Work Text:
Tim descended slowly, like feathers falling gracefully from a ledge. He could feel the pressure of the book, like a malevolent urge in the back of his head. He flipped the page. Time flowed like honey down here, with neither windows nor clock to inform him of the passage of hours. That was fine, though – he wasn’t tired. Alfred hadn’t come down to give him a meal yet, but that was to be expected. The butler was busy managing twenty different things at once.
Tim stretched his arms above him, hearing his shoulder and back crack with a grimace. The words on the page flitted about, like petals on the wind. Not due to his exhaustion, mind. Because of the magick contained within it. It was difficult to read, words swapped places and floated around different sentences, as if they were confused on where to place themselves. It took a while for Tim to realise that it required a certain magical energy to be embedded in the pages, for it to be readable.
It was inconvenient. Tim leaned back, lips pursed. What was magic? How did it feel like? How could it be replicated? Was it based off of energy? Emotions? Moods? What was it, really? It was something that didn’t exactly have an academic basis of study — something that couldn’t be pinned in place. But when he delved into modern interpretations of what magic was, it felt as if it just was. It existed, with nary a rule nor explanation for it.
Some people could just do it, and some people couldn’t. It was as simple as that, it seemed like. But Tim didn’t like that explanation. What was he, if not informed?
And so, he researched. He looked through other books in the dungeon, delving deep into explanations of ritualistic magic and what it really consisted of. Why was it hard to do? What was so difficult and special about it? It wasn’t science — that was evident from its capabilities. And yet, he was sure it had rules as well.
Magick is the manipulation of energies present around us. While some rituals and spells are more complex and require a deeper understanding of said energies and the complicated interactions within the spell, it is important to comprehend that it all boils down to energies. For instance, kinetic energy from a moving car and living energy within a plant can be taken and redirected into a wound, so as to quicken and booster the healing factor within the cells.
Tim’s fingers tapped on the wooden desk rhythmically, turning the concept over and over in his head. It was more scientific than he expected, more common sensical. He understood the basic idea. He wondered briefly whether this was similar to alchemy.
One cannot create energy from nowhere. One can redirect it, with witches acting as a copper wire to move the ‘electricity’ around. However, it is similarly important to note that an energy’s shape or form cannot be altered. Living energy cannot be used to kill someone, as it is inherently alive. Kinetic energy cannot be used to halt someone, as it is the energy of movement. In these cases, it would be easier to simply sap the energy — living energy can be completely drained from a person in order to kill them. Although, this is highly dangerous and complex. There is always a limit to how much a witch can hold within themselves. As such, this sapping of energy must be carried out in a deliberate and planned manner.
Ah, yes. This was what he was curious about — it would seem like Tim would have to study this book first before he could understand and delve into resurrecting Bruce. Despite this setback, Tim can’t help but feel… eager. A grim sort of excitement ran through him, electrifying his senses.
𖤍
The raindrops splashed aggressively on the window panes, a sort of botched abstract art. Tim sipped from his coffee cup slowly, watching the crowd in front of the gate yell and shake in protest to the mansion lockdown. He wasn’t scared. They had to get past Alfred, after all.
He set the cup down, intending to move back into the library dungeon to continue his research, but a flash of blue caught his eye. Tim stared at the blue from his peripheries. Ah yes, there he was. Someone in a blue-black, gymnastic bodysuit. Should Tim ring the intruder alert? Was Alfred already aware? The intruder alert was far too noisy for this early in the morning. After all, it was only 6 in the morning.
Tim scoffed and walked down to the entry hall. He would like to observe this scene, whatever happened next. He didn’t have any strong opinions on whether Nightwing should be allowed to come in and go as he pleases — just as long as he didn’t interfere with his little project. Though, he had a sickening suspicion where Nightwing’s personal opinion would be on Tim’s pet project. He was always the Robin with morals and ethics, after all.
Humming slightly, Tim leaned on the second floor balcony overlooking the entrance hall of the mansion. He observed as Alfred stood stiffly in the middle of the hall, hands clenched tight behind his back. Tim couldn’t help but release a snort. He cradled his head in the palm of his hand comfortably, settling in for the show.
The first Robin rushed in with the force of a hurricane and the urgency of a wasp, tension buzzing in his limbs as he slammed the doors open. The storm outside roared and whistled angrily, rain drenching the hall and ruining the marble floors. The doors banged on the entryway repeatedly. Nightwing looked up with gleaming eyes and stared right at Tim.
“Close the door.” Tim replied acidly. “The rain’s coming in.”
Nightwing’s gaze gentled. Tim hated it — hated that bug-crawling feeling on his skin of being empathised with, understood, seen through. As if Dick could ever know what he went through. What he had already gone through, without anyone else’s help or aid. Tim felt an uncontrollable sneer morph his facial expression. “Tim, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you felt. What happened? Who did it? Who killed Bruce?”
Tim fell silent. This conversation wasn’t between Dick and Tim, no matter how much the elder thought it was. Alfred cleared his throat once, twice. Dick took a peek at the butler, perplexed. “Master Dick, I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Oh! Right, I’m so sorry. I was rushing here when I first heard the news… I should have called beforehand to let you know I was coming over. My bad.”
Tim glanced at Alfred’s stone-faced expression. His hands clenched over the wood underneath it. Dick didn’t seem to comprehend the atmosphere of the mansion, desperately glancing back and forth from Tim and the butler. There was a tension in the air — electricity buzzing lightly, as if an explosive were set to detonate.
“I must insist, Master Dick, that you leave the premises.” Alfred finally broke the silence, shaking off his arms to push Nightwing gently towards the door. “The mansion is being locked down momentarily.”
“Wait, you can’t possibly be serious, Alfred! It’s me!” Dick protested, dodging the butler’s hands to stand a little further away. He looked briefly up at Tim at the upper level. “Tim, tell him! I need to be here.”
Tim stared down his nose at his elder brother. The first Robin. He walked away from the noisy scene, heading back to the library. He had more research to conduct. He’d leave Alfred to deal with the intruder on their premises.
𖤍
Magic, he found, was easily learnt but not easily carried out. It carried with it an intrinsic understanding that made him think it would be easy to practice. But it was not — energies flowed through his fingers like silk and water. Not easily contained and not easily grabbed nor pushed nor pulled. Though he felt it, its existence surrounded him like the whispers in the shadows, its control evaded him as easily as vapour.
It stayed in his grasp for mere milliseconds before escaping. The arcane energy giggled and danced, prancing about the room like an infernal pixie. At first, he thought it was mocking him viciously, for his impossible goal. Rather, it was delighted with him - a proper practitioner of the arcane, the first student in millenia. Not of humans, no - but of the arcane. A magician, taught by magick herself. It was natural that the energy was delighted. It was tickled pink.
Tim relaxed his body, shoulders receding back and fingers flexing to calm down. He didn’t need to grab it and force the arcane in place. He simply needed to persuade it. Coaxing the arcane energy from its hiding spot up in the wooden planks of the ceiling, he led it carefully into the pages of the book, cooing all the while.
The energy, curious, allowed itself to settle over the pages. The words on the book halted, rearranging themselves into proper sentences and English that Tim could properly read and learn from. He grinned.
𖤍
Dick perched on a gargoyle as carefully as he could with a torso injury. It wasn’t a stab or anything too serious, but Alfred could still pack a punch when he wasn’t being taken seriously. It was the butler’s greatest advantage — being underestimated. And while Dick definitely knew the butler’s capabilities, he just had not been expecting those same capabilities to ever been carried out on him.
He had heard of what happened through the grapevine. He was well aware that coming three months late to the funeral was unheard of and ridiculous for someone who was the son of the deceased, but he couldn’t get himself to believe it. At first, he thought it a mere rumour. Similar rumours circulated in Gotham at any chance the Bat took to lay low. Finding ‘culprits’ wasn’t that hard either, with so many street villains wanting the chance to boast about finally killing Batman.
Dick should have taken it seriously when this time, only one villain had claimed responsibility. It wasn’t really a boast either, not in the true meaning of the word — the Red Hood had stated it. Like a fact of life. And he had easily moved on to greener pastures of his career, such as taking over other villains’ neighbourhoods and gangs. It was an easy rise to power, almost suspiciously easy.
So now, Dick was investigating him. NIghtwing wasn’t a man of waiting or rest. Especially not for the person who killed his father. An overwhelming, simmering anger laid in his belly, waiting to rise and rush over him. He wasn’t sure why Tim and Alfred had barred him from the mansion too — but he could understand why they had locked everything else. While Wayne Enterprises was still operating under Tim’s watchful eye, the mansion had been locked up for the first time in decades since the last Waynes’ deaths.
Dick didn’t even know where they had buried Bruce. That was the kicker of it all, really — three months of denial and pursed lips at every mere mention, and when he finally came running back home with his tail between his legs, he couldn’t even apologise to the person that mattered most. He didn’t want to admit this unnameable emotion in him that felt suspiciously like guilt and shame.
He didn’t have the right to, really. Not when you looked at the circumstances carefully. He wasn’t even there when Bruce died, not like Tim was. He wasn’t there to help Tim in the aftermath like Alfred was either. He hadn’t helped Alfred with managing the estate nor the company, nor the Justice League and Gotham’s villains. It was all screwed up the more Dick looked at it. What was he even doing there? What had he wanted to achieve by barging into the mansion like that, three months late to anything that mattered?
He heaved a deep sigh. It didn’t matter. What mattered was this operation - pulling down the single most important villain Dick will ever face. The villain that killed his father. At the moment, the Red Hood was in his loft apartment facing Gotham’s Central Business District. Despite owning large and vital shares in the city’s biggest companies (even Wayne Enterprises), no one had yet to see his face. Another tick in this guy’s bizarre list.
The guy had a whole bar for himself in the living room, an extravagant set filling up the entire right wall. There was only one other thing in the living room. A solitary couch, facing the windows overloooking the view of Gotham. Whoever this was, Dick grumpily noted, loved Gotham. And was absurdly rich, besides — loved Gotham enough to ask his insiders to push for eco-friendly policies in the companies, more affordable products, and policies that directly aided the poor — but also held enough money to own the most expensive property in Gotham aside from the Wayne Mansion. It was, Dick sighed in place, absurd and bizarre.
Nightwing stood up from his hiding place on a nearby church steeple, moving back into the dark. He felt a prickle on the back of his neck. The Red Hood’s mask gleamed, foreboding, as it stared directly at him. Dick knew when he had been beaten for the night. Carefully retreating, he hurried down the church and leaped over the roofs rapidly, avoiding the spots where light shone particularly bright.
When he reached his first hideout, he ducked inside and took a secret passageway out to the sewers, to a second hideout. There was never such a thing as being too careful in their line of work. Whatever empire the Red Hood had hurriedly amassed within the three months of Bruce’s death was not by chance. It was a calculated move. This entire thing with Bruce had been planned beforehand on a scale that Dick wasn’t expecting. He knew it had to be, to a certain extent — it wasn’t easy to assassinate Batman with Robin around, after all. But the goal had not been to kill Batman, he realised grimly. Killing Batman was simply one of the steps on the mission, a footnote to a bigger plot in Gotham.
It made things worse, Dick realised nauseatingly. It made things so, so, so much worse that Bruce hadn’t been the main target and that things didn’t just end with his death. Did Bruce not deserve to be the main target? His life’s goals, aims, achievements — all erased and culled to be a singular step on a staircase to a man’s throne. That was what Bruce’s death had amounted to be: a single rung on a ladder to a lookout. Inconsequential, really. Nothing but a brick inlaid to a castle’s foundations, which will eventually be covered by moss and vine.
Dick smashed a rock pillar with his eskrema sticks, enraged. He thinks he would rather have anything else to this. A big, convuluted plot with all of Gotham’s villains working together to take down the big, bad Batman. The pinnacle to their careers, where they retire shortly after. But nothing in Dick’s life had ever gone the way he wanted, and Bruce’s death was nothing but a sidequest to this Red Hood guy.
What was the main quest then? Dick snickered bitterly to himself, shaking off the dust from the tattered pillar. World domination? To take over Gotham? Kill all the heroes in the vicinity? As if. As if Dick would ever let this fool do that. Red Hood had stepped and kicked all over Bruce’s memory and achievements. He was a good man, even if he wasn’t a good parent. He had tried his best to redeem himself, to protect and save everyone in his beloved city.
And now look at it: right in the grasp of some upstart street villain whose ambitions got too big for his head. It’s fine. That’s what Dick’s here for, isn’t it? This is what he could do to get himself back in Tim and Alfred’s good graces, and wrangle the location of Bruce’s dead body from them. To repent for his sins. He had to do just one thing, really. Small. Inconsequential. Simple.
He had to kill the Red Hood.
𖤍
“Dick?”
Dick scrubbed the plate with the sponge one more time. The stain was stubborn and refused to go away. He took some more dishwashing liquid and rubbed over it with the coarser green side of the sponge. The stain remained.
“Dick.”
Dick didn’t know what he was doing wrong. It was just washing the dishes, but the spot refused to leave and remained stuck there like it belonged there. It didn’t. The dishes, before they ate on it, were crystal clean and spotless. Was he using hand soap by accident again? But the hand soap wasn’t yellow and didn’t smell of lemon-lime. A warm hand grasped his shoulder, shaking it gently. He looked up, startled. Beastboy stared at him, concerned. “What’s up, Gar?”
“Dick, I’ve called you twice now. You didn’t look at me. It’s okay dude, you don’t need to clean the plates so thoroughly. I’ll do it when you leave.” Garfield gently removed the plate and sponge from Dick’s hands and began pushing him out the kitchen. “Come on. We’re watching The Notebook. It’ll be great.”
“I’m not really in the mood for The Notebook, Gar…” Dick protested, sidestepping his friend’s hands. “It’s fine. I can just catch up with the rest of you after washing the dishes. It’s the least I could do.”
“Dude.” Garfield sighed, a hand combing through his hair. “We’re worried, ok? Your dad just died. Your only living brother won’t tell you where his grave is. We want to help you. It’s fine, okay? We’ll deal with everything tonight. Go and watch the movie.”
Dick looked away, frowning. He knew tonight’s abrupt get-together was for him. It wasn’t subtle, and there was no other reason for them to have gotten together again. It felt nice, seeing them again in what felt was years. But they didn’t get it. They had made disparaging comments about Tim and Alfred, but they didn’t understand his family like he did. He got it. Really, he did. He understood what he did was reprehensible. There was no excuse for not coming straight away, especially when he had heard of the death near immediately.
He didn’t know how to explain to the rest of his friends that things didn’t feel real. That he wanted to help his younger brother — the only living younger brother he still had — but he couldn’t tell anyone else that he hated Tim at the same time. For not protecting Bruce well enough, for not doing his goddamned job in the first place (Jason had died in duty — why couldn’t Tim?).
It was a dreadful thought. A horrible one. It wasn’t Tim’s fault. As if Tim’s life was worth less than Bruce’s was. (Wasn’t it? What had Tim done, really?) The thought was disgusting. He was disgusted with himself. He couldn’t bring himself to look into Tim’s eyes and comfort him appropriately (useless replacement who couldn’t even do his job), couldn’t drag himself into the manor to aid Alfred (why didn’t he call for help? Wasn’t he monitoring Bruce’s vitals? Wasn’t he looking over the situation?).
It all fell down to Dick, in the end. “Dude.” Garfield interrupted him, shoving his shoulder though his friend’s expression betrayed his extreme concern. “Leave it. I’ll wash the dishes. Watch the movie.”
𖤍
Dick lived in a budget apartment complex that, funnily enough, was partly owned by a company that the Red Hood had shares in. It wasn’t as run down as the other apartments of its pricing range were, and the clients consisted of people his own age as opposed to elderly and the retired. All in all, it wasn’t too bad, and it was cheap. On his meagre cop salary, it was a good place to live in. It wasn’t as if he stayed in there for too long, anyway.
His neighbours were similar. The young woman living opposite him was in her late 20s, working 9-5 in a desk job that found her doing overtime more frequently than was legal. The middle-aged man living to his right was an emergency room doctor that lived by himself, with no living family to spend time with.
There was a teen girl to his left that just moved in. He couldn’t recall her name (Iris? Dahlia? Some flowery thing he couldn’t grasp), but she was forced to move apartments after her mother had died the week before. She was still in college and wasn’t working part-time, but the complex had a student-deal that allowed tenants studying in college to work part-time in the restaurant chain in exchange for free housing. It was a good idea really, and Dick knew from his nightly routine that the deal was one pushed by the Red Hood.
It made Dick wonder whether this was the Red Hood’s sick way of making up for killing his father. Taking over all the pet projects that Bruce had been pushing through in the city’s legislation, but in a shittier manner. Whatever reason he had for doing all these good deeds didn’t really matter to Dick. It was even, he reckoned. An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
He ignored the voice in his head that sounded eerily like Bruce’s telling him to calm down, killing is wrong and a finality that no mortal has any right to. Bruce was dead anyway, what did he know?
Someone knocked on his door. Dick looked up from his television show, lowering the volume a little. The knocking continued. Opening the door revealed Iris-Dahlia in all her auburn-haired glory, a flowery parasol laying next to his doorway. It dripped with rain. He raised his eyebrow. “Hey, you’re Richard, right?” Iris-Dahlia squirmed, her fingers playing with each other nervously. He nodded silently. “My shower heater isn’t working. I don’t have enough money for a technician, and I don’t have a father, and my mother who used to help me fix these things is no longer… she’s no longer with me, so I was wondering whether you could help me.”
Dick observed her. Her blue eyes trembled with unshed tears, and she looked to be on the verge of sobbing outright. Her attire checked out with the story — that is, they resembled a hastily assembled outfit. A baggy t-shirt, wet and spotted with moisture in some places, and basketball shorts that had a spot of ramen gravy on it yet to be cleaned. She had deep, dark eye bags and a bleeding mouth, from frequent lip-biting rather than fights. He sighed wearily, “Yeah. I can help. Where’s your bathroom?”
Iris-Dahlia was flighty thing, eyes nervously flitting back and forth from whatever item in the room had captured her attention at the time. Dick, for all his contained Robin energy that had never quite left him, couldn’t keep a track of her whiles. He was crouched over the girl’s shower, tending to the poorly heater. He pursed his lips. It wasn’t a hard fix by any means, but it was vital that the girl knew what had caused it. It could happen again, after all.
He turned to her, “Your heater’s fine. The breaker’s just tripped. I’ll just need to reset the circuit breaker. Come with me, I’ll show you to do it,” Walking over to where he knew her circuit breaker was, he pushed his hands into his jacket pockets. “This happens quite often, so you need to know how to fix it.”
“Thank you,” Iris-Dahlia bit down on her lip, following behind him. “Thank you for doing this. You’re very sweet.”
“It’s nothing,” Dick waves his hand. “I’m sure the other neighbours would help however they could too.”
“Yeah, probably. I’m not really used to it. My old neighbourhood wasn’t…it was every man for themselves,” She stuttered over the words, uncertain whether she should say them at all. Dick looked over. She probably stayed in the same neighbourhood Jason had — the slums. “But now I live here, in college and everything. My mother would be happy for me. I need to make something of myself, you know?”
“How’d you get here?” Dick found himself asking. He immediately regretted it, the way she curled in closer to herself. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t need to reply.”
“No, it’s fine! It’s fine.” Iris-Dahlia took a deep breath in. She squared her shoulders and looked up at him with an even glance. “After my mother passed last month, I needed to find a new place to stay. My old landlord was a piece of work, so he told me to get out immediately, more or less. Luckily, my university was advertising this student-deal promo thing during orientation. I just got lucky that I secured a place, it was only 100 available city-wide.”
“And now you’re here,” Dick smiled at her, trying to be as comforting as he could. “Congrats. What course are you taking in college?”
“Medicine. My mother died of stage 4 breast cancer. By the time the doctors found out, she had no chance of surviving.” Iris-Dahlia laughed under her breath, fingers peeling at the skin near her nails. Her eyes peered down at the creaking floorboards. “I know it’s lame, but I just thought — that if it were me, if I were the doctor — I could have prevented her death. Caught it in time.”
Dick felt his gaze soften. His heart yearned to comfort her, but they were strangers. Acquaintances at most. But this girl — no, woman — was strong. Stronger than he could ever hope to be. “That’s a good goal to have. I wish you all the best. I’m sure you’ll be a great doctor.” He stepped back from the circuit breaker, stretching his shoulders. “Anyway, your water heater should be working now. You saw how I fixed it?”
“I did. Thank you, again.” She grinned easily at him. “I appreciate the help. And the confidence booster. You really think I’ll make it as a doctor?”
“Of course you can,” Dick nods surely. “You have a good motivation behind you. Your mother would want you to do this. She’d be proud of you, for wanting to save others.”
“She would.” More confident now, she lead him over to her front door. At the doorway, before he left to his apartment, she held out a hand and halted him. “Your dad would be too, you know.”
Dick froze.
“I heard about Bruce Wayne. You’re his son, aren't you? Dick Wayne?” She released a shaky sigh and stepped back further into her flat, uneasy at whatever she saw on Dick’s face. “I don’t know what happened between the both of you, but I’m sure he’d be proud of you. You’re a cop. You save people too, people like the ones that killed his own parents. He wouldn’t want you to worry.”
Dick stared at her for a few seconds. “I don’t think he would.” Then he entered his flat, banged the door shut, and locked it behind him.
𖤍
The Red Hood had a bizarre nighttime routine. Dick watched as the villain served himself a large glass of bourbon, pouring right up to the rim. He ambled over to the couch by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Gotham, and sat down on it. He’d sit there for hours a night, drinking bourbon and doing little else. Dick was certain that evil villains that commanded control over half the city’s operations had more nefarious things on a day to day basis than just to get drunk in their living rooms. Yet, the Red Hood looked for all intents and purposes, practically retired.
Other than calling his goons over the phone and occasionally conducting surprise checks on his warehouses, he spent most his time in the loft apartment. As if he didn’t really want to leave the apartment at all. The problem was this: he needed to kill the man. He can’t do that when the man was safely in his apartment. There were too many uncounted for variables, defence mechanisms that were surely in place in the loft. But it was looking to be no other choice, for the loft was where he spent most his time.
Dick would have to scope the place out — keep track of the security measures in place. The Red Hood had no less than seven different security alarm systems in place for when he left his apartment, like any other paranoid citizen in Gotham. They were monitoring the same encompassing area, yet their control systems scattered throughout different regions of the apartment. This made it a little harder for Dick to break in without triggering six other alarm systems, especially since disabling them was a little too troublesome.
He’d have to break them before he even got inside the flat. That sounded more troublesome and irksome than any other break-in that he’d ever attempted before as Nightwing, but nothing beyond his capabilities. After all, he’d been monitoring the Red Hood for a month now. He knew where the security controls were, and what they were. Even what brand they were. This simplified things immensely. Dick stepped back from his perch and stretched his arms. It was time to get back home. He had work to prepare for.
He wondered, for a moment, how Tim and Alfred were doing. News of the Wayne Mansion were few and far between nowadays. Other than sightings of the two in the garden or the lawn, they had yet to step out of the mansion. He had still been banned from entering the premises as well — the cave remaining out of bounds for anything on him. Whenever he got nearby the cave, his phone would heat up and simultaneously combust, the only thing saving him his superior instincts and reactions.
Bitterly, he realised that Tim Drake would have been a great asset in breaking into the Red Hood’s apartment. However, Tim Drake was currently inaccessible. He’d have to do this the old fashioned way: all by himself.
𖤍
It was getting harder and harder to hide the skeletal animal figures running around the mansion. And make no mistake, Tim had to hide them. After all, they were evidently carcasses. Their skeletons made soft tap-tap noises on the wooden floor, the meat hanging off it like raindrops off a window pane. Their flesh was mottled green, patches of fur rising in tufts.
They were failures. Well, Tim amended, they rose from the dead. So, perhaps, not really. They behaved like they would have in life. The skeletal tiger prowled the caverns underneath the mansion as if to hunt, even taking the time to swim through the basement pool languidly. The monkey leaped back and forth from chandeliers, chittering angrily and loudly as if to protest its imprisonment. The only good animal, in Tim’s opinion, was the iguana he had obtained from a collector. It was, of course, a fresh iguana corpse. Originally to be sold to a museum, for the animal to be stuffed. Luckily, Tim had access to the Wayne wealth.
The iguana, with flesh intact and mind stable, crawled in its enclosure silently and obediently. Tim adored it — its scales, the spines sticking out its back, the predatory way it crawled around the tank. He had named it Draco almost immediately, as a homage to his original surname. He was insurmountingly proud of his work with Draco — she looked as if she had never died in the first place. It was proof of his months-long effort in working towards necromancy. Slowly does it, and his progress was marked in the animals crawling around the mansion.
There was an issue though. Mild, though Alfred’s eyes had widened when he first witnessed it. Coming from the butler, that was practically a screech. The animals, though they behaved exactly as they would in the wild, sometimes forgot that they were alive — the monkey, at random times in the week, would stop moving. It collapsed from the chandelier in a heavy thump, its weighty carcass wreaking the glass table directly underneath. And, well — they obeyed Tim only. They could interact with other living beings, even each other, but displayed an unnatural obedience to Tim’s orders. Stop, he ordered. Sit still, he commanded. Die — and the monkey fell over, lifeless. Alfred’s investigations later concluded that it experienced something similar to a heart attack.
It was an eery power. One he wasn’t sure came from. Though his calculations of the kinds of energies required to bring someone back from the dead were complicated, it shouldn’t have given him the ability to command these creatures as he willed. They should just be like normal creatures — alive, undead, unliving. It filled him with a weird mixture of power, guilt, and desire that left him breathless.
Would Bruce obey him like this? The thought left him nauseated, but intrigued. The power he would have in his grip loomed beyond him, a golden throne lying in wait for him to rest on. In his right hand, the Batman’s leash. In his left hand, Death’s leash. He salivated over the thought. Boundless power waited for him.
“Master Drake,” Alfred interrupted his musing. Tim looked at the butler, startled. “I recovered a book from Master Bruce’s private office. I think you should have it.”
Tim cocked a brow, watching as the book was placed in front of him on the desk. Alfred left the office shortly after, clicking the doorway shut behind him. The book was bound with chestnut-coloured soft leather, a golden clasp locking it shut. There was no name, but a distinct feeling of lightness emenated from it. Lightness, as if he weighed nothing, as if he had grown feathery wings in the past few seconds he had received the book.
He opened the first page and flipped it carefully, elastic gloves in place. Walking the Right and Left Path: The Middle Path. Ah, interesting that Alfred were to give him this right in the middle of Tim’s critical decision-making phase.
In many religions, such as Sikhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, they emphasise the existence of both the Right Path and the Left Path. The Right Path is often collectivist in nature, emphasising virtues and Godliness, the union of self with the Universe. There is no singular I, for we should all seek to be the image and join with our deities. In the Left Path, it is individualistic in nature, emphasising independence and self-empowerment. You should walk an independent path and existence, prioritising your desires and wants, for you yourself are “divine”. In christianity, it is often emphasised that the Right Path leads to Heaven, and the Left leads to Hell. However, a lesser known path is the Middle Path, enlightened by Buddha. One should not outright reject one path. By walking in the middle, it is important to practice balance — do not reject one’s desires, but do not indulge it to the point of harm. Balance both positive and negative aspects, as there is a time and place for both Paths to be walked.
Balance was key, was what he was reading. Both the overindulgence of power and the complete rejection of power couldn’t be done, and shouldn’t — both were important and could be practiced in different contexts and different situations. He would benefit from being able to practice both the rejection of his power and the indulgence of his strength at any point in time. An indirect way for the butler to tell him to practice mindfulness, but Tim got the message. He moved the book away.
Power didn’t matter, anyway. He wanted Bruce back to him, safe and sound. He wanted his father back to him, whole and healthy, and regardless of whether he could manipulate him with his powers or not — he didn’t want to. Bruce was Batman because he had free will, because he got to make choices that other people didn’t want to. Taking away the right of free will from Bruce Wayne would be akin to clipping his wings. No — one hand on Death’s leash was enough boundless power for Tim Drake.
As long as his father was back in the world, alive — what more could he ask for?
𖤍
“Richard Wayne?” The receptionist called out. Dick looked up from his baseball magazine, smiling as best he could underneath the suit he wore for today. “Right this way!”
The receptionist was petite and curvy, with clothes that seemed to bring out the curviness. The pencil skirt flowed down to her knees, with her black heels making clacking noises on the tiles below. Dick noticed that most of the female staff wore similar clothing; clothes that accentuated certain female features, clothes they would not normally get away with in other office settings.
He pursed his lips, facing the door they just arrived at. The receptionist stopped him before he could enter, smiling apologetically. She knocked three times before opening the doorway. “Mr. Yerti, Mr. Wayne here for you.” She left after bowing politely. Mr. Yerti grinned, revealing sharp teeth. There was a certain stench in the office, acid and mildew combined to ensure Dick could barely stomach breathing. The other man was the head of a security company, dealing in home security systems.
“Mr. Wayne. What brings you here?” Mr. Yerti placed his hands on the creaking wooden desk, an eager grin in place. “Are you looking to install a security system in your apartment?”
“Yes, I was,” Dick nodded, stretching his shoulders out and relaxing his stance. He leaned back in his chair. “I heard your company was the best of the best. I just had some questions before I wanted to engage your services.”
“Of course! I’m here to clear away any of your doubts.” Yerti gestured with his arms widely, motioning to the rest of the room in a welcoming gesture. In the process, he accidentally nudged a picture frame on the desk towards Dick. On the picture, Dick noticed without glancing at it, was an incriminating picture of his women staff in their uniforms. “Pray tell, what worries would these be?”
“Your system. Once installed, could it possibly be hacked by outside sources? Is there any way of getting into the house crudely? I’ve heard of some systems which become useless once the physical control centre has been broken.” Dick kept his body language open and wide, unassuming and unthreatened. “I’d hate for my home to be broken into. I have sensitive information within, you understand.”
Yerti released a heavy sigh. His face morphed into a sneer, almost in disbelief. “Our security system is top-notch, sir. Don’t worry. There is no way to brute-force your way into the system. If the physical control centre has been broken, it can still be accessed online on the phone application. Our cybersecurity is one of the best in the city, managed directly by cybersecurity experts who have worked in Wayne Enterprises. No one else in the city can access our system. Feel safe in that knowledge.”
Dick nodded, though he internally wanted to growl. That meant the only way to break in was to hack a security system even better than the Wayne Enterprises cybersecurity. Only one person in the city stood a chance — the person who had created the Wayne cybersecurity himself, Timothy Drake. And they weren’t exactly talking. “So the only way for someone to break in… is to be registered in the system officially.”
“Yes, you’re beginning to get it!” Yerti laughed uproariously, grinning as if telling himself a joke. “Of course, at all times, our company has internal access to your information and your system. Just in case of extreme emergencies, you understand, like attempted murders and the such. You can never be too careful.”
“Oh,” Dick blinked. A golden nugget of information landed in his lap. “That’s fine. Understandable, really. I’ll go home and think on it. I’ll email you for more information?”
“Yes, yes. You have my direct email, yes?” Yerti stood up unsteadily, his rotund body leaning left and right. Dick reached out a hand to help, grasping the other’s hips and forearm in a tight grip. “Oh, thank you… Been indulging my eating habits too much, you understand… Thank you, thank you.”
Dick released his hold on the other, quickly pocketing the other’s ID card in his jacket pocket. “No worries. I’ll contact you when I’ve made my decision. Thank you for being so accomodating.”
Closing the office door behind him, he gripped tightly onto the ID card he just obtained. It was high time that Nightwing practiced his breaking and entering practice, anyway. It’s been too quiet recently. Dick walked out the building with a pep in his step, whistling gleefully. He only had to repeat this process six more times today — his other appointment reminders chiming in his phone calendar. His progress was steady. He could do this alone, without having to resort to begging for Tim’s help in hacking the companies.
Good old fashioned scoping out for information. Detective work. He used to do this for years before Tim arrived, with his technology and hacking skills. He could still do this, he was sure of it. This was what Bruce trained him for. More than that, this was his job. He was a cop, a detective. This was what his entire adult life had consisted of. He was certain in his abilities.
The trouble was once he entered the Red Hood’s loft. He was going in blind, with no information to rely on about the enemy if he did get caught. What would the other do? What was the other capable of? It was hard to define and find out, especially after his little stunt with terminating Batman. Other than the Hood’s prowess with using twin pistols, he didn’t like engaging in petty street fights, and no one dared to besides. Tim probably had a full file of information on the Hood.
Dick laughed bitterly. How did Bruce even do this alone, those first few years without Robin? He didn’t realise just how much he relied on other people’s abilities and capabilities to aid his work until now. The sudden and unexpected communication breakdown between them was ruining him. He wondered how Tim was, how he was coping with his father’s death. What was his brother doing to manage his emotions? What was Alfred giving him to aid in these trying times? How was Alfred? Was he coping as well?
Dick hated not being together with his family. They felt out of reach. It ate at his insides, the feeling of uncertainty and not being enough crawling around in his guts and slowly digesting him. Soon, there would be nothing of him left.
He glanced down at his phone, noting the time. The words blinked up at him, 11:00, reminding him of how much he still had to get done. He clutched tighter onto Yerti’s ID card and grimaced. There were six other places he had to scope out still. It wasn’t hard, as shown by how ridiculously easy it was for him to obtain Yerti’s card, but he needed to work quickly. They’d discover quick and fast who had taken it and when, and he’d used his real name for it too.
Sidestepping into a nearby alley, he took out his jacket and hung it on his motorbike out on the street. His shirt underneath was black, blending in with the rest of the dark alley. He put on a surgical mask and sunglasses, just in case his image was captured by cameras. Yerti’s security building had a staff opening in the back, occupied by two guards at any point in time. After bypassing those guards, it would be relatively smooth-sailing — there was little to no staff actually working inside the building itself, other than the receptionist and Yerti himself. In a bid to promote absolute security and decrease the number of hands information would pass onto, it made things extremely easy once someone had their hands on an important ID pass.
Dick only had one chance to get this right. He was certain that after this scare, they’d increase the security of their building tenfold. Softly walking up to the two guards lingering in the backdoor area, he took out his eskrema sticks and knocked them out before they could make any noise. Hiding them in a darkened corner, he took one of their passes and entered the building once more.
The staff side was wholly different from the customer side he had entered just 30 minutes previously. Whereas the customers side was cozy with wooden accents and yellow lighting, the staff were accustomed to white concrete walls and hospital-white LED lighting. It was such a stark shift that he found himself a little dizzy.
He wasn’t sure of the layout of the building - despite Yerti’s clear inexperience with security, the one who had set up the company wasn’t. He could find no traces of the building layout anywhere, and he was stuck here blind. Luckily, the building was small, and only one door here looked like it housed extra sensitive information. For one, it was the only door made of metal and had a pincode lock alongside the ID scanner. For another, it had a large yellow sign on top saying ‘SENSITIVE INFORMATION’.
It was a bit of a lucky thing that they were so stupid, really.
Dick looked at Yerti’s ID card. He had hoped to find clues for what the 4-digit pincode could be, but there was nothing except for Yerti’s basic information: his birth date and year, gender, full name, et cetera. The pincode panel was clearly old though, and only four digits were rubbed nearly clean off — coinciding with four digits inside Yerti’s birth year. Surely not…?
It was, luckily enough, really Yerti’s birth year. Dick wasn’t sure how to react to any of this, so he chose not to and just sat down on the chair inside. Like any mediocre security company, the information was locked up inside a computer. It had no password though, as Dick suspected, and merely required the ID he was currently holding onto in order to access.
It was easy enough after that to schedule an impromptu maintenance session for next week night, a period of time where the system will be mysteriously shut off. Finishing his work quickly, he got up out his seat, cracked his joints, and finally left the building. He dropped off Yerti’s ID on the desk, deciding he had no more use for it.
Six more renditions of this today. He looked at his phone — 11:30. Just in time for lunch then. Lucky.
𖤍
He had expected the loft to feel big. But maybe that’s not accurate — it was big, make no mistake. The floor-ceiling windows accentuated the size of the apartment, and the sparse furnishing of the living room highlighted the empty spaces. But as Dick looked out the window and into Gotham, the same sight that the Red Hood looked over every day, he felt small. Gotham was majestic from this angle, with its city lights glimmering and business buildings towering over him. It was easy to remember and recall just how beloved it was to many people, especially to the Wayne family.
This was his city. No matter how long Dick spent in Blüdhaven, his blood longed for Gotham. There was a noise that came with this city, never-resting and never-silent. It buzzed with activity, even in the peak of night. Dick knew he should be rushing to collect whatever it is he wanted to obtain from breaking into the loft, but a sense of calm and serenity enveloped him.
He had come this far. He will go even further. Dick turned away from the window and approached the bedroom, turning the knob carefully. The ‘maintenance’ for the security systems was scheduled to overlap and last for an hour and thirty minutes. That would be enough time for him to scour through the Red Hood’s papers and files.
What had driven him to kill Batman? And why wasn’t he doing anything with the fact? Why did he retire almost immediately after?
Upon entering the bedroom, Dick felt a wave of nostalgia hit him. The decoration reminded him of someone — but the nostalgia was quickly overcome with irrational anger. Bookshelves lined the walls so thoroughly it felt less like a bedroom and more of a library. Housed in the middle of two looming bookshelves, was a nook for a single bed and mattress. It was by no means extravagant, contrasting almost harshly with the luxury of the rest of the loft. Despite the sparse furniture, an air of luxury and wealth was present in the area — after all, Gotham city loft apartments were by no means cheap. And yet, the bed appeared as if it was picked up from a random sidewalk. Its metal frame was rusted over, with scratches on the wooden floor beneath it, obvious marks of when it was first brought in.
A solitary lamp and bedside table sat beside the frame, with what looked like a vintage copy of Pride and Prejudice sitting on top. Dick felt as if he had walked into a repurposed library — even the smell of the place was exact. He hated it. He wasn’t even sure why. As he looked around the room, he spotted a painting on the wall across from the bed.
Was this a sick joke?
A painting of Bruce Wayne hung on the wall, framed. The painting was good — it captured Bruce’s likeness well. His father was smiling slightly, his onyx eyes shimmering with hidden pride. Dick remembers the day this painting was captured. It was Jason’s first birthday with them. He thought Alfred had locked this up somewhere inaccessible in the manor.
Click.
Something metallic pressed against the back of his head. It was cold and cylindrical, and he knew instinctively that it was a gun barrell. “How did you get this?” Dick hissed, seething. He didn’t bother turning around. He knew who this was.
“I could ask you the same thing, little bird.” A deep rumbling voice replied, tinged with an electrical humming. A voice changer was being used. “You’re a long way from Blüdhaven, Nightwing.”
“I asked you a question.”
“And you broke into my house. I guess we’re both being rude today.” Red Hood pressed his gun harder to the back of Nightwing’s head. Dick suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “How did you get in?”
“Entered through the door.” Dick turned around, locking eyes with the mask covering the villain’s face. “You should really improve the security around here. How’d you get the painting?”
The other’s grip around his gun tightened imperceptibly. “It belongs to me, really. I was just returning it to its original owner.”
“Really?” Dick snarked, unable to hold back a sneer from forming on his face. “You’re the owner of this painting?” In less than a blink, Dick twisted the gun out of Hood’s grip, bringing the other’s arm to his back aggressively and stepping down on the villain’s back. Too stunned to react, the Hood fell onto the floor on his front. Twisting the other’s arm even more for emphasis, Dick got in close to Hood’s mask and snarled. “Do you like taking trophies from the people you kill? What else did you take from him that night you murdered him?”
The Red Hood laughed. Dick allowed his knee to press harder into the other’s back, irritation flaring at the other’s reaction. How dare this cockroach of a man make light of his father’s demise. “I wasn’t aware the Nightwing used violence so liberally.” The Hood gasped breathlessly from laughter. The lines of discomfort in his back eased, and he relaxed into the ground. “How would Batman react, I wonder?”
“I guess we’ll never find out now.” Dick retorted, taking the man’s throat in his grip. The other’s breath hitched, fearful. Good. He pressed down on the trachea with his thumb, and Hood released a strangled gasp. “Considering who killed him.”
“Is this how you’re going to avenge him?” Red Hood laughed thinly, mocking. “Some type of hero you are. I’m sure Bruce would be very proud of you, Richard.”
Dick snarled, a red haze taking over his vision. This pest of a less-than-man, this creature that ruined his life and destroyed his family, this snivelling rat who crawled out of the sewers through his father’s accomplishments, through his father’s goals and achievements, his father’s name — who stole his father away from him. How fucking dare he? How dare he say his name, as if he deserved to? He shouldn’t even have a tongue. The mere mention of his name should burn his tongue like holy water on a devil’s skin, should leave a punishing brand on the other’s skin and forehead, remind him of his misdeeds every single fucking time he looked in the mirror.
He should carve his father’s name into his neck and trachea and chest, over his lungs and heart — every breath the Red Hood takes, every beat his heart makes, every sound that leaves his throat should be dedicated to the man whose life he stole. His blood will nourish the flowers over Bruce’s grave. His ash will fertilise the grass growing atop Bruce’s skeleton. His very death will give birth to Bruce’s life anew; the sun melting Icarus’ wax-gold wings, the sun exploding in a supernova, the earth reborn. The same hands and blood that slayed Bruce will be the same hands and blood that nourish him to rebirth.
He had the sudden, overwhelming urge to look deep into this man’s face. To look at his father’s slaughterer as he slaughtered him in turn. He flipped the Hood over, quick to place his hand over the other’s throat once more. His thumb pressed into the Hood’s trachea again, revelling in the choking sounds. He leaned down, observing the mask. There were hooks underneath, reminiscent of Batman’s own mask. If it were truly similar, there was a specific way to take it out without activating an insta-kill response in the rest of the hood.
An irksome suspicion flowered in his chest. Replacing the hand on Hood’s throat with his knee, Dick breathed in deeply. Once, twice, and removed the villain’s mask the same way he would remove Bruce’s own Batman hood. The same way only those in the know would understand. The same way only Robins and Alfred were taught.
The mask gave way easily.
𖤍
The garden behind the mansion was cold this time of year. It was foggy, and Tim could barely see 5 feet in front of him. The ground was wet and the grass squelched beneath his boots, the recent rain making it a muddy affair. But this was where the ritual had to be carried out, as this was where Bruce’s corpse laid. Draco was curled around Tim’s neck, her scales cold against his abnormally warm skin. Alfred was indoors, sleeping away the exhaustion from procuring Tim’s strange shopping requests for today.
The ingredients had to be exact. This was not a normal resurrection, and human ones tended to be so finicky. Tim brought up a hand to pet Draco’s scales, finding comfort in the sharp grooves. It had to be perfect. He studied for a year for this. He could not wait any longer — any longer from his death, and his corpse will rot further. The maggots will dine on too much flesh, too little DNA left for the energy to cling to. In fact, a year exactly from his death was pushing it a little far for normal necromancers.
Luckily, Tim was not a typical necromancer. And a necromancer he was, that he was sure of. The weather was a little too cold to be placing out 35 litres of water, 20 kilograms of carbon, 4 litres of ammnia, 1.5 kilograms of lime, 800 grams of phosphorus, 250 grams of salt, 100 grams of saltpeter, 80 grams of sulfur, 7.5 grams of fluorine, 5 grams of iron, 3 grams of silicon and other trace amounts of 15 other required elements — especially dressed as he was. Despite wearing a windbreaker and jeans on top of his sweater, he was still shivering. His breaths condensed into puffs of water in front of him.
Tim slowly arranged the ingredients, careful not to jostle Draco too much. He placed it in a circle surrounding the pentacle drawn into the garden, radiating out from highest percentage to lowest percentage in the recipe for a human body. Looking out over the garden, he smiled at the sight.
Aside from the dismal weather, Alfred had kept the garden in good shape. The flowers thrived and spanned over an area large enough to encompass a football field. Effectively, it was miniature jungle within the Wayne Mansion’s backyard. Tim can feel the electricity humming through these plants, electric jolts to indicate life. The garden practically vibrated with life, singing gently to him. He wasn’t sure how he missed it before; these plants thrived and lived so thoroughly that he barely needed to reach out to caress the living energy within. The arcane energy giggled all around him, laughter twinkling in the air.
Even now, despite the barrier that his boots presented, he can feel Life itself winding through the soil beneath. The plants and their roots gripped onto rocks below him, clutching with strength.
There was a blank spot, right below him. In this spot. It was Bruce’s corpse, so void of life and any kind of energy that it seemed to suck the surrounding energy like a black hole. Tim smiled to himself. That was fine. It would change soon enough.
Tim kneeled in the middle of the pentacle, raising his arms evenly out before him. Draco’s face nuzzed into his neck, as if she knew about the impending ritual. Excitement so potent it manifested as arcane energy, arcing out in blue sparks from Tim’s fingertips. Birds chirped in the far distance.
Blood and flesh of mine with roots deep under,
I call for thee, tear thy ropes asunder.
And though you may seek to slumber further,
These plants surround you to lend their vigour.
Wake and rise anew from Death and bondage,
For Life itself aids you in your passage.
𖤍
Iris stopped in her tracks. She looked up at the sky uneasily, clutching on to her bag strap tighter. A shudder went through her, and she had the strangest sensation that something irreversible just occurred. She frowned, teeth worrying her lower lips incessantly.
The sun was shining bright, birds chirped, flowers bloomed and yet… Yet, she felt as if something had gone wrong. Her heart stuttered out of beat for a few seconds. From the vague direction of Gotham Heights where the Wayne Manor resided, a flurry of birds flew desperately into the air.
She shook her head, ignoring her anxiety. It was probably nothing — though her premonitions had never been wrong before. She had things to do, groceries to shop. She resumed locking her front door and scurried down the stairs of her apartment building, forming a grocery list in her mind. There were no more tomatoes left in her fridge, and she had to stock up on onions and garlic again.
Iris huffed out a sigh, pulling her windbreaker around her tighter. It had been a while since she visited her mother’s grave. Maybe she’d visit again this weekend, replace the flowers and clean up the weeds there a little. There were so many things to update her mother on as well — her current GPA in college, how many years she had left to graduating, what course she ended up pursuing.
She remembers, just half a year ago, arguing with her mother about what course to take for college. At the time, nothing of interest had come to mind. It was distressing, really, but her mother’s insistence that she pursue either medicine or law had angered her beyond rationality. She wanted to take fine arts, but, well. Asian households refused to believe that a future existed for those who took fine arts.
Funny how life and destiny intertwines to lead you back to where you need to be. In the end, she took medicine anyway. Maybe she should have just agreed those many months ago, if only to wrench a smile from her mother. They had become so rare in the last few months of her life — Iris twisted her fingers into her sleeves at the memory.
Her mother would be proud of how far she had come. That Dick was right — she would become a doctor. She had to, now. Her mother would have wanted her to live and be happy, to move on. Iris wanted to give her mother one last birthday gift, too. For today, and for those years ahead of her. In living beyond her mother, the only gift she knew she could give her mother in the grave was this: a life of complete happiness, a life of fulfilment and utter contentment. For her mother, she would live to the fullest. What else could she do? There wasn’t a way to bring the dead back from the dead — not really.