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Life Knocked You Down? Get Back Up.
1 Year, 11 Months and 15 Days. Thats how long it’s been since the fight with Bruce that drove Jason away. You’re unsure why, but you’re certain Bruce isn’t telling you the full truth about the argument.
1 Year, 9 Months and 14 Days since Bruce returned from wherever it was that he believed Jason had run off too. He was alone.
1 Year, 9 Months and 13 Days of hounding the FBI and Interpol for information only to be repeatedly told that they won’t do anything. You would think having the last name Wayne would cause them to care more about a missing persons case, but to them he’s just another delinquent runaway Mr. Wayne should have left on the street.
1 Year, 5 Months and 12 Days since Richard phoned to inform you he wouldn’t be coming home anymore. You didn’t have to ask to know Bruce was to blame.
1 Year, 5 Months and 9 Days since you and Bruce shared a bed. You’ve made the library your new room. Sleeping on the overpriced couch, a stack of Jason’s favourite books on the floor. You couldn’t bear to move them or any of his possessions, though you had dragged his blanket out of his room.
1 Year, 4 Months and 8 Days since the blanket stopped smelling like Jason.
1 Year, 3 Months and 7 Days since Alfred dragged you into the shower and threatened to institutionalize you if you didn’t start taking care of yourself.
1 Year, 2 Months and 6 Days since you returned to work. Alfred was right that wandering the manor like a ghost wasn’t doing anyone any good. So now you haunt the halls of Wayne Enterprises, taking any and every task Lucius throws at you.
8 Months and 5 Days since you had talked to your husband, or more accurately talked at your husband. Every inch of ground made at scaling the walls of Bruce Wayne’s heart undone the night Jason left. And there wasn’t all that much left of you to care.
5 Months and 4 Days since you’d dropped the last of your friends from your life. None of them understood what you were going through and even worse, almost all of them insisted on you divorcing Bruce. The panic that seized you at the simple thought of not having Bruce in your life anymore terrified you.
4 Months and 3 Days since the last time you’d tried to get any police force to take Jason’s case. You wanted to claw at Gordon’s face when he gave you empty sympathies. This was the paragon of justice Bruce so adamantly supported. The man who would turn away a desperate mother just wanting answers.
3 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days since Bruce dared to suggest burying an empty casket. You destroyed quite a few expensive antiques in the ensuing argument. You had also refused to allow Bruce to help you when you’d accidentally stepped in the shards of said antiques.
2 Months, 2 Weeks and 1 Day since you had physically seen Bruce in the manor. You’re not sure if he’s moved out, or if he is just using his superior knowledge of the manors many secrets to avoid you. More impressively he manages to avoid you at work as well. Even with working with Lucius now, you assume your paths would cross even accidentally. However, it had become like he didn’t even exist. Whatever semblance of sanity you were clinging to slowly begins to evaporate with each day you don’t see your husband. If it were not for the glaring name plate brandishing your married name, or the articles in the society sections of the Gotham Gazette, you might have believed you’d hallucinated the entire affair.
1 Month, 1 Week and 16 Hours since you’d started obsessively watching the news. It was the only time you saw Bruce anymore. His face filling the screen of your phone, laptop, work computer, tv screens. Once, you’d even stopped on the street to watch his likeness through the window of an electronics store. You wondered constantly if he missed you, like you missed him.
3 Weeks and 13 Hours since you’d stopped going to work, again. Lucius spent a week trying to convince you to come back, but you’d simply sent him your official resignation in return.
2 Weeks and 10 Hours since you’d told Alfred to abandon you like everyone else had. When he tried to argue with you, you reminded him that he worked for ‘Mr. Wayne’ and the last time you checked, Mr. Wayne has not lived here in weeks, possibly even months.
1 Week and 9 Hours since you had crawled into Jason’s bed armed with as many screens as you could drag into his abandoned room. You spent all day blanketed by footage of your husband carrying on as if nothing had happened. Interspersed with nonsensical think pieces about Batman. You’d lost all respect for the vigilante when Gordon informed you he’d rejected your plea for him to take on Jason’s case. Although, some distant part of your brain that was still clinging to sanity tried to reason with you that perhaps it was time to let him go. But how could you? His memory was all you had left, if you abandoned that now, admitted that he was never coming home, then what was left for you? You couldn’t go down that line of thought, it would only lead to darker thoughts. You clung to the memory of Jason, because it was what was keeping you alive. You couldn’t let yourself slip into the dark, it would only add to Bruces guilt.
5 Days and 8 Hours since you had been sober. Dragging the entire bar cart into Jason’s room determined to down every bottle of expensive liquor until you couldn’t remember the last 7 years of your life. Perhaps if you could just forget it all, forget all of them, then everything would hurt just a little less.
3 Days and 7 Hours since you’d managed to drag yourself into a shower. You had terrified yourself with the intrusive thoughts that come from being in there. No matter how much pain you were in… You wouldn’t - couldn’t do that to Bruce.
2 Days and 6 Hours since you’d eaten a full meal. Having gathered any “snack” foods left in the manor's kitchen into Jason’s room in order to limit the amount of time spent away from your wall of screens. It was the only connection you had left to your husband, or any of your family really. You’d cried when you’d caught a piece they’d done on Richard. He’s really made a name for himself in Blüdhaven, you couldn’t be prouder.
1 Day and 5 Hours since you noticed your liquor supply was getting low.
4 Hours since you’d opened the last of your snacks. You’d have to leave your nest soon to replenish both your food and liquor supply.
3 Hours since you managed to drag yourself out of Jason’s bed and into the bathroom. You stared at yourself in the mirror, or at least you assumed that’s who you were looking at. The woman looking back at you seemed so different from the face you used to know. Dark circles shadowed your eyes, sunken hollow checks betrayed your lack of nutrition. Your skin was a ghastly shade of pale, hair falling limply down your back. You wondered if the press would even recognize you, were you to ever leave the manor. Perhaps you could wander the aisle of a grocery store undisturbed in an ironic horrific parallel to your life before Bruce.
2 Hours since you’d began combing the manor for your purse. The kitchen was baron of anything more than coffee grounds, condiments, spices and a single jug of milk. It seems Alfred had truly abandoned you. There was no time to wallow in that knowledge though. If you were going to cling to life for Jason, you’d need more than expensive Dijon.
1 Hour since you’d collapsed on the floor of your old closet. You hadn’t been in there in so long, you’d forgotten that Bruce had jokingly promised during your first year of marriage to redo it as a gift for your fifth wedding anniversary. At the end of the massive walk-in stood a mahogany display case, your wedding dress and Bruce’s matching wedding suit on full display. Had it really been that long? Had you missed your own anniversary? It wasn’t like you had much of a marriage left to celebrate anyway, but the thought that you’d missed it? And yet, here you sat, staring at what clearly was a gift from your husband. A monument to the life you were supposed to share together. The whole situation gnawed at something inside of you, that black pit of despair growing ever larger.
0 Hours since you had lost your last shred of sanity.
Turning around in the manor kitchen your mug of tea slipped from your hands on to the floor. The resulting crash was thunderous in the still quiet of the near abandoned manor. You are now fully convinced you’ve started hallucinating because there, in your kitchen, was the boy you had nannied near ten years ago.
“Timothy?” You raised your hand slightly, as if to poke him to test the scope of your hallucination.
“Shit, sorry Nanny! I didn’t mean to startle you.” He moved towards the butler's pantry pulling out the broom and dustpan. This only further cemented the hallucination theory.
“I’ve fully and completely lost it.” You whisper to yourself. “I’ve become so insane I’ve started hallucinating.” Some distant part of your brain thanks itself for choosing Timothy to hallucinate instead of Richard or… You’re not sure your incredibly fragile psyche could have recovered from that. Though, if you’re already hallucinating, the thread holding your sliver of a notion of sanity surely has already snapped?
“Bruce’s going to kill me for bothering you.” Tim dumps the shards of porcelain into the trash bin, placing the broom and dustpan back into the pantry. He slowly approaches you. “Christ Nanny, you smell like a distillery.” He holds his nose as he gets closer, stopping beside you. He reaches into the cabinet, pulling out the can of overpriced coffee grounds. You eye the can with suspicion as Timothy opens it. You could have sworn the tin was near empty 2 days ago, yet here it sat completely full.
“Why would Bruce kill you for bothering me?” You vaguely remember something from your first-year psych course about playing along with delusions, though, you are fairly sure they were talking about elderly patients with dementia and not people having a psychotic break.
“Because he specifically stated you were not to be bothered?” Timothy quirked a brow at you, moving about the manors kitchen as if he lived there. “Besides, I’m not really supposed to be in the manor proper. He said it was yours and we were supposed to stick to the bat-cave.”
“The what? I…”
“The bat-cave? It’s where he has been living since you kicked him out of the manor for the whole… you know.” He gestured in your direction with the coffee pot.
Your imagination was impeccable. Not only had it conjured up an age accurate version of your former charge, but it had also produced the perfectly insane theory that your estranged husband was living in some sort of cave.
“I suppose he figured Grayson would come around again if he wasn’t living in the manor proper. Bruce may be the world’s greatest detective, but man does that guy suck at emotional communication.” He’d grabbed two cups from your cupboard and started placing sugar and creamer in one.
“Richard would have to be talking to me in order to know his father isn’t living in the manor anymore.” You begin to feel faint. Is this what a psychotic break feels like?
“You and Grayson aren’t on speaking terms?” Timothy looked at you with curious eyes, like you had given him new pieces to a never ending puzzle. “Does B-man know?”
“Perhaps if Bruce was still in contact with his eldest son he’d know this, but seeing as the last time my husband considered me worthy of his presence it was to instigate a fight about giving up the search for my son. There wasn’t much time for divulging my interpersonal dramas.” You grab the counter beside you, fighting your body to stay upright. “Aren’t you too young to be drinking coffee?” The sight of the young boy you’d changed the diapers of downing a cup of straight black coffee seemed too unusual. Was it possible that this boy was really in your home? No… no he couldn’t possibly be real because…
“Tim.” You’d almost forgotten how commanding Bruce’s voice could be in person. You didn’t dare turn around, your brain still trying to process the last 5 minutes to be able to handle the sight of him in the flesh. You’re distantly aware of the two of them arguing, but you’re too busy trying to put the missing puzzle pieces into the jigsaw of your life. You could have sworn Timothy said Bruce was living in a ‘bat-cave’, but why would he call it that? And what is a 14 year-old doing hanging around your 36-year-old husband? None of this… a flicker of memories run past your mind. Bruce, covered in scrapes and bruises one Monday morning back when you were still just his assistant, stands chief among them.
You had pressed him for answers, tried to get him to go to the police, but he had refused. He eventually told you he was in some sort of ‘billionaire’s fight club’ and like a fool you’d believed him. It helped that two days later Oliver Queen showed up for a meeting with his own bruises all over his face. That was all the proof you needed to drop it and continue on with life. It truly did sound plausible, rich men beating each other up for fun. Men with wealth and power had done far stranger things in the many years you’d been alive.
Other strange memories from the past 7 years flash through your mind. All his secret meetings with Lucius, the only of his many Wayne Enterprises meetings you were expressly forbidden from. The strange tech you’d seen Lucius working on but didn’t dare to question lest it be for some top-secret military contract. The parts of the manor you always seemed to be carefully led away from. The broken grandfather clock, the piano that sat forever untouched, the back corner of the manor grounds that held an old well. Bruce or Alfred always had what seemed like perfectly reasonable answers for why you were being redirected.
The most damming piece of the puzzle came in the form of your last time riding the subway. You’d been attacked by one of the Penguins goons, you don’t even remember why, just another run of the mill Gotham experience. But this one was different, this time when Batman apprehended them, he stopped to make sure you were okay. It was the strangest thing. In the nearly 11 years Batman has been active in Gotham, he’s never stopped to personally check on the civilians unless they were severely injured. Yet he’d pulled you up from the station floor, giving your body a glance over for any injuries.
Stranger still you could have sworn he’d followed you home, like some sort of silent escort.
The next day when leaving for work a town car was parked on your street, the driver informing you that he was your new personal chauffeur. Bruce had hired a car service for you, insisting it wasn’t safe for you to take the train. You questioned how he even knew about the incident, and he had told you he’d seen it in the paper that morning. You’d taken it at face value, but thinking back to it, you don’t remember there being an article about the attack on the subway. It’d been such a small-time criminal type of situation that most of the civilians there had been shocked when it was Batman who showed up and not just Robin or the GCPD. Not the type of attack that makes the news in Gotham.
You’d had no reason to question anything until now. Now you questioned everything. Was your entire relationship a lie? Were you just a part of his cover like one of your trashy spy novels? If Bruce is Batman like you're beginning to suspect, then that still doesn’t explain why Timothy is…
‘Robin!’ It was the only logical conclusion for Timothy being here, but from the few things you can remember about Robin from the press… Timothy is too young to have been Robin this whole time.
“Bruce.” You turn to him now, a rage brewing in the pit of your stomach. “Where. Is. My. Son.” Each word brings you closer to him, until you are standing nearly toe to toe, craning your neck to stare him down.
“Darling-” it’s almost imperceivable, truly if you hadn’t been studying him so carefully you wouldn’t have noticed the switch.
Alfred once joked about Bruce and Brucie being separate people, but you thought he just meant how most people act differently at home than they do in public. But you see it now, Brucie is a character, an act that he puts on to hide the real Bruce or more likely, to hide Batman.
All the rage leaves your body, and you sag under the weight of the unbearable sadness that begins to envelop you. The more you put the pieces into the puzzle of your life, the clearer the picture becomes.
Your son isn’t coming home.
“Was any of it real?” You’re vaguely aware of Alfred’s presence now behind you but the world is starting to tilt and blur. Suddenly as if a dam burst, the grief takes you and the world turns black.
7 Days After The Encounter you find yourself picking out a coffin. Or at least you think that’s what you are doing, the world is still blurry on the edges, and you feel permanently numb. Someone’s there with you, you think. Not Bruce, you hadn’t seen him since you’d fainted in the kitchen. Your traitorous brain begins to conjure up images of where he may be or who he may be with. Did she know about your son’s passing before you did? Did Bruce seek comfort in her arms instead of yours? Or was she also just a victim of the facade that was Bruce Wayne?
“Mimi?” Richard. Richard was the one who’d brought you to the funeral home.
“hmm?” you’d been so lost in your own negative spiral you had no clue what was being discussed.
“They want to know if the funeral will be public or private?”
“Private. Invitation only. I don’t want those vultures photographing any more of our family's pain than they already have.” You’re not sure when Richard had reappeared in your life, but you’d bet anything Timothy had something to do with it. “It should be a small service. Held on the manor's grounds. It’s where he’ll- where the casket will be buried.” An empty casket, you’re not even sure if there is a body. Alfred and Richard won’t talk about it, and since Bruce has once again disappeared from your life…
The world at large will see it as a grieving mother’s attempt at closure. It feels right to keep the truth to yourself, not that you even really know the truth. You think that Richard or Alfred has tried to tell you the full story, but everything is a blur. Even if they had, how could you trust that it is the real story and not just what Bruce has told them to say.
12 Days After The Encounter finds you standing over your son’s grave. You used to find it morbid that the Wayne’s had their own private graveyard on the manor's grounds, but you’ve come to understand it.
Your son rests peacefully under a black oak, or more astutely, a plaque denoting your son’s day of birth and “death” sits under the tree. An empty coffin, as empty as the manor you refuse to leave, lies buried 6 feet deep. You’ve spent everyday since the funeral out here. Perhaps you’re hoping for the ever-elusive closure everyone keeps saying it would give you.
All you see is your failure as a mother.
You used to pride yourself on your attention to detail. Your ability to solve crossword puzzles with even the most obscure clues. Yet you couldn’t see what was right in front of you. You were just as gullible as everyone else in Gotham City, and because of it your son is dead.
“Nanny?” Timothy’s voice appears behind you, startling you out of yet another spiral. It seems all you did now was spiral. If you weren’t lamenting your terrible instincts as a mother, you were catastrophizing about your marriage. If you can even still call it a marriage. Legally, you were married to Bruce Wayne, but how legal can it be when you’re not even sure Bruce Wayne really exists as anything more than a performance. Why even marry you in the first place? Why pursue you at all? Why not just return to Ms. Kyle who clearly must have known his secret? It’s not like you were some heiress or socialite, your relationship had been one big scandal from the start. First with you being his assistant, and nearly 10 years his junior, then when the novelty of that had worn off, they’d focused on your background or more accurately lack of background. The only thing that could make any of it make sense would be if Bruce’s feelings towards you were true, but that isn’t possible either because if he genuinely loved you why lie? And God above all why lie about… about…
“You really should come back inside. Alfred’s worried you’ll ‘catch your death’.” Timothy is beside you now, holding an umbrella and you belatedly realize you’re drenched through to the bone.
“I have a name you know. And if he cares so much, why isn’t he out here dragging me back inside?” You glance at Timothy in your peripheral. He’s grown since you’d known him, not much though. His face looks almost the same as it did the day you told him you weren’t going to be his Nanny anymore. Eyes still terrifyingly all knowing. You hated looking into them when he was little. Even as a toddler he’d look at you like he knew more than you’d ever want anyone to know.
“B-man’s outlawed interfering with your grieving process and with everything going on, Alfred’s too afraid to ‘rock the boat’.” He’s holding the umbrella over you now and not so subtly trying to turn you back towards the manor. “And of course I know you have a name. But since my parents forgot to hire a new nanny, and they haven’t stopped paying you, you’re still technically my Nanny.”
“What?”
“My parents either didn’t realize you quit or were simply too busy to care. They never hired a new Nanny, and they consequently never stopped paying you.”
“That… that actually explains a lot.” Genuine laughter burst through your lips. “Your parent’s money was set up to go directly into my savings account.” You’re leaning on Timothy for support now. “All these years I’d been getting mad at Bruce. I’d thought he was putting money in my savings, trying to woo me with his billions of dollars.” You’re crying you’re laughing so hard, the words coming out in choked half sobs. “Do you know how many arguments we’ve had because of it? I nearly broke up with him twice all because of your parents.”
Timothy looks at you with concern, glancing back towards the manor as if willing someone to come rescue him. This of course causes your laughter to increase. You’re doubled over, near manic laughter ripping through you. It takes probably a good 90 seconds for your laughter to finally die out. Your breath coming out in ragged little puffs. You feel lighter than you have in two years.
“Thank you, I… I think it will be good for all of us having you around Timothy.” You go to ruffle his hair like you use to when he was 5, but he ducks out of the way.
“Even a halfwit could have told you that Nanny. And it’s Tim now.” He puts on a convincing air of bravado, but you’re more observant now that you know everyone is hiding secrets. You can see the barely there dusting of pink on his cheeks, and the slight joy in his eyes.
“If I am to remain Nanny, then you are to remain Timothy.”
4 Weeks After The Encounter, you’d started coming back to life. Not fully, you’d never be fully alive again. Part of you was buried with that empty casket under the oak tree. But you’re eating and bathing regularly. You’d gone back to work with Lucius. He’d done nothing more than give you a single look of sympathy before getting back to business as if nothing had happened. You’re most grateful for that. It was nice to go somewhere and pretend.
Living in the manor it was hard to escape from the ghosts of the past. Echoes of your son’s laughter still seemed to reverberate off certain rooms. Flickers of happier times in your marriage danced across your vision when you’d pass a particular spot in the library or kitchen. You still avoided your bedroom like the plague. It felt wrong to be in there without Bruce, even if you were still angry at him.
He was still avoiding you, relaying any relevant information through Alfred or Richard. He’d learned early on that Timothy would not play the role of messenger boy, or at least, not for Bruce. Based on gossip, relayed through Alfred, you’d gleaned certain things you thought you’d said in private had made their way into the young boy's ears. In turn he’d taken those things and relayed them back to Bruce for some unknown reason. This had resulted in quite an uncomfortable dynamic in the manor.
This dysfunction is what a grieving Timothy would be brought into.
You’d stayed up late, as you had most nights since discovering your husband’s secret identity. You may not have answers about the full truth of your relationship with him, but you knew your truth. You loved him, even now, knowing what you know and the potential role he may have had in your sons…
You loved Bruce, and so you worried.
You’d developed a routine with Alfred. You’d stay up, usually in the library, occasionally in Bruce’s office, until Alfred came and told you Bruce had returned, alive and relatively unharmed. You’d tried to ask what ‘relatively unharmed’ meant once but could only get more vague answers out of Alfred.
This night you’d happened to go snooping. You were tired of being kept out of the loop, and with the manor so divided at the moment, no one seemed to really be watching your movements. Except maybe Timothy, but you had a sneaking suspicion that he was on your side in all of this. Your side, what a ridiculous notion. As if this were a normal couples dispute and not ‘you kept the fact that you were a crime fighting vigilante from me for the entirety of the last 7 years of our relationship. Oh and you lied to me about the fact that our son was dead, letting me spend two whole years believing he was just a runaway.’ You’d begun to think that maybe your college friends had been right about getting involved with an older rich man. It seemed to be nothing but heart ache and trouble, although you’re not sure many other wealthy men’s wives were experiencing the same phenomenon you were. No, you’re quite certain Mrs. Tenorman -the uptight bitch from the country club who’d had some unpleasant words about your relationship- was most likely not attempting to recreate a chord progression on her husband’s piano from memory.
If only your mother had forced you into Piano lessons instead of Violin, then perhaps you’d have an easier time trying to replicate the sequence you’d heard Alfred play before. It took you far longer than it should have to give up on that particular secret. You were examining the old broken clock when Alfred found you. The usually put together butler seemed, upon closer inspection, out of sorts.
“Mrs. Wayne, it’s Timothy.” There’s a graveness to Alfreds usually warm tone. Panic begins to seize you, followed closely by guilt.
“He’s not?’
“No, the boy himself is unharmed.” Alfred’s gaze lowers, a sadness engulfing his eyes. “His father was not as lucky.” You didn’t need to be a genius to understand what Alfred was implying. He came forward, adjusting the hands on the broken clock. It swung open to reveal a passageway behind it. “This way, my dear. He’ll need a mother's comfort when Master Wayne brings him home.”
You follow Alfred down a set of stairs, coming out into what you figure must be the ‘bat-cave’ Timothy once spoke of. The sound of a vehicle approaches as you reach the bottom step. A sleek black car parks on a platform, a figure emerging from the driver's side. Your caught up in the rush of seeing Bruce unharmed that you don’t notice the young boy at first. It’s the sniffle reverberating against the cavernous walls that breaks your focus. He’s clad in pyjamas, eyes red and vacant. Your heart aches for him, remembering the pain of your own Mothers death.
“Timothy…” You walk towards him, barely getting his name out before he’s flung himself at you, clinging to you desperately. You lock eyes with Bruce, and for the first time in 2 years, it feels like you're on the same page.
8 weeks after the encounter Bruce moved back into the manor proper. Neither of you have really talked about anything that’s happened, but you’ve both instinctively come to an agreement regarding Timothy’s future. Keeping the boy in your home had gone over smoother than you could have hoped for, given that Jim Drake had named you as Timothy’s guardian. You’d assumed he’d done it when you were still his Nanny and much like the money going into your savings, had simply forgotten to change it. That was until you’d been instructed to accompany Timothy to the reading of the will that week.
You’d always found your employment with the Drakes a tad suspicious, what with you being a freshly 18-year-old college student when they’d hired you. However, nothing could have prepared you for the truth.
“To my daughter I leave a trust fund of 25 million dollars set up by her grandfather upon her birth, as well as half my estate. I also name her as the sole guardian of my son, and the executor of my will. To my son-“
“Wait, his daughter? Timothy doesn’t have a sister. And the social worker informed Bruce and I that I was named as Timothy’s guardian in the Drakes will.”
“Mrs. Wayne, why do you think you were asked to be present for the will reading?” The lawyer, a crotchety looking fellow in his mid 60’s raised a singular eyebrow at you. “If you’d like I can show you the will itself where it names you, not only as his eldest child, but the beneficiary of half the estate, not to mention executor of the will itself.” He trails off, lifting the papers from the desk to emphasize his point.
“But… but that doesn’t make any sense. My mother said she didn’t remember who my father was. A one-night stand. I - Timothy did you know about this?” You turn to the suspiciously quiet tween beside you.
“I found the paperwork after my mom died.” There’s a far off look in his eyes, and you grasp his hand to bring him comfort. Whatever the will said didn’t matter, all that mattered was this small broken boy who needed you.
“May I continue then?” The lawyer seemed unfazed and almost bored with the two of you. His aloofness further cemented your dislike of the man. The first thing you would be doing as executor is moving all Drake assets out of this law firm and over to the army of Wayne Enterprises lawyers. At least those soul suckers pretended to have emotions.
6 Months After The Encounter Bruce forced you to move back into your bedroom. It started as you falling asleep, usually on the library couch, only to wake in your bed, Bruce sound asleep beside you. You two may still be on single sentence answers with each other, but it seems your husband was at least trying in his own way to return to normal. It would be laughable, considering your ‘normal’ was based entirely on lies, but you yourself were desperate for the type of comfort you had only ever been able to find in Bruces arms. You’d take whatever you could get, even if it was just lying silently beside one another every night.
So, the two of you developed a routine of sorts. You’d attempt to stay up, waiting for his return from patrols, only to fall asleep in whatever room you’d paused in long enough. Bruce would return from patrols and promptly begin the search for where you’d fallen asleep. Most nights he’d just carry you to your room, but on nights where he’d taken a few hits to many Alfred would insist on waking you, something you would always thank him for.
8 Months After The Encounter and Alfred had had enough of yours and Bruce’s ‘functional dysfunction’, as you had taken to calling it.
“Eventually you’re going to have to have an actual conversation with one another Mistress Wayne.” Alfred placed the tea tray on the desk in front of you.
“I don’t remember asking for your advice about my marriage Alfred.” You didn’t look up from the tablet in your hands, still going over the files Lucius had sent. “And if I remember correctly, you yourself were a conscious contributor to the lies my marriage was based on.” You glance at him over the edge of the tablet.
“Yes, well… I had exceptionally good reason for my deceitfulness. Case in point your penchant for worrying.” He gestured in your direction.
“I don’t know what, you’re talking about.” You take a sip of your tea, fully ignoring Alfred’s slight.
You were not worrying. You were simply up late working on a briefing for Lucius. You choosing to work in Bruce’s office had nothing do with your knowledge that the Bat-cave entrance in the office was his preferred entrance when returning home after patrol. You simply enjoyed sitting in his very expensive office chair. And it was merely coincidental that Timothy had set up your tablet to receive his and Bruce’s comms, which you were definitely not listening to through the single earbud in your left ear.
“Of course, Mistress Wayne.” You could feel the condescending side eye beating into the side of your head. “Well, if you don’t require anything else, I shall retire for the evening.” You wave him off, listening a little too intently now to Timothy and Bruce’s conversation. “Oh, and one last thing Mistress Wayne. What level of first aid shall I prepare for Master Bruce’s return tonight?”
“What’s in the cave already should be fine, it’s been a quite night.” The words are out of your mouth before you can register them. You glance up at the entryway to the office to see a smug Alfred staring you down.
“But of course you weren’t worried.” His parting words before turning eloquently and dare you say sauntering away.
It’d been a full year since the encounter and while things in Wayne Manor seemed to be almost normal, or as normal as your family of billionaire vigilantes could get, you couldn’t shake this feeling of something being off. It felt like every time you were alone, whether in the manor, at work or just out in Gotham, you were being watched. The only time you didn’t have the feeling was when you were with Bruce, which led to you becoming increasingly clingy towards your husband without much of an explanation.
“Alfred believes our marriage would benefit from more… open communication.” Your hand stills from where it was absently drawing patterns on his chest. ‘Since when did Bruce listen to Alfreds advice?’ Not that the butler was ever wrong in any of his assessments, be they professional or personal, but your husband was not one to head that advice unless having exhausted all his own ideas first. Your husband was also not one to openly advocate for communication.
“Does he now?” You lift your head from Bruce’s chest, opting to sit beside him instead of your previous laying position. “And pray tell, why are you bringing it up now?” Bruce is still lying beside you and, if you weren’t so invested in seeing where this conversation led, you’d laugh at the constipated look of regret he had on his face.
“You’ve been acting strangely.” You bristled at his accusation.
“What do you mean I’ve been acting strangely?” You look away before he can answer, knowing he’d be able to see the unease in your eyes.
“I may not be the… best at emotional situations or having discussions about said emotions, but I know my wife. If there’s one thing in the world I know, it’s you. I spent enough time, before and after we began dating, studying you and your patterns to know when there is something wrong.” He’s sat upright now, hand just barely touching your own.
“You realize that sounds like you were stalking me, right? And if any other man said that to me it be a massive red flag?” Even while accusing him of such a heinous, albeit sort of true, thing, you couldn’t help but to reach out and intertwine your hands.
“You’re deflecting.” He uses your intwined hands to pull you closer, his other hand going to your chin to gently prod you into looking at him.
“Did you ever use to follow me as Batman?” You couldn’t help the question slipping from your lips. It’d been plaguing you ever since this feeling of being watched had entered your consciousness. You’d felt it before, years ago when you’d first started working for Bruce.
“I…” He pauses, before a look passes across his eyes. “Yes, when you first began working for Wayne Enterprises. It started as mostly a background check but soon turned into my worrying for your safety.”
“That’s why you were there that night on the subway. You didn’t accidentally stumble on my being attacked by those goons; you’d been following me.”
“Yes, but clearly I had too-” You cut him off before he can defend himself.
“Do you still follow me?” There’s a tinge of hopefulness to your voice. If this feeling you have is just Bruce, making sure your okay than you can put the whole thing behind you.
“I have certain safety measures in place.” There’s a look of contemplation, and you could almost swear you heard him mutter ‘open communication’ under his breath before he begins again. “Do you remember how after the subway incident I hired a car service to drive you around?” You nod. “That isn’t the only security measure I took to protect you.” He takes a breath, as if bracing himself for a battle. “I placed trackers in all your electronics as well as every purse I’ve gifted you since that day.” You feel a rage begin to brew in your gut. “The man I hired to be your chauffeur is an ex-special ops soldier and I pay a probably extortionist amount of money for him to act as your private security as well.”
“That’s why he always insists on parking the car and escorting me into every building?” Your voiced is raised. “Here I was feeling terrible and tipping him my own exorbitant amount of money because he spent nearly 6 hours in the mall with me buying Christmas gifts.” You pull your hand from Bruce’s and slap his arm.
“Can I finish?” Bruce grabs both your hands to try and still you.
“There’s more?” You’re certain at this point you’ve most likely awoken the whole manor, if not the whole neighborhood with how loud you’ve gotten.
“I may have conditioned you to be on a specific schedule, to the point where if you were even a millisecond off schedule I’d get an alert from the trackers on your current location.”
“What do you mean conditioned me?” He has the decency to at least look sheepish as he continues his explanation.
“I mean, that I instilled pavlovian responses to certain aspects of your routine based on things I knew you enjoyed.” You’re standing at this point, pacing, actually. You turn over all the memories of the last few years in your head. At least you can say your husband never ceases to amaze you and make your life more interesting.
“Wait,” you pause your pacing to lock eyes with your husband once more. “All of this was done before…” your words catch in your throat.
“Yes.” It seems you may have exhausted this so called ‘open communication’ your husband had adopted for the night.
“So, what about now? Since, the incident my routine has changed, several times.” You inch closer to the bed once more. “Surely, you’ve been following me once more to reestablish your ‘security measures’” You’re close enough now that Bruce is able to grab your hand and pull you into him once more.
“Why are you so insistent that I’m following you?” It’s funny, how much Bruce and Tim, despite not being blood related, look alike when trying to solve a puzzle. “Has someone been following you?” He narrows his eyes, like if he tries hard enough he could read every thought you’d ever had.
“I don’t know.” You slump against Bruce, the truth falling out of you now. “I’ve had this growing feeling of being watched, not just when I leave the manor but inside it as well.” You’ve wrapped yourself around Bruce, practically trying to crawl inside of him. “I’ve tried to keep myself sane by assuming it was you, because the only times I don’t feel eyes on me is when I’m with you.”
One Year And 3 Months After The Encounter and you’ve started keeping things from your husband once more. After your bout of ‘open communication’ Bruce had spent days trying to figure out who was stalking you. It turned out to be a combination of Bruce’s own cameras (both in the Manor and at Wayne Tech), as well as a collection of new cameras that both Timothy and Richard had set up to watch over you. Seems all three of them were concerned for your well being, and you understood why. After a stern talking too all three of them agreed not to spy on you anymore and you thought that was that.
What you didn’t tell Bruce, was that the feeling of being watched only intensified after that day. You knew it wasn’t any of them since you’d had Barbara not only forcibly shut down their cameras but do a regular sweep to ensure they remained untouched.
No, whoever was out there now was certainly not one of your boys. The craziest thing was the presence itself never felt threatening. It felt almost, protective, which is why you’d assumed it had been your husband in the first place. You wondered passively if you had somehow ingratiated yourself to some other vigilante who’d decided to personally watch over you. Being the wife of Bruce Wayne was a somewhat dangerous task, what with the many villains of Gotham trying to use you as leverage or target practice.
It couldn’t hurt to have one more set of eyes watching your back, so long as they remained friendly.
One Year And 4 Months After The Encounter and you were becoming increasingly more paranoid.
It started off as just one or two things here or there in your life not being quite where you left them. That snowballed into there being something everyday. It had started to feel like whoever was following you was trying to leave you a message, but you just couldn’t decipher it. You would ask one of the boys for help, but you did’t want to worry them, nor did you want to worry Bruce. You were still certain that this force in your life was benevolent, and with this new crime lord in Gotham, Bruce had his hands full already. He didn’t need to be checking up on every bump in the night his paranoid wife heard.
You just wish this force would be a little more forthcoming with their message. I mean seriously, leaving Pride & Prejudice open to Lizzie reading Mr. Darcy’s letter? Followed a few days later by your copy of Jane Eyre being open to the chapter where Jane finds out about Mr. Rochesters secret wife? If this mystery vigilante was trying to imply your husband was cheating on you, you’d have to laugh. Bruce didn’t have the time, let alone the emotional stamina, to cheat. The walls you had to repeatedly beat with a sledgehammer just to poke a hole big enough for you to reach a hand in, would not allow for more than one romantic entanglement in his life.
When the next days’ novel was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the picture became a little clearer.
“I think someone knows about your identity as Batman.” You’re stood behind Bruces chair, while he hunches over the computer in the Bat-cave.
“What makes you believe that?” He glances up at you briefly, intrigued by such a bold claim.
“Remember a few months ago when I said I was feeling watched?” Silence, the Bruce special. “Well… that feeling never really went away, and whoever has been spying on me has started leaving messages.”
“What kind of messages?” He’s turned his chair towards you now, his attention solely on this new development.
“This is going to sound stupid but, they’ve been leaving classic novels out open to specific passages about the male character having kept secrets from the female character.” When said out loud, it sounded even more ridiculous than it had in your head. “And before you ask, no I did not leave them out myself. I haven’t even touched most of those books in… well in nearly four years.” It stings a little extra that on top of believing you too dumb to have already uncovered your husband's secret identity, the unknown intruder had chosen books you had shared with Jason. Like rubbing salt into a still healing wound, the message seemed loud and clear. ‘Your husband is keeping things from you.’
“Where and when were these books left?” Bruce turns back around, hitting a few buttons on his keyboard to bring up the Manors security cameras.
“The first was on my vanity early last week, Sunday morning I believe. The next two were both left in the library, beside my work tablet. I found them yesterday and Tuesday both not long after I got home from work. You peek over Bruce’s shoulder as he clicks a folder with your name on it. Inside is several more folders in alphabetical order:
Childhood Photos, Contingency Plan, Juvenile Records, Paparazzi Photos, Personal Documents, PI photos, Phone Records, News Articles & Interviews, School Transcripts, Social Media, Wayne Manor Security Footage, Wayne Tech CCTV footage, Wayne Tech Employee File
“Bruce?” Silence. “Bruce, what the fuck is this?”
“Your folder.” He continues to stare at the computer, combing through hundreds of video thumbnails, each labeled not just by date and timestamp, but even by room.
April 9, 2023, 07:29:52 Bedroom
April 9, 2023, 08:37:19 Kitchen
April 9, 2023, 08:49:57 Garage
April 9, 2023, 19:42:26 Library
April 9, 2023, 20:53:07 Kitchen
April 9, 2023, 22:18:49 Office
April 10, 2023, 03:31:37 Bedroom
“Why do I have a ‘folder’?”
“Everyone has a folder.” He still hasn’t looked at you, gaze focusing so intently on the screen.
“You realize how insane that sounds right?” In your frustration you try to spin Bruce’s chair, a futile effort given his considerable bulk, and settle instead for forcing your way into his field of vision. You end up practically in his lap, ass firmly planted on the control panel for the computer. “What kind of person keeps in depth files like this on all the people in his life?” He finally looks you in the eye, gaze almost condescending.
“Batman.” With that he pulls you forward, spinning the chair around, and places you firmly on your feet before returning to his task. “You’re right.”
“About your psychopathic behaviour?”
“Someone did leave those books out for you to find.”
“What?” A shiver runs along your spine at the idea of someone managing to get past the Manors extensive security systems.
“The footage has been edited, only slightly, but there is a slight cut here.” He rewinds the footage to just before the book appears. “It’s only a few seconds of cut footage, meaning whoever did this not only has access to our security system, but knowledge of the Manors cameras and their blind spots.”
“Who could possibly know all of that?” You glance away from the screen to look at Bruce once more, but he won’t meet your eyes. “Bruce?”
“I have a short list of suspects. Until I can weed them all out, it’s best if you have someone with you at all times. I’m sure Richard would be willing to accompany you.” You’re not sure why, but you feel in your gut that he’s keeping something from you. So much for that ‘open communication’ he was supposed to be working on.
“Richard is in Blüdhaven.”
“I’m sending him the information as we speak. I expect he’ll be here by the morning.” He gets up from his chair and moves towards the Batmobile.
“Where are you going?” You follow behind him as he puts the ridiculous cowl back on his head.
“Out.”
“Bruce. What the HELL is going on?!” You grab his arm, and he pauses for a moment. You dare to believe you’ve gotten through Batman to Bruce, but that hope is quickly squashed as Batman wins out and he continues past you.
“There’s no need for you to worry, I’m handling it.”
One Year And 6 Months After The Encounter saw you and Bruce having your most explosive fight since the encounter. After living in constant surveillance for 2 months you’d gotten fed up and threatened to leave Bruce if he didn’t ease up.
Bruce had barely spoken to you in the 2 months since you’d told him about the books, but he had ensured that there’s not a single millisecond where you’re alone, even in the Manor. When he had deigned to speak with you it was only about work, the various Wayne charity organizations and fundraisers, or Timothy’s schooling. If you happen to bring up your ‘stalker’ Bruce would go silent and once even left the room.
But even with this near constant surveillance your stalker had managed to leave you more and more messages. All of which seemed to be about Bruce and the things he may or may not be keeping from you. Bruce may have his list of suspects, but you’ve started creating your own based on the limited clues you have.
Whoever has been leaving the messages has a decent knowledge of both Wayne Manor and Wayne Tech, as well as either knowledge of their security systems or the ability to hack them. This ‘stalker’ also knows intimate details about you, Bruce and your marriage. Finally, whoever this mysterious note leaver is appears to be hoping that by revealing Bruce’s ‘lying’ nature you’ll leave him. That doesn’t leave a very long list of people, in fact, you could only really think of two people with that much knowledge who would be invested in attempting to force you and Bruce apart.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was shocked at receiving your invitation to dinner.” Selina Kyle slips into the booth across from you.
“Yes well, if it weren’t for the dire circumstances I seem to have found myself in we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“Ah yes, you seem to have gained yourself a fan. And before you ask, Bruce has already cleared me of being your little sycophant. Besides if I really wanted to ruin your relationship, I’d do it to your face.” A pit drops in your stomach. Given the nature of both Bruce’s and Selina’s line of work you knew they’d likely run into each other, but something about him telling her about your situation, when he won’t even talk to you about it, stings.
“Of course he has. While I guess this meeting is over than.” You move to get up when Selina grips your arm.
“I’m sorry, that was catty of me. Clearly Bruce is up to his old tricks and holding all of his cards too close to his chest.” She seems genuinely apologetic, or at least enough for you to take your seat once more. “I’m sure you’ve put together some sort of list of people you think it might be, and I’m sure you already know Bruce has investigated all of them.” She was right, you did know that. You knew before you set this meeting that Bruce had probably already looked into Selina, but there was a small, insecure part of you that thought he might still have a soft spot for her and that insecurity led to this very meeting. “I’m not sure why you decided to ask me to meet but, from one woman to another, Bruce is keeping things from you.”
“And what’s that?” You’d never in a million years think that Selina would be your ally but even Hell can freeze over you guess.
“There’s a new player in town.”
“There’s always a new criminal in town. This is Gotham, criminals sprout up more than weeds do.” You go to leave once more, but Selina digs her claws into your arm this time.
“This isn’t any old criminal. There’s something off about this guy. He’s seemingly taking over most of the drug and weapons trade in the city, yet the streets are cleaner. The guys crazy violent too, and rumour has it he got the jump on Batman.” You swear you detect genuine concern in her eyes.
“And you think this man has something to do with my situation?”
“Considering he showed up around the same time your little stalker did…” She shrugs. “Not to mention, this Red Hood Guy seems to have Batman’s undivided attention.”
One Year 7 Months and 2 Weeks Since The Encounter and in a shocking twist, you’ve developed an understanding with Selina Kyle. You’ve essentially given up all hope of normalcy at this point in your life, so you might as well become allies with the woman who’s tried to break up your marriage. Of course the Gotham media has had a field day with the whole thing.
“What’s this?” A newspaper is dropped on your desk, your’s and Selina’s faces staring back at you.
“A newspaper. I know you’re a billionaire but I didn’t think you were that out of touch that you didn’t know what a newspaper is.” You don’t bother looking at Bruce, opting instead to return to the email your were drafting to Irene in accounting.
“Cute.” You catch Bruce’s glare from the corner of your eye. “Why are you and Selina having weekly lunches?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to have friends. I’ll correct that instantly Mr. Wayne.” You send off your email, still not looking at Bruce, and begin shutting down for the night.
“You and Selina aren’t friends.”
“According to who? You?” You finally deign to look at him, raising a questioning brow. “Not only have you barely been around these last few months, when you are around you’re holed up in that ‘office’ of yours. In fact, I think this is the longest conversation we’ve had in over a month.” You shut the lamp on your desk off, standing up.
“I’ve been busy-“
“Of course you have.” You gather your personal items, and slip your coat over your shoulders. “And I’ve decided to fill my time with like minded individuals who provide stimulating conversation.”
“You and Selina are not alike.”
“Of course you would say that.” You mumble under your breath before moving past him out of your office and across the hall to Lucius’ office.
“Lucius?” The man in question glances up from his desk and does a double take.
“Did I forget about a meeting?” His eyes are trained above your head.
“No, I’m just letting you know I’m leaving for the night. You should too, I’m sure Tanya has something delicious waiting for you.” You throw one final smile at him before turning around, moving past Bruce. “Goodnight Lucius!” You throw out over your shoulder in the most chipper tone you can manage.
“Goodnight Mrs. Wayne.” You detect an air of concern in his voice, but know from past indiscretions that he won’t interfere in your and Bruce’s ‘disagreements’.
“Why are you spending time with Selina?” Bruce follows behind you.
“Do we really have to do this Bruce? You already know why I’m spending time with Selina, in fact you probably have detailed logs of our conversations in that ‘file’ you have on me.” You stop in front of the elevators and turn towards him.
“I don’t.”
“Bruce, I’ve seen the file. And Barbara has been suspiciously unresponsive lately, which I assume is your doing.” The elevator dings, and you step backward through the doors, Bruce following you. He crowds you against the side wall while pressing his security pass up against the panel, hitting the button for the executive parking.
“You expressed displeasure at my ‘over surveillance’ of your life.” You scoff at his condescending tone.
“I find it highly doubtful that you just stopped surveilling me just because I was uncomfortable with it. Especially given my mysterious friend.”
“I haven’t stopped all protective measures, simply the ones you have found ‘invasive’.” You narrow your eyes at him.
“You really haven’t been spying on my interactions with Selina?” You want to believe him, you really do, but the past isn’t something so easily forgotten.
One Year 9 Months Since The Encounter and you and Bruce seem to be at an impasse. You refuse to tell him about your meetings with Selina, and he refuses to divulge what he knows about your stalker. It’s created quite the frosty dynamic once again in the Manor.
“Sister?” Your startled out of your concentration on Lucius morning briefing by Timothy. You were still getting use to him calling you that, instead of Nanny. Honestly the whole lost Drake daughter thing still seems like a half-baked fever dream out of a soap opera.
“Timothy, how did you get in here? Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?” You check your watch, worried that you had somehow grievously lost track of time and missed several meetings, but in fact it was only 9:36am.
“It’s a revision day for most of my classes, which given my genius level intellect, is not something I need to attend.” The smugness on this child never ceases to amaze you.
“You know, a little humility would go a long way in you making friends.” You close out the tabs on your computer, turning your full attention to Timothy. “And that doesn’t explain why your standing in front of my desk, or how you made it past Bruce’s endless security measures.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here. Bruce has been dropping the ball when it comes to protecting you against this stalker. The fact that I was able to get past all levels of security with the most minor of hacks is ridiculous and irresponsible on his part.”
“Or he simply saw you coming on the cameras and allowed you to bypass his security measures.” You resist the urge to smirk as you see the aforementioned man step through the door of your office.
“That’s ridiculous and completely un-Bruce like Sis.”
“You need to work on being aware of your surroundings.” Bruce towers behind Timothy, startling the young man.
“Well, this has been fun but I have a very important investors meeting in 15 minutes.” You grab your tablet and phone, shooting a message off before rising from your desk and exiting your office.
“I’ll come with you.” Timothy follows behind you to the elevator, only to be pulled back at the last minute by Bruce.
“You’ll be headed home, where you’ll be doing perception training with Alfred.” You threw your hand out to stop the elevator doors from closing as your phone pings.
“I think what you meant to say Bruce, is that he’ll be headed home to do the report on a historic member of Gotham city that was due in his history class 10 minutes ago. Then he’ll be assisting Alfred with polishing all the silverware for the charity banquet on Friday.” Your eyes are trained on Timothy as he squirms in Bruce’s grasp.
“Aw come on sis-“ You cut Timothy off with a glare.
“If that’s a complaint about to come out of your mouth I can always tack on more punishments?” You raise a single brow.
“Help me out here Bruce.” Timothy glances at the man in question.
“Your sister is your legal guardian.” The man remains unmoved, save for the smallest tilt of his lips when you grace him with a peck to the check in response to his backing of your decision.
You step back once more, allowing the elevator doors to shut effectively cutting off any further protest Timothy had. You expel a small sigh when checking your phone to see you are indeed now late for your aforementioned investor meeting. Luckily your assistant left ahead of you and is quite adept at stalling.
‘Grroomp ~ Ka-chunk’
There was a jarring grinding sound as the elevator shuddered to a stop and the lights flickered out. Luckily there were emergency flood lights that triggered when the elevator crapped out.
You grumble to yourself while hitting the emergency button on the panel, only to hear nothing. Not even a single crackle.
“Great, just what I needed today.” You go to pull up maintenances number on your phone.
“The kids right about there being hole’s in Bruce’s surveillance.” A voice speaks from behind you, causing you to yelp in shock. You turn, and come face to face with a man in a red mask. “And it seems like you got my messages about your husbands secrets. I’ll admit I’m surprised Bruce folded so easily when you confronted him about my little coded gifts.” The masked man walks closer to you, invading your personal space. Distracted by his voice, something about it seeming so achingly familiar, you almost miss what he says.
“I already knew my husband’s secret, so whatever game you’re trying to play isn’t going to work on me.” You straighten your spine in an attempt to appear nonchalant.
“You knew?” The man’s demeanour changed almost imperceptibly, and you’re once again stricken with a sense of Deja vu. There’s a familiarity to the way his posture sinks, almost in a defeated way, that tugs at long repressed memories. You feel an indescribable need to comfort him.
“I haven’t known for all that long. Just… well I guess were coming up on 2 years of me knowing the truth.” Your own shoulders sag, a sadness creeping up on you. “He didn’t even tell me actually, I just finally had enough pieces for the puzzle to start taking shape.”
“You were always smarter than people thought.” In the two years since discovering your husbands secret you’d gotten a lot better at reading people, but you were suddenly left doubting your own intuition because you could have sworn you heard a touch of pride in the masked mans voice.
“If you know the truth, why stay with him?”
“He’s my husband, I love him.” The answer fell out of your mouth almost like a reflex. The masked man stared at you, his body language seeming to convey a distaste of that answer. You can’t really blame him either, it did sound like a weak argument for staying with the man who lied to you for nearly a decade.
“He’s the only other person in the world who really knew Jason. The only other person who could come close to understanding the pain I feel every day. The only other person who understands the crushing weight of the guilt I shoulder. When the burden of my grief is too heavy to carry, he’s the only person capable of shouldering it for me, and I’m the only person capable of forcing him to share his. He probably would never admit it, but he needs me as much as I need him.” Your not sure why your defending your relationship to this virtual stranger, but it did feel good to final put words to the thoughts and feelings you’ve had about your relationship with Bruce.
“He can’t possibly be the only person you can lean on.” The masked man grips your arm lifting it and removing your phone from your grasp. You have to hand it to him for noticing you trying to one handed message Bruce while conversing with him.
“Why not? Is the point of a marriage not to have someone to help shoulder the burdens of life?” The masked man turns from you, typing something into your phone while walking towards the back of the elevator. You only just notice the panel missing from the roof where he must have entered the elevator.
“And who are you going to lean on when he’s gone?” The man turns back to you tossing your phone back in your direction, you barely catch it.
“What do you mean? Bruce has proven he’s not going to leave me, at least not by choice.” You glance down at your phone to see that he’d messaged your assistant and Bruce that the elevator had malfunctioned.
“I mean, who are you going to lean on when I kill your husband.”
Two Years Since The Encounter saw your paranoia around Bruce being Batman at an all time high. Even after relating your encounter with the masked man in the elevator, including his promise to kill Bruce, he refused to disclose any information to you. Any expression of concern for Bruce’s safety was meet with a simple, ‘I can protect myself.’ or ‘I’m handling it.’ Once he’d even just cut you off pre-concern voicing with an ‘I’m Batman.’ You’d thrown a fairly heavy object at his head after that one.
It missed.
Not long after that incident he’d banned you from the bat-cave, before disappearing down there himself. It’d been weeks since he’d come up for more than a few minutes. He’d abdicated all his Wayne enterprises duties to Lucius and yourself. The party line was that he was on ‘sabbatical’. Apparently no one questioned why he didn’t bring his wife with him.
You were worried now more than ever. Worried about Bruce, worried about the masked man who’d threatened him, worried about Timothy being caught in the crossfire. You’re worry had reached a peaking point and so you went for the one thing you could control.
“I don’t want you going out there Timothy.” In an increasingly rare moment that all the members of Wayne Manor were present for breakfast you’d decided to take back some semblance of control in your life.
“To school?” The outburst had confused the teen.
“On patrol, as Robin.” You put your teacup down, looking over to Bruce just daring him to contradict your order.
“What!? Why?” You could see anger rising on Timothy’s face, as he turned to Bruce. “She can’t do this! Right Bruce? Tell her.”
You and Bruce stared at one another, eyes locked in a silent conversation. You were ready to argue with the man if he decided to try and overrule you, but you’d hoped, given all that’s going on he’d concede on this demand at least.
“Your sister is your legal guardian.” As close to a concession as you’d get from the notoriously tight lipped man.
“You can’t do this Sis, Bruce needs me. You don’t know what it’s like out there, what he’s like out there alo-“
“I may not know all the specifics, but I do know that this new masked man is making things worse.”
“All the more reason that Bruce needs me out there watching his back.”
“I’ve already made my decision Timothy.” You removed your napkin from your lap, placing it on your plate before standing from the table. “Bruce, I expect you too enforce this new rule until such a time as I deem fit to rescind it.”
“Of course.”
“Come on sis, please-“ Timothy grabs your arm as you go to walk past him, you turn and make eye contact with him.
“I won’t lose another son Timothy.”
Your ‘alliance’ with Selina had become increasingly beneficial. When it’d become obvious that Bruce wasn’t going to indulge anymore information about your stalker months ago, she’d taken your safety into her own hands. Your meet ups now took place at her hideout, a ‘special privilege’ she’d called it.
She’d taught you everything she could, from picking locks to hand to hand combat. She’d even offered to teach you how to shoot a gun, though that was unnecessary.
“Listen sweetie, I commend you on trying to stick to your hubby’s nonsensical moral code, but you don’t have his skills.”
“I may not have Batman’s skills, but I do have 20 years of hunting experience with my uncle.” You’d proceeded to hit everyone of her makeshift targets, dead centre.
“I’ll admit, I was not expecting that out of Bruce’s little goody two shoes.”
You’d picked up on most skills with only slight set backs. You were determined not to end up a victim, though you knew ultimately the vigilante life wasn’t for you. You could only pray that Bruce would be able to deal with this masked man and your life could go back to normal. But luck hasn’t really ever been on your side.
This masked man had Bruce slipping, he hadn’t even noticed the tracker you and Selina had placed on Black Mask, nor the one you managed to slip into the Batmobile while Bruce was rescuing Mask from his own stupidity. You followed him through the city on one of Richards old motorcycles, abandoned like so many of his possessions from before. You sent a silent prayer that your oldest was safe on his own patrols of Blüdhaven.
The Batmobile stopped just outside crime alley, you parked the bike not far and followed on foot. Bruce truly must be out of it as he didn’t appear to notice you at all. Though, you looked much more like Ms. Kyle than you did yourself, decked in a skin tight suit and weapons.
You followed him through Crime Alley, choosing to scale the building beside his chosen perch. Upon reaching the roof top you noticed a man. The masked man perhaps? You weren’t close enough to hear their conversation, so you moved as close to the edge as you could without being seen. Still not quite being able to make out more than the back of the mans head, something about it feeling familiar.
“I’m not going to let you kill him.” Bruce was squaring up for a fight.
“You can try to stop me.” There was something familiar about the man’s voice, something tugging at your memory.
Skaboom
Off in the distance a large green explosion could be seen, coming from the direction of-
“No.”
“That’s Bludhaven.” Your vaguely aware of the conversation happening between the strangely familiar man and Bruce, but most of your focus is stuck on the horizon.
“No.”
“Dick…?” Bruce’s voice sounds as broken as your own.
“My God… Is Nightwing there? Imagine that. One son returns from the grave as another enters it… What a fitting ending this has become.”
The mans ramblings seem to shake you from your horror, if only slightly. The oddity of his sentence rumbles through your brain, ‘One son returns from the grave…’ he couldn’t mean… it couldn’t be. You finally pull your eyes away from the devastation of Blüdhaven to see the face of the man who’s spent nearly a year stalking you.
“Good God, the ironies abound. Here we are and you have to run to the site of an explosion to dig through the wreckage and find the body of your ‘boy sidekick’. If he’s there Bruce… you’re too late. Again.”
There standing in front of your husband, taunting him about Richards death, is a very much alive Jason. He’s older than the last time you’d seen him. Bulkier too, but his face still held something to it that was so unmistakably Jason.
“Jason.” It trembles out of your mouth. Barely a whisper, not even registering to the two men in front of you. Bruce hasn’t turned, in fact he appears to be leaving the rooftop.
Booom!
A small explosion goes off in front of Bruce stopping his exit. You can only watch on in horror, the breadth of the alley and your own grief preventing you from moving.
“NO! You’re not leaving! Not now! Not this time!”
“Jason please I-“
“What? You ‘have to be sure?’ Getting out of that alive would be one neat trick. It’d take a hell of a lot more than Batarangs and a few escrima sticks to survive. If Ol’ Dickie is there, he’s dead. And if you leave… someone else is gonna die tonight.”
This isn’t right. Nothing about this is right. Jason wouldn’t do these things. He wouldn’t say those things, not to Bruce. Not about Richard. Your mind is too busy trying to connect the boy you’d lost to this imposter wearing his face to intervene when he and Bruce start fighting.
You continue to stand there in stunned silence, watching as your husband and son trade blows and barbs. You watch as they crash into the buildings fire escape, Jason disappearing through a window with Bruce close behind him. You finally find your legs, but instead of leading you into the building after them, you find yourself headed back down the building and to Richards old bike. Before you know it the bike is revving under you and you’re turning in the direction of Bludhaven, dialling Alfred as you do.
You can’t lose another son.