Chapter Text
The Cave, underneath Wayne Manor.
‘Can you at least tell me what you’re looking for?’
Catwoman swung the flashlight back and forth, banding it about as though it was a toy. The glare caught him in his eyes, and he grunted. She noted his displeasure, and momentarily stopped, shining the light exactly where he needed it—the wiring above his face, within the innards of the Bat-computer’s main hard-drives. He was lying on his back jammed halfway inside, staring at the machinery until he noticed what was amiss.
'Bruuuuuce.'
He had invited Catwo— Selina down here to include her in his investigation. To include her in… his life. It was as she had requested, after he’d revealed his identity to her in an act of trust.
She had repaid him soon after by helping him kidnap Talia al Ghul, Lexcorp’s CEO.
Bruce had been the one to board her private cargo plane, but Selina had given him pointers on infiltration. He had removed his former lover from her security detail and aside from her initial surprise, she had gone with him without resisting. She had not been too happy though, when she realised he wanted to leverage his hold over her to rouse Ra’s al Ghul from his seclusion. Bruce had fought him not long after. Had outwitted him into talking about those Lazarus Pit ashes Batman had found on the Riddler’s prints at the scene of his most recent crime.
The only useful insight he garnered from the excursion was the Demon Head’s confirmation that one pit had been defiled recently. Within the past twelve months.
Whilst he’d gone to another continent to procure this information, Selina had stayed behind to guard Talia. They’d anticipated her father or her new boss would send someone to retrieve her, but they had not known exactly which one. In the end, it seemed blood, even that blood which had disavowed its relation to its megalomaniac father, ran thicker than contracts.
They’d been prepared for that eventuality. Selina could have handled a few members from the League of Assassins. But what she could not handle was the woman Ra’s had outsourced the matter to—the world’s greatest fighter, Lady Shiva.
Somehow, Talia had been the one to save Selina from her clutches—breaking free of her restraints and knocking Shiva out with a chair to the back of the head. Talia had saved Selina’s life, whilst Batman had been less than useless, chasing leads on the other side of the planet. Talia had saved her, and he had not known how to thank her.
He still didn’t know.
Selina had nearly died. All because she’d considered his trust worthy enough to put her life on the line… To sacrifice herself for the chance of getting a clue.
'Answers,' he said.
'I’m sorry. You went silent for so long I forgot my original question. Answers to what now? What answers?'
He shifted, slightly. Her lips quirked to the side as she resumed tilting the flashlight back and forth, as though he were the cat who would follow it anywhere.
'What if everything that’s happened recently—Killer Croc taking that boy hostage for money, Poison Ivy brainwashing you into fetching the ransom for her, the fight with Superman, the production put on by Harley Quinn and the Joker at the Opera, Tommy Elliot’s death in the alleyway outside—what if it had all been orchestrated?'
She used one hand to prop up her chin. 'Fun theory. Who’d bother to do all that? And why?'
He thought it over.
He had already decided what he was to say, and what her likely reaction would be, but when he’d first insisted on learning how to handle firearms, he’d quickly found it was harder to pull the trigger than it was to load the bullets.
'Since this all started, what is different?'
She went silent. 'Us.'
'And do you think that’s the result of—'
Selina’s head whipped to one side. 'Hold that thought.’
Robin was here.
She leapt off of where she had been leaning over the console, and bounded across the cave before pulling an eavesdropping Tim Drake out of a secret orifice in the cavern’s walls. Bruce could not see her do this, but he soon picked up on them talking—and heard when Robin threw the first punch.
As he let their squabble play out and extricated himself from underneath the computer system, he reminded himself that he had orchestrated this for a reason. Robin's insults—you might’ve fooled him. Seduced him. But I know what you are—had all been his own creation, but he’d only generated them on Batman's order.
And this Robin followed orders. He didn’t jump into fights like a boy trying to—
‘Then why does it say here that his teachers reported a consistent pattern of fresh injuries appearing on his skin throughout his tenure at Gotham Academy?’
That man… the social worker had said— but he had not known anything about Robin, had he? If he had, his arguments would have turned to putty. Their meeting certainly would not have ended as it did. For one, Bruce would have been able to remember what had happened between his dropping to his knees and promising not to fight in court and Alfred rousing him with peppermint tea.
Alfred had told him that the social worker had left, though not before leaving behind a warning with the Manor’s inhabitants that he would be filing charges shortly, as agreed upon with Bruce. When Alfred asked what had happened—why he would agree to such a deal, hardly a few months on from when his name had been cleared of Vesper’s murder—Bruce had been too ashamed to say anything. If he had just let something slip… If he had shown him more of his pain, if that jumped up government employee had experienced even an ounce of his grief…
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell anyone.
Because Jason was his.
His greatest failure. His deepest shame. His sec— second. The second boy he ever took into his life. The first one he had the right to adopt, the first one to see him as more than a friend. The only one who ever looked up at him through the mask he had granted him and saw him as a—.
Jason had always been his burden.
His beginning, his end.
All Bruce’s.
His, to bear alone.
Batman rose to his full height and with one hand picked Tim up by the scruff of his cape, holding him half a foot off the ground. Selina’s claws he kept down with his other, telling her, ‘Enough.’
Neither of them took his interceding well. He tried for words next. ‘Calm down.’
Selina hissed. ‘Don’t tell me to—’
‘—this isn’t a discussion.’ He turned to Tim, and said, ‘Robin. She’s my guest.’
‘She can’t be trusted.’
‘That’s my choice.’ He reached back and pulled off his cowl, baring his face. ‘Like this was my choice.’
‘You told her…?’
‘You got it straight now?’ said Selina, an air of smugness lacing her words. ‘Or do I have to draw you a picture?’
Tim didn’t rise to her bait. He followed the script, turned on Bruce, and said, ‘You should’ve—’
‘I should have what? Consulted you? This was my decision.’
‘Then you made the wrong one.’
‘It was mine to make.’
Just as when he had made the decision to take both Dick and Jason in when they had no place else to go. He… he should not have. He knew that now. Social services, they—
‘There’s an undeniable pattern. One any half-decent social worker would have identified—’
'He wouldn’t listen. He wanted to do everything his way. He was just like you. In a few years I would have had to fire him as I did you.
'There’s one thing I need you to promise me.'
'Nothing’s going to happen to me, Bruce.
The one he lost—'he was headstrong and disregarded orders as a matter of rebellious individuation.'
'He’s reckless. He’s impetuous. He’s too certain of himself. He let Felipe Garzonas fall to his death. Jason said he slipped… I want to believe that.
But I can’t.'
After the second Robin had disobeyed him for the last time, Batman had sworn there would never be another. Nobody else could be trusted to don that cape and stand by his side. Nobody else could be trusted as his partner, not without endangering everything.
His mind wandered back to the present as he watched his current partners—Catwoman and Robin—get into another physical altercation.
Selina had tried to walk away, back to the computer, lightheartedly mocking his having too many attachments for a self-professed loner. Tim knew the plan was to get her to leave, and so he launched himself at her back, hands thrust forward in a mockery of all his martial arts training.
She fended him off easily. ‘You come at me one more time, little bird—’ she traced the bottom of his left check with one claw, drawing blood ‘—and I’ll clip your wings. No matter what your “daddy” says.’
‘He’s not my father,’ Tim replied. No script needed for that refutation.
Tim had been clear from the outset that he wasn’t here for a family. He believed in the cause, and channeled the same kind of heartfelt faith in the law that Batman had only ever seen from one other person. Barbara Gordon. Like her, Tim had a perfectly acceptable father at home, one who’d gotten over loss after loss and never let it stop him from living.
Jack Drake and Jim Gordon… they’d each gotten over the traumatic death of their wives without breaking down into something unsightly. It hadn’t been three years since, and Jack was already re-married, to the physiotherapist he had met and fallen in love with not three years ago. Jim hadn’t gotten together with another woman yet, but he kept his lively social circle of cops and ex-cops running.
The most important person in their lives had been murdered. By monsters. But they hadn’t let it stop them from living again. From opening their hearts to others.
So why had he, after Jason's death?
‘Tell him that.’
Bruce blinked as Selina winked at him. He had tuned out the conversation, and now his brain was trying to catch up whilst she hopped onto one of his motorcycles.
Before his mouth could form any words, she revved the engine. The motorcycle screamed. As it peeled away, Selina reared its front wheel upward. She soon disappeared through the yawning mouth of the nearest cave exit, and he kept his eyes fixed there—in case she came back—until enough time had passed and he pulled his cowl back over his face.
Tim slid in front of him.
‘Do you think she bought it?’
Batman scanned his eager features, and then made his way back to the Bat-computer. Tim padded after him. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’
As he leant over the device and pulled up the screen alerting him to where the tracker on the bike was headed, Tim leant onto the desk and pointed one thumb toward himself. ‘I could’ve taken her, y’know. I’ve been Robin for over three years. If I can handle King Snake, I can definitely handle Catwoman.’
Batman grunted.
Dick saw Robin as a thrill, always going off book and extemporising his moves. It was likely why he outgrew it. Outgrew Bruce. But Jason had never had the chance. He’d been too reckless, too quick to anger, that chip on his shoulder making him take cases too personally.
He’d seen being Robin as a game and it was probably what had gotten him killed. But Tim…
Bruce had to hand it to the boy. He’d been somewhat of an amateur detective, one who studied Batman as a hobby and figured out two of the world’s most prized secret identities before he reached double digits. He’d seen the worst side of Bruce and instead of cowering, he’d decided to do something about it. He’d sought the Batman out—demanded to be Robin. As hard as Batman had tried to convince him to look elsewhere, Tim had pursued the job doggedly, working harder for it than anyone Bruce knew. And now, he wanted to be the world’s greatest detective.
And from what Batman had seen so far, he would be.
Someday.
He followed at a distance as Catwoman rode his motorcycle into the city. He had not installed an audio receiver onto the vehicle, and could not hear her words, but he watched as she encountered a dangerous driver on the rain-swept roads. Huntress. Helena Bertinelli.
As he and Tim grappled to a nearby church roof, they watched as Huntress came to a stop inside the cloisters. She dismounted and Selina soon followed. There was no reason she should have. Her personality type and pattern of behaviour suggested she would take immediate disinterest in one of Gotham’s vigilantes and leave the scene as soon as possible. Why was she stopping? It might be a sign of collaboration, between two of the most mercurial women he knew within this city. It could be something worse.
Whoever it was who’d decided to interfere with his life, it had to be someone close. Someone who knew him. Studied him. Had access to the Bat-cave enough to leave a knife in the console. Suspected Bruce Wayne was Batman. Knew they could hurt him by killing one of his only childhood friends, Tommy Elliot.
He needed to know. He needed to know if he’d made a mistake.
‘We shouldn’t have helped him.’
Now he was stationary, his radio equipment picked up on their conversation. From his elevated viewpoint, Bruce watched as Helena staggered over to Selina, her body turned inward, her face downcast. She looked unlike herself, wearing her new costume, guns holstered at her hips—replacing her usual crossbows.
‘We…?’
‘When we back came to this blood-drenched city three years ago. I’d been hoping Batman would accept me. Vic said he created us. By setting an example. Diving into our family gathering, frightening everyone we hated. No matter what they did, they couldn’t escape his vengeance.’ Her hands twitched at her side. ‘Vic said we wanted to be him, to have his approval, to have independence. To struggle against him like a child to a parent.’
‘Huntress…’ Selina moved into a ready stance. ‘Not that your daddy issues aren’t riveting, but I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘We shouldn’t have saved his life. He’ll never thank us. We kept thinking that maybe he’d grown to like us, see us a kindred spirit. We half-expected him to say, “Why… I’d be proud to have you as my daughter…” Why did we think we could be family?’
Huntress withdrew the handguns and started yelling at Selina, ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Catwoman arched her back, unsheathing her claws.
‘Shouldn’t we—’
‘No,’ said Batman, interrupting Robin before he could formulate his question. ‘We have to see what she does next.’
‘Huntress or Catwoman?’
Batman didn’t respond.
Shots fired down below. Huntress had begun her assault. Catwoman responded in kind, twisting out of the path of the bullets, landing on her feet on the slippery ground.
‘I can take you away from him.’ Huntress’s ravings continued. ‘What have you even accomplished here these past few years? You gave up James and for what? To be strung along like a dog? Chasing the echo of a man you thought you could share something with? An ineffectual anti-hero? He’s never going to open his heart to you, it calcified a long time ago. You need to give up!’
‘Are you on something?!’
Catwoman darted forward to strike at the weakest spots in Huntress’s costume, ripping her belt to shreds and elbowing her in her uncovered chin.
Helena went down with a cry, falling headfirst into a puddle. She tried to get back up again, but Selina fixed her boot firmly upon the middle of her back. The more the vigilante struggled, the more weight Catwoman applied. Eventually she stopped struggling, and tilted her head to one side.
She stared up at Selina, pupils blown.
‘We can’t trust him.’
Batman had seen enough. Heard enough.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered Robin. Tim made his usual protests, but Batman silenced him with a single finger as he prepared for his descent. ‘Don’t argue. I need a second pair of eyes.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘Not what… who.’
And he leapt from the roof into the fray below.
‘Douse Huntress with this,’ he said, tossing a syringe into Selina’s left hand. He dropped onto the churchyard slabs and she caught it—even though she had not expected him.
‘What?’
'It will make her sleep,’ he clarified.
‘I don’t care about that,’ she spat, getting to the floor so she could administer the vial. ‘Have you been following me?’
He declined to answer.
‘Get ready to move.’
‘What the hell, you’re not getting—’
Huntress’s movements. Her speech pattern. Lashing out at Selina, but talking to her as though she was... Helena herself.
Her obvious fear of… of trusting someone.
‘Talk to me, dammit!’
Only one person could have affected her mind in that way.
The blinding headlights of Huntress’s motorcycle interrupted his train of thought. Selina stood up and raised her hand to shield her eyes.
‘Scarecrow,’ she mumbled.
Selina had not told him directly, but Bruce knew from both observation and rumour that Dr. Crane had been one of the only men to ever truly frighten her. She rolled back onto her heels next to him, claws equipped but dangling by her side. Her body language betrayed the remnants of her fear—her unwillingness to meet this threat face on very much unlike her.
‘Take Huntress,’ he ordered, before he grabbed hold of the fuel tank at the front of the bike as it roared past. This was the safest way to confront the master of fear toxins. One on one.
As they left the cloisters, Batman wrestled for control of the bike. Scarecrow would never give up mastery over a situation so easily, and it came as little surprise when he decided to steer the bike toward a nearby wall. Batman knew they could both survive a crash like that, but he wasn’t keen on the chance of incurring a concussion and giving Crane the opportunity to escape before he could question him. He started elbowing Scarecrow repeatedly in the throat until he released the handlebars and gasped for breath.
At the last minute, Batman hauled himself into a seated position on the bike and jerked the handlebars to the left. Instead of flying into a wall, they broke through the main site’s iron railing and went flying into the burial ground beyond it.
Batman knew there was going to be no safe landing, not with the mottled graves covering the landscape before them. He quickly dismounted whilst the bike was in the air and dove to safety, Scarecrow tucked under one arm. As he hit the ground, he rolled, and turned his face away from the site of imminent impact.
He still felt a slap of warmth upon his face when Huntress’s bike exploded against a nearby headstone. Dead trees shivered against the force of the wind it unleashed.
At least they had no leaves left to lose.
Once the ringing in his ears subsided, Batman looked around. It was like when he had chased Catwoman at the very start of this mystery. When he had his line broken in mid-air and fell into the depths of Crime Alley. This latest scuffle had driven him toward another special location. One he knew well, despite never visiting.
Nobody should have known about his connection to this place. He never came here, as either Batman or Bruce, just in case someone decided to follow him. If they had, it would have all been for nothing. He hadn’t been certain until now that all this night had been arranged, by the same person who showed an eerie level of knowledge concerning his personal life all along. But it was unmistakeable. Everything had been planned, just to bring him to this secluded spot.
Batman grabbed the fabric bunching around Scarecrow’s neck with one hand and lifted him off the ground. He was a tall, spindly man—he should have been able to reach the ground easily. Yet his distress had him flailing his limbs and warbling about like an unruly child.
‘Why?!’ He commanded, tearing the mask off this lunatic’s face. ‘Tell me. Who told you about this place?’
This graveyard. No one should have known who was buried here.
Batman still remembered the day he and Alfred had Jason’s body secretly moved to this spot so no could find it.
Defile it.
They had hired an off-the-books specialist team and paid them in cash to dig up the coffin and transport it across the city. Jason had been buried next to his mother, Sheila, in Gotham’s general cemetery. He retained only faint memories of the public funeral—the one with the pitiful attendance. Him, Alfred, the vicar. Barbara and her father. Dick was absent. Alfred had handled all the correspondence with Jason's school, and if any of his teachers or classmates had wanted to pay their respects, they hadn’t made themselves known.
He was glad they hadn’t.
Five people. That was already too many witnesses.
It was the worst thing he had done, to separate a child from his parent, but the security at that site had been lax, and he would do anything rather than risk something happening to Jason’s grave. Who knew what Jim Gordon might let slip at a company poker night? No, this way was best. No ransoms for his fortunes, no soulless paparazzi, and no supervillains.
He put all his weight behind his next punch, landing a clean blow to Scarecrow’s face. The man reeled backward, grabbing onto a nearby gravestone in need of maintenance. His grip was so tight it broke off a piece of the already crumbling edge.
Bruce approached, but jerked back when the Rogue darted forward, his talons pumping a noxious gas in his direction. His eyes shut on instinct, and he coughed as the Scarecrow began to sing a nursery rhyme.
Hands slathered all over his cape, feeling around for something to get purchase on. Bruce batted them away, shook his head. Scarecrow kept going.
‘Stop it,’ whispered Bruce. He felt some of his faculties return to him and cleared his throat. ‘It’s over.’ He grabbed the man again, and watched the glee fade from his eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk to the Scarecrow. I want the psychiatrist. Who told you to bring me here?’
Doctor Jonathan Crane quivered. Batman pressed their faces together, his cowl’s nose protection touching skin. ‘I… I don’t understand. My fear gas should have affected you. Unless… your mind was already infected by another—’
A projectile cut him off, slicing through his left eyebrow and splashing blood onto Batman’s lips. The warm liquid died a sudden death. Scarecrow fainted, and Batman dropped him to the floor.
‘Who…’
A gloved hand readied another ranged weapon, a bat-shaped implement, silver reflecting the amber light emanating from where the bike’s carcass still burned. The hand carefully drew the weapon down, to hold it up to the cheek of the unconscious child at his side.
Robin.
The man holding him was over six feet, his figure made all the more imposing by his heeled leather boots and the many bandages covering his face. His nondescript beige trench coat could be hiding all manner of weaponry. Batman went on the defensive.
‘You care about this imposter… pretender…’
That voice… muffled by the bandages… hidden in the wind.
The bandaged man held the batarang to Tim’s throat. A bead of blood welled against its edge. Warm crimson meeting cold steel.
Jason’s angel loomed behind them.
‘I wonder. Will you be able to stop him from succumbing to the same fate as the last?’