signal took that as his queue, shooting his grapple and swinging down to land in front of the Riddler.

“It’s over, Riddler!” he shouted. That felt good, too. “Batman and I escaped your trap, and Batman disarmed your bomb! Turn yourself over!”

“No!” Riddler howled, throwing his timer down to smash against the asphalt. The civilians surrounding them gasped with fear, shuffling their feet like they couldn’t decide whether or not to run.

“Surrender now!” one of the cops shouted.

Riddler sneered and drew a gun from the inside of his tacky green suit jacket. “I won’t go down like this! What’s yellow and black and red all over?” He held the gun in a one handed grip with his right hand, aiming it at Signal. Behind him, he heard police shouting and drawing their own weapons.

Signal leapt forwards, knocking aside Riddler’s grip with the back of his right hand, and aiming a punch at Riddler’s cheekbone with his left. Instinctively, Riddler dropped the gun to try and shield his face instead, and Signal kneed him in the stomach, stepping forwards with his momentum and kicking the gun backwards (towards the cops) with his heel.

“Surrender,” he ordered.

Riddler glared and sneered at him, but the effect was diminished by how he was hunched over clutching his stomach. Clearly not much of a fighter.

The police had wrapped up all but the most stubborn henchman, and Commissioner Gordon came up behind Signal. Briefly, he rested his hand on Signal’s shoulder, then moved forwards and swiftly grabbed both of Riddler’s arms. He yanked them behind the man in green and clicked a nice, shiny pair of handcuffs on his wrists.

“You’re under arrest,” he said, voice strong. It carried, and the surrounding civilians cheered.

Dang. That definitely felt the best.