Chapter Text

Title: Just because it's unexpected doesn't mean it's not what you need. 

Summary: When the Batfam fights Darkseid, Bruce is hit with his beams. He vaporises on the spot. Damian, who shouldn't even be there, freaks out and runs into the field. Tim protects him from the worst but he, too, gets hit by a stray beam. He falls into a coma. The Batfam refuses to be lead by Dick, and everyone except Steph and Aöfred leave. When Damian wakes up, he's four instead of ten. Tim goes to find Bruce, but in this one he takes a lot longer. When they all come back, Damian is ten. Cue confusion of everyone, because what do you mean he was ten when you all left, he only had his tenth birthday last month! And Dick is his dad now. Shoo. Go away grandpa Bruce. Finders keepers. 

Rating: Teen & Up

Main pairing: -

Warnings: mild gore, graphic descriptions of violence, mental health issues

Genre: Fluff, Family, Drama

Disclaimer: I do not Batman, Nightwing or anyone associated with them. It would be a lot queerer if I did. Dick would be HAPPY. And Damian would be his already. I do not make any money with this either.

~x~x~ Just because it's unexpected doesn't mean it's not what you need.  ~x~x~  

Smoke rolled through Gotham’s buildings in the colour of burnt paper, choking the little light that dared trickle between them. Debris rained from the wound in the sky—an oval gash of greenish light pulsing at the centre of downtown—spattering glass and concrete onto the street below. In the half-night, sirens warred with the low, throaty thrumming that set every window pane humming like a cheap tuning fork. On the west-side edge of the 47th Street rooftop, Batman looked like a statue on the prow of a sinking ship. The cape curled around his ankles in the wind kicked up by the expanding Boom Tube, its vacuum force threatening to snatch even the sturdiest rooftop gargoyle into the breach. His cowl’s eyes narrowed in a permanent squint, but the lower half of his face was nothing but resolve. Robin crouched beside him, hands tucked into fists tight enough to drain the colour from his knuckles. He flicked a glance at the drone hovering overhead—Oracle’s eyes—and toggled his comm with a shake of his head.

“Transmission’s holding. They’re five blocks out. The others are en route.”

Batman didn’t respond. His attention was pinned to the black monolith at the centre of the street, where the air had thickened into a syrupy distortion and a figure was slowly extruding from the wound in space. Even from half a block away, Robin could see the wet ripple of terror pulse through the crowd. Gothamites, born to panic, scattered in every direction, the unlucky ones immediately swallowed by shadow.

Boom. The next pulse from the tube flattened the nearby traffic, sent three cars tumbling end-over-end until they caved in on themselves like beer cans. Robin forced himself to breathe. He reached for his collapsible staff, thumbed it open, and recited the mantra he had been forced to learn way too early, since he was old enough to walk: One step ahead. Never show them fear.

But this wasn’t a mugger or even Killer Croc. Or the Joker. This was Darkseid, and when the stone-skinned god finally dragged his immense shoulders into view, he made the ten-foot armoured carriers behind him look like parade balloons. His face was a slab of concrete with a frown etched into the geometry of his skull. His steps didn’t leave prints; they left craters. Robin’s voice was smaller than he’d intended.

“You ever fight a god before?”

Batman exhaled through his nose, the only sign that he’d heard.

“Once or twice.”

There was no sound from the tube now, only the absolute hush of expectation. Every head, every lens, every terrified pair of civilian eyes was on Darkseid. He took in his audience with a sweep of yellow-red irises, dismissed them as insects, and fixed on the only two who stood their ground. Robin took the cue and launched himself off the ledge, cape flaring for the wind. Batman moved a split second later, riding the updraft of the Boom Tube’s energy, landing on a streetlight post that bent under his weight. Robin hit the ground running, skidding to a stop between Darkseid and a knot of panicking civilians who’d frozen at the sight of him. Darkseid’s voice rolled over the city, low and patient and bored.

“You are not the one I seek.”

Robin’s staff extended, and he squared his jaw, all bravado.

“You’ll have to settle for us. It’s Gotham policy.”

Darkseid regarded him for a single, contemptuous beat, and then flicked him aside with a beam of energy that sent Robin hurtling into a parked car. Batman was on him before he finished speaking, dropping a net of steel cable that flashed with white-hot electricity. Darkseid didn’t slow. He strode through the net, burning it away with the first flicker of his Omega Beams, and backhanded Batman through the window of an abandoned pharmacy.

Robin peeled himself out of the ruined chassis, body already cataloguing its new injuries. He found Batman buried in a drift of generic cough syrups, right arm at a bad angle, but already on his feet. Batman didn’t bother checking himself for breaks; he simply reset the limb with a practised yank and stalked out into the street, lips white with adrenaline. Robin scrambled after, eyes locked on the advance of Darkseid. The New God was already past the point where most sane villains would pause to gloat. He wanted something specific, and every second the pair of them delayed him was a splinter in his plans.

Batman slung a batarang, not at Darkseid, but at the bank of transformers on the nearest power pole. The explosion arced blue lightning across the street, momentarily draping Darkseid in a crown of city fire. Robin saw the chance, darted in, and jammed an EMP disk onto the base of the Omega Symbol embossed on the villain’s chest.

“Now,” Batman said, and Robin rolled clear just as Batman emptied a canister of liquid nitrogen at Darkseid’s legs.

The combined effect was almost negligible. Darkseid paused, more out of curiosity than pain, then turned both beams on Batman, who dove and rolled, losing a chunk of cape but keeping his body intact.

“You are inefficient,” Darkseid said, almost kindly, as if grading a test.

Robin’s teeth were chattering, but he managed to get to Batman’s side.

“He’s playing with us.”

“Not for long,” Batman replied, voice tight. “Oracle. Status.”

The answer was a crackle, then a rush of voices.

“Batgirl, Red Hood, Nightwing, and Spoiler are four blocks north and closing. ETA one minute, give or take.”

Batman’s eyes darted from the burning pharmacy to the trembling civilians under an awning.

“I’ll buy time. Get them clear.”

Robin nodded and sprinted toward the crowd. Batman counted three heartbeats, then sprinted himself—directly at Darkseid. He moved with the desperate, reckless velocity of someone who had already written himself off as a casualty, Robin could see that in every line of his body. The young vigilante swallowed hard, but kept running. The New God rewarded him with both Omega Beams, but Batman zigzagged with microsecond precision, bouncing off a bus stop, a taxi, and then vaulting off a fire hydrant, which burst in a geyser of water and shrouded the avenue in steam. He landed within arm’s reach. Darkseid’s fist was already coming down. Batman snapped up a reinforced shield, absorbed most of the blow, and went to his knees from the rest. But his other hand was busy; he’d planted a timed flashbang into the seam at Darkseid’s shoulder. It went off with the intensity of a minor sun, flaring so bright it stunned even the non-human.

Batman rolled back, but the next Omega Beam caught him square in the chest. There was no time to block. He flew backward into the deli across the street, shattering the counter and toppling a pyramid of day-old bagels. He lay there, half-smothered in poppy seeds, for all of two seconds before pulling himself up again. His chest armour was broken, and he would not withstand a second hit. His suit smoked, the emblem on his chest glowing with residual heat. Robin reached him just as Batman staggered to his feet, unsteady but not finished. Robin’s voice came out raw.

“You okay?”

“No,” Batman said, and advanced anyway.

The next ten seconds were a blur. The Boom Tube fluctuated, sending more warped foot soldiers into the street—Parademons, hunched and ravenous. Robin went high, leaping from streetlamp to awning to fire escape, disarming the first wave with a spinning kick and a tangle of bolas. Batman kept his focus on Darkseid, throwing every gadget, every trick, every desperate tactic at the enemy. None of it worked.

The city itself joined the fight. Water from the burst hydrant steamed off the burning pavement; the street sagged where Darkseid’s feet had crushed the underlying supports. Each Omega Blast carved new scars into the brickwork, sending razor-edged shrapnel in all directions. Above, Oracle’s drone wove through the ruins, recording every second for the world outside, for the databases inside.

Then, with a sonic boom that rattled the bones of everyone within six blocks, Nightwing dove from the roof of an office tower, batons lit up like a lightning rod. He landed on a Parademon’s back, rode it down, and sent a volley of stun darts into the cluster below. Batgirl appeared from a shattered window two stories up, swinging down in a blur of black, boot-heel catching another demon in the jaw.

Red Hood’s opening salvo was less elegant—he simply opened fire from the roof of a delivery van, unloading every clip he had into the massed invaders. The bullets didn’t kill — not for lack of trying — but they distracted, and in the swirl of chaos, Spoiler darted between Parademons, laying down smoke bombs and grabbing at any survivors in the crossfire.

In a heartbeat, the family was there: not a wall, but a chain, each member acting as a vital link. Nightwing and Red Hood tag-teamed the biggest Parademon, trading blows and quips until it collapsed. Batgirl and Spoiler tag-teamed the retreating civilians, pushing them toward relative safety. Robin, seeing Batman nearly levelled by another Omega strike he barely avoided, vaulted into the air and caught Darkseid in the face with a steel-toed kick. It did nothing. But Batman used the distraction to plant another gadget on Darkseid’s arm—a specialised acid, eating away at the armour’s joint.

Nightwing called across the comms: “You said god, but you didn’t say ugly.”

“Focus, Nightwing,” Batman snapped, never taking his eyes off Darkseid.

“I am,” said Nightwing, as he used his baton to lever a Parademon’s head into a car door.

Darkseid, sensing the shift in numbers, unleashed a radius burst of Omega Energy. It flattened the block, sent Batman and Robin spinning, and forced the others to duck for cover. In the lull, Batman pulled Robin behind the wreck of the deli counter.

“He’s going to escalate,” Batman said, voice thick with smoke. “Get everyone to fall back and regroup.”

Robin relayed the order, watching the family form up on the near side of the street. The drone overhead showed their silhouettes ringed in firelight, battered but upright. Gotham wasn’t lost yet, not while the Bats still stood. Darkseid advanced. He raised his arms, and the entire block responded—a chunk of sidewalk peeled itself from the earth, rising like an island around him. He floated above the city, indifferent to its pain, and prepared a final, incandescent blast. Robin looked to Batman.

“We can’t beat him.”

Batman’s lips thinned.

“You are not planning to”, Batgirl said, voice hollow as she read BAtman’s body language.

“We can buy time,” he just said.

“But at what cost?”

Batman stared into the god’s glowing eyes.

“Ours.”

The comm crackled with Oracle’s voice.

“Wayne Manor’s safehouse is prepped for triage. Batwing on remote. Two minutes.”

“Understood,” Batman said.

Nightwing’s voice was lower, urgent.

“B, you need to pull out. You’re at critical.”

Batman just shook his head, cape wrapped tight around his battered frame.

“Family first,” he said, and dove straight into the heart of the blast, drawing every bit of fire away from the rest.

The city roared. The team scattered. And above it all, the wound in the sky only widened, swallowing the screams and the night alike. All of his kids looked at each other, before following Batman wordlessly.

He’d never once been afraid of heights, not even as a toddler. But the space between the tip of the bell tower and the carnage below felt, to Damian Wayne, like the only real abyss in the world. He balanced on the balls of his feet, knees flexed, keeping his weight off the groaning lead gutter. Every vibration travelled through the soles of his boots and into his legs—a Morse code of terror, desperation, and the stubborn refusal of Gotham City to just die quietly, for once. His heart beat in a triple-time stutter, faster than even the League of Assassins had ever trained into him. He counted every breath, each one filling his lungs with a sour mix of burned plastic, ozone, and cordite. Far below, his father darted and weaved through the crossfire, flanked by the other pretenders to the cowl. Damian had memorized each of their movements before he was willing to pronounce 'sibling,' before he had been at the Manor even a month, and from this height, it was like watching a flock of ill-matched birds: Nightwing with his lazy showman’s flips, Red Hood’s brute-force plow, Batgirl’s calculating angles. Only Batman moved the way Batman was supposed to—implacable, a shape cut from shadow—but even he was slowing now, forced into a rhythm not his own. Damian also knew within the first month whom of the Bats he could trust besides his father, for it was not all of them. He would never turn his back on most of them, trusting to protect him. He trusted father, certainly. He grudgingly trusted Richard, for the showmanship may be an annoying trait, but he certainly could hold his own against even Batman. He trusted Alfred and Spoiler not to actively try to murder and poison him by now. He did not fully trust Batgirl, and while he wished he could, he also could not trust Red Hood or Robin. Red Hood was volatile and his time in the League, while it should bond them, had made him a risk. Robin was too smart for his own good, and could not leave well enough alone. He would, at some point, do something he thought he’d calculated fully, but would not have. Something that could well be a risk to Damian as well. So he did not trust them. His mother taught him this, a lesson painfully learned after all. When he refocused on the fight, Damian gripped the cracked ledge harder. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Father had been explicit—"You are to stay at the Manor. I will not repeat myself." But Damian knew the city better than anyone, even better than Batman. He’d mapped every forgotten alley and escape tunnel in three-dimensional memory, a skill drilled into him by a dozen failed attempts to kill or impress his father, in the beginning. So when the emergency alarms shattered the peace of the study and Oracle’s voice piped in with code red, Damian snuck out, took the old WayneCorp tram line that punched through the city’s spine and made it to the clock tower before the first Boom Tube opened. He only wore a dark hoodie and some dark trousers, his katana strapped to his back. And he waited, up here, in relative safety, thinking he might be able to assist after all. It was a coward’s perch, and he loathed himself for it. He’d watched the whole thing: the arrival, the flattening of the police barricade, the way Darkseid just brushed aside the Batmobile as if it were a toy. And now he had to watch, helpless, as the so-called Batfamily was systematically picked apart.

He saw his own cowardice mirrored in the city below. Gothamites ran from cover to cover, never daring to cross open space. The heroes, too, clung to the edges, popping out only when they could hit and vanish. No one but his father dared face the god head-on. He pressed his cheek to the cold concrete and let his eyes adjust to the flickering light below. Batman was limping. Even if you couldn’t see the micro fractures in the armour, the way his chest plate was shattered internally, or the way he favoured his left knee, you could read it in the shortened stride, the abbreviated leaps. Darkseid noticed, too—he’d stopped even pretending to care about the others. He advanced with the certainty of gravity, every step a promise of pain. Damian wanted to scream. Instead, he ground his teeth, tasted the rusty tang of blood, and recalculated every possible outcome. Every training scenario, every simulation he’d ever run with Father ended here, in a moment just like this. Except in the training, the hero always found a way.

On the street, Nightwing took a blow meant for Batman and spun into the grill of a delivery truck. Batgirl caught a Parademon in midair but couldn’t finish the throw; the thing slammed her into a storefront window, the glass swallowing her scream. Red Hood was out of ammo, using the empty guns as clubs, but even he was slowing under the barrage. Only Spoiler moved with any confidence—she was new enough, Damian supposed, to believe in miracles. He heard Father’s voice in his earpiece he’d nabbed from the Manor, clear and unshaken despite the horror:

“Regroup at fallback point Alpha. I’ll hold the line.”

But as Damian watched, the line buckled. Batman raised his arms, and the world seemed to hold its breath. Darkseid’s eyes lit up, twin engines of anti-life, and the blast that came was so pure and so bright that Damian’s vision inverted; for a heartbeat, he saw only negative space, the white-hot outline of the one man he’d ever admired.

The blast hit dead centre. Batman’s cape flared and then dissolved, atomised mid-flight. The rest of him absorbed the full force of the Omega Beam, and for a moment, Damian saw his father’s skeleton backlit against the sky, arms outstretched like some heretical angel.

And then there was nothing but scorched concrete, blackened in a perfect silhouette.

The sound that tore from Damian’s throat was not a word, but it contained the syllables of his father’s name. The others had stilled, too, if only a second. He vaulted the bell tower rail, dropped five stories, and landed in a crouch that shattered the flagstones beneath his feet. His sword was in his hand before he even registered the motion, the blade trembling in time with his heartbeat. He sprinted toward the epicentre, ducking under the sweep of a stray Parademon, ignoring the pain in his knees and the scream of protest from every battered muscle. The heat at the blast zone was enough to curl the hair inside his hood, but he forced himself forward, to the crater where his father had stood.

There was nothing there. Not a body. Not even a scrap of costume.

Just the outline, burned into the street. A reminder that even the best were mortal.

For one moment, Damian’s discipline failed him completely. He screamed, loud enough to rattle the ruined windows.

“No! You promised! You—”

Darkseid turned, impassive, regarding the tiny shape with the sword as if it were a gnat to be brushed away. The Omega eyes glowed anew, the next blast already forming. Damian didn’t care. He charged anyway, sword high, the last living Wayne in the open, ready to die just to make the god bleed.

Tim had seen it all a half-second before anyone else. He’d been tracking the vector of every parademon’s flight, the arc of every Omega Beam, the calculated mercy in Darkseid’s stride. But he hadn’t been prepared—not really—for the sight of Damian leaping from cover, sword overhead, as if willpower alone could punch through the laws of physics. Tim swore under his breath and re-calibrated his trajectory, vaulting a collapsed fire escape and rolling across a signboard slick with rain and oil. His cape snapped like a gunshot behind him, alerting the monsters below, but he didn’t slow. He fixed his sights on Damian, already a dozen yards closer to death than he had any right to be.

“Damian!” he barked, hoping the sound would penetrate whatever berserk haze the kid was in. “Move! Now!”

“Damian?!”, Nightwing hissed into the comms, his head snapping around.

“I’ve got him, focus on fighting!”, Robin gasped while running, hoping this didn’t cost Dick his concentration.

But Damian wasn’t listening. He was past the point of instruction, reduced to the purest distillation of Wayne: stubborn, reckless, and entirely unbreakable, right up until the moment he broke. He looked so much like Bruce in that moment… Tim saw the blast coming before Damian did. Darkseid’s attention—lazy, until now—fixed on the advancing child with a look of real interest. Tim dropped into freefall, counting off the seconds, calculating the best intercept. He hit the awning of a bakery and let the momentum carry him through a second-story window, shattering glass and plowing through a makeshift barricade. He barely registered the pain; he’d already routed it into the background, as always.

The street was a war zone. Chunks of asphalt glowed cherry-red, and the air smelled of burning copper. A fresh wave of Parademons poured from the sky, pinning the Batfamily into a shrinking circle at the corner of Bleecker and 19th. Darkseid towered above them, the silhouette of a god against the dying light.

Damian was already in the open, sword aimed for the Omega Symbol, when the energy built in Darkseid’s eyes. Tim saw it—the microsecond contraction of the villain’s brow, the faint ripple in the ambient temperature. He tackled Damian from the side, knocking the wind out of both of them just as the twin beams erupted.

The blast took Tim high in the left shoulder, cutting atop it and hitting Damian in the stomach, lower than his heart and hopefully not fatal. Pain flared, liquid and white, but he clamped his jaw and twisted, putting his own body between Damian and the worst of it. But the kid was already hit. The second beam hit the ground a foot from Damian’s face, detonating the pavement in a blossom of black glass and heat. Tim felt the suit’s armour melt against his skin, the smell of burning fabric almost pleasant compared to the alternative.

They tumbled end over end, landing hard. Tim cradled Damian in the crook of his good arm, rolling once to absorb the shock. Damian was out cold; his body had gone loose and heavy, and the sword lay forgotten, vibrating on the ground. For a split-second, Tim was sure he’d lost him—just another charred outline on the street. He had been hit full on, if only by one of the beams.

But Damian’s chest hitched once, twice. Tim’s analytical mind ran through the protocol: Airway clear, pulse present, pupil response slow but there.

“Hang on, kid,” he muttered, fighting the instinct to shake him awake. “Not your time yet.”

Above, Darkseid’s shadow loomed. His eyes glowed, hungry for the next shot. Tim positioned himself between Damian and the Omega Beams, knowing the math: he couldn’t survive another direct hit, but he could at least make the bastard work for it.

“Oracle, I need evac—now!” he spat into his comm, voice ragged with pain.

The reply was static, then: “Batwing on approach, A on pilot. Thirty seconds max.”

Tim grinned despite himself.

“Make it fifteen.”

He wrapped Damian tighter, using the tattered edges of his own cape to shield the boy’s face from the heat and the horror. The street buckled under another impact as Darkseid advanced, indifferent to the whimpering civilians or the battered costumed bodies in his path. Tim felt his adrenaline spike, but he forced his breathing slow, his mind cold. He glanced down at Damian’s face, slack with unconsciousness but still set in that familiar scowl.

“Typical,” Tim said, voice barely audible. “Even out cold, you’re impossible.”

From street level, Gotham looked less like a city than a memory of one. Dick staggered upright, coughed a lungful of dust from his battered ribs, and pulled his mask straight. The world had the muffled acoustics of a nightmare—sirens distant, explosions farther off, but here in the heart of it, only the sharp, percussive rhythm of close combat.

He eyed the building across from him, saw the shimmer of Batgirl’s cape as she vaulted down and landed a perfect, silent kick to the side of a Parademon’s skull. She rolled with the impact and came up, baton at the ready. To her left, Jason Todd was carving a brutal path through the oncoming horde, trading finesse for efficiency. His pistols barked in a steady cadence, each round punctuated by a curse or a barked command. Cass ducked low, weaving between the claws and teeth and stray shots with the grace of a falling leaf.

Dick tapped his comm, then sprung up and twisted, ramming his feet into a Parademon’s face.

"Robin, status?”

“He’s breathing. I can…” Tim said, voice rough. A fresh wave of pain tore through his shoulder, making him groan in pain. “I can get him out.”

Robin steeled himself, pushed up, and prepared to run—Damian in his arms, and every ounce of his strength devoted to just staying alive, one more minute.

“Hood, suppress left. Batgirl, cover Spoiler and Robin—Spoiler, get to the Batwing, now. Batgirl, with me. We’re drawing attention.”

“On it,” Jason replied, voice clipped, the next three words nearly lost under the gunfire. “You got it, Goldilocks.”

Cass’s reply was a quiet breath, but she was already beside him, reading his body language before he’d finished the order.

Across the street, the rest of the team was regrouping. Batgirl and Nightwing flanked the intersection, creating a bottleneck for the Parademons. Red Hood covered them with suppressing fire, reloaded with one hand while clutching his ribs with the other. Tim wasn’t sure where he’d gotten more ammunition, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d raided the few police cars that were around. Nightwing and Batgirl sprinted together, two halves of a thought, barrelling into the next wave of invaders with practised violence. Alfred’s voice was calm and intimate in their ear, an anchor in the chaos.

“Nightwing, the Batwing is inbound. ETA five seconds.”

Dick grinned, because sometimes the only answer to world-ending doom was a butler’s dry understatement.

“Copy, Agent A. We’ll be ready.”

The Batwing’s searchlights cut through the gloom, promising salvation—if they could reach it. Tim staggered upright. Dick vaulted a chunk of masonry, Cass following with inhuman silence. The two of them worked in tandem—he’d draw fire, she’d close the distance and end it, neat as a guillotine. The Parademons learned quickly: go after the one in blue and black, die to the one in shadow. Behind them, Jason reloaded and laid down a withering hail of bullets at the advancing mob. It didn’t stop them, but it slowed them, and that was enough. Steph zigzagged through the opening of the Batwing, blonde ponytail bobbing, her movements lighter than air despite the fatigue he could see in every step. She was soon to be followed by Tim and Damian, and didn’t pause to mourn. Not yet.

“Batgirl, I’ve got Damian. Need a path.”

“On it,” came the reply, crisp and perfect even now.

Batgirl leaped into the fray, baton cracking Parademon skulls in a staccato rhythm, clearing a narrow lane toward the Batwing. Tim ran for it, every nerve ending screaming, but he moved with a purpose that transcended pain. Darkseid’s next beam sliced through the air, missing them by inches, but Tim didn’t stop. They reached the Batwing’s open hatch. Inside, Steph had already flung herself in, prepped the medkit and was frantically clearing the area for triage. Tim dove in, shielding Damian with his own body as the hatch sealed and the craft’s shields went up again at full force. Only then did he let himself feel the full weight of his wounds, and the heavier ache of what they’d all just lost.

Up above, Darkseid took stock of the resistance. He paused, as if curious, then raised a hand and sent a fresh ripple of energy that vaporised the front line of his own troops. Dick caught a whiff of scorched flesh and shoved it away.

“Cass,” he murmured, “we need to draw his fire. Think you can keep up?”

She looked at him and smiled—a rare, fleeting thing.

“Always.”

They broke cover, sprinting full tilt down the ruined street. Dick somersaulted over a burning sedan, Cass rolled beneath the arc of a Parademon’s claws, and together they made themselves targets. The Omega Beams tracked them, carving lines of molten glass in their wake. Dick dodged right, Cass left, and at the next intersection they split—forcing Darkseid to choose.

He went for Dick. Of course he did.

The blast came low, vaporising the sidewalk under his feet. Dick leaped, using the shockwave to propel himself higher, flipping twice before grabbing the edge of a dangling billboard. He swung up, scanned the battlefield, and saw Hood closing in on the Batwing’s reopened hatch, every move desperate but precise. It was time to go. Dick dropped from the billboard, landed hard, and rolled. The air was thick with heat and electricity; he felt the Omega Beam scorch the back of his suit, and every nerve ending screamed at him to quit. But this wasn’t about him. This was about the others, about holding the line, about making sure none of them went out alone. About making sure the Batwing wasn’t hit.

He saw Cass two blocks away, hunkered behind a mailbox, signalling with a subtle twist of her hand. She’d counted the Parademons, mapped their positions, and had a plan. He trusted her implicitly. He nodded, and they moved again, a synchronised dance, dragging Darkseid’s focus away from the others with every feint and swerve.

Alfred chimed in: “Nightwing, Batgirl, the Batwing is in position. Please ready yourselves for evac.”

“Thanks, A. Time to boogie.”

He sprinted, veering at the last second to draw a pair of Parademons off Cass’s back. She dispatched hers and followed, close enough to touch. The Batwing loomed ahead, its ramp slick with blood and rain. Jason came back out, hurling a grenade behind him before yanking the hatch closed. Dick dove in, Cass a fraction behind, as the grenade detonated and bought them three precious seconds of breathing room. Breathing room Alfred instantly used to move the Batwing out of the fire line. The Batwing banked hard, engines howling. Outside, the city burned. Darkseid watched their departure without expression, then turned back to his work.

Inside, the Batwing was chaos: Steph working the first-aid kit on Tim’s burned shoulder, Tim cradling Damian’s limp head, Jason bleeding from half a dozen cuts and laughing about it, because what else was there? His helmet was in his lap already. Cass slumped against the hull, breathing hard but steady, eyes never leaving the ramp as it sealed.

Dick made a quick headcount, then slid into the pilot’s seat. Alfred’s voice came over the comm, softer now, eyes on the front, focus on flying them home safely: “All present and accounted for, Master Grayson?”

He took a second before answering, watched the city shrink below them through the shattered glass of the cockpit. “All present,” he said. “But not accounted for.”

Inside the cockpit, no one spoke. The silence wasn’t defeat; it was a promise. Gotham had lost its Batman. But as long as even one of them drew breath, the city still had a fighting chance.

Chapter Text

The Hall of Justice conference room looked like it had been pressure-washed and repainted yesterday—every line in the white walls razor straight, glass so pristine it suggested the collective guilt of a janitorial staff that knew all too well the stains of past disasters. Nightwing felt the chill in his calves and wrists as he stood before the long glass table, nine seats filled, every hero present and at attention. The chairs—chrome skeletons padded in tan leather—were better suited for Scandinavian boardrooms, but Batman had insisted on them years ago, citing lumbar support. Dick Grayson adjusted his stance unconsciously to echo that old argument, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind his back, blue-and-black suit brushed clean. He spoke before he allowed himself to register the faces. And they waited for him to speak. That was the part Dick had prepared for least—the moment after the door sealed itself behind him and every head in the Hall of Justice’s conference room pivoted to his. The chamber felt even more vast than usual, the high glass walls amplifying the silence, all light and air and the faint hum of distant, unsleeping machinery.

Dick’s boots scraped once against the polished floor. He stood at the end of the obsidian table—Bruce’s place, always—and let his eyes travel the half-circle of costumed legends arrayed before him. Superman sat at the centre, forearms braced on the tabletop. The artificial sunlight overhead did nothing to soften the lines at his temples. Wonder Woman was a statue, hands folded with such ferocity the knuckles had paled. Flash rocked in his chair, the nervous tic of a man whose world had just been cracked by a force that refused to obey even his physics. Green Lantern, more civilian than most in the League, tapped the tabletop with one nail—absently, but with a rhythm that Dick recognised as the dying Morse code for “waiting.” The urge to start with an apology—his old habit—flickered through Dick’s mind, but he killed it. Bruce would have despised the gesture. He stood straight.

“Thank you all for coming on short notice.” No one acknowledged the courtesy. Superman’s jaw shifted left, then right, a low grinding. Wonder Woman’s stare was unbroken, something ancient in it. Dick drew in a measured breath. “I’ll make this brief. The Justice League lost one of its founders today. Batman is dead.”

No grand eulogies. No opening the floor to speculation or bargaining. Dick let the statement fall, hard, and watched its impact.

Silence was not just the absence of sound but a thing in itself, thick as maple syrup and twice as slow to dissipate. Dick watched the news move through the room. Superman didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His body was already a portrait of consequences—shoulders that could have held continents, now curving ever so slightly inward, as if against a chill wind that only he could sense. Then, his jaw flexed and reset. Wonder Woman’s hands curled into twin knuckle bouquets. The Flash, elbows jittering on the tabletop, stared at his own vibrating fingers. Green Lantern’s ring blinked a dull, arrhythmic strobe that seemed to drag the rest of Hal Jordan down with it. Aquaman looked straight at Dick, not even blinking. Martian Manhunter exhaled a long, transparent sigh, fogging the window with something that resembled condensation but wasn’t. Shazam hunched, shrunk, a high schooler at an open casket. Zatanna’s lips moved—maybe a spell, maybe a prayer—but no sound. Green Arrow let a gloved thumb drum the table, a woodpecker rhythm that wanted so badly to be a punchline. Dick kept his posture.

“He made contact with Darkseid’s forward party last night. All of the usual Bat-team was on site, and we didn't stand a chance. He sent us to regroup, doubled back himself. He held the line. Standard Bat-logic.” Green Lantern sucked at his teeth, but even the sceptic in him had no protest today. “Darkseid’s beams caught him twice, head on. First one crashed his armour, second one...,” Dick swallowed, then continued. “He drew fire, drew pursuit. Got the monster away from the substation and from the civilians. He slowed them enough for the evacuation but was hit point-blank by the blast. Omega beams.” The phrase was enough. “All organic tissue was… vaporized.”

The room went cold. The table’s surface, black and mirror-bright, caught the reflections of masks and faces. Flash’s hand froze mid-tap. Green Lantern, only now registering the news, let the green light of his ring gutter and dim before he brought it back to full, trembling intensity. Wonder Woman’s fists unclenched, her breath exhaled so slow Dick wondered if she’d been holding it the entire time. The table, Dick thought, looked like a slab of ice. No one dared break the surface. He let the room take inventory of the loss. Only after a full thirty seconds did Superman find words.

“Who confirmed it?” Superman’s voice, finally, and the sound of it was enough to make even the Hall’s distant machinery hush. “You saw it happen? He’s not… recoverable?”

“We checked the ground, twice,” Dick said. “No remains. If you would like to see what happened, we had eyes. We have recordings."

Wonder Woman nodded, gravely. Shazam’s knuckles whitened.

“Can’t someone just… magic it? Magic him back?”

Zatanna shook her head, black curls tight against her cheeks.

“Not with those beams. They erase.”

Dick looked at them, looked at each of their faces, all of them affected. He put down a small device, turned it on and stepped back when the holographic screen opened in the middle of the table.

Forced himself to look. Forced himself to keep standing, not to back down.

When the rays hit Bruce and the light engulfed him, Vixen clasped her hand over her mouth, stifling a sob.

He turned the footage off just before Damian came running in. He could not look at that until he knew how the kid was faring. And he could not betray his civilian identity - even if, for now, the kid didn't have anything else.

Martian Manhunter blinked red eyes.

“He knew he wouldn’t come back.”

Wonder Woman’s voice, pitched lower than usual, clipped each word cleanly:

“He made a choice. As he always did.” Dick felt a pressure at the base of his throat. He’d practised this speech in the jet, on the way over; he’d mapped every probable emotional response and set his counterweight to match. But the script frayed when Wonder Woman added, “You saw this, Nightwing? All of you saw that? And you kept fighting?”

He held her gaze.

“We fought until we knew we couldn't keep going. We evacuated. Darkseid will be back soon.”

She nodded, acceptance hardwired into every Greek angle of her face. Green Arrow broke the wall next, but even his sarcasm felt cautious.

“So what now, you get his chair?”

"Oliver!", Vixen chastised, voice rough.

The archery-vigilante shrugged. Dick rolled the answer in his palm like a marble, searching for the edge.

“I didn’t come to ask for a seat. I came to inform you, as I am currently the only other member of the Batfam that is familiar with you.”

He heard Bruce’s voice, remote and unyielding, somewhere beneath his own: Don’t make it a story. Make it a plan. Superman leaned forward, elbows tented.

“But you came for more than that.”

“I came because Bruce would want us prepared. He’d want to hear strategy. We need to make a plan, because if we don't, Darkseid wins. And there won't be an Earth to guard anymore.”

A brief glimmer, a shared flinch, as if they all remembered that the word strategy had always meant Batman. Now it meant vacuum. Flash cleared his throat, which was like the opening note of a song he didn’t want to finish.

“We have to assume Darkseid’s not done.” He looked at Dick, then at the others. “You think he’ll push again? What makes you so sure?”

“He always pushes. He came looking for someone, something. And he will not leave until he either finds it or is forced to give up,” Dick said. “But without Bruce…” He gestured to the table’s emptiness. “We don’t get the usual head start.”

The Hall’s lighting, so pure and harsh it had never been meant for human comfort, reflected off the table in sharp, white-edged diamonds. Dick could see his own face doubled and refracted in each, a pale mask above the Batsuit he had never wanted to wear again. Aquaman stirred.

“We still have the team.”

His voice was not so much an assertion as a check—to see if anyone would call the bluff. Green Lantern bristled.

“With all due respect, we’ve never run on Bat-fear. We improvise.”

“Improvising is what gets people killed,” Wonder Woman replied, flatly.

Dick watched the flow, the feints and blocks. In a way, it was comfortingly familiar: grief translated into argument, then action. He drew a deep breath, let the air sting his lungs.

“First step,” he said, “is to know what we’re up against. Superman, you and Martian sweep the perimeter. Check the last coordinates, search for trace energy signatures. Zatanna, see what magic can detect. Aquaman, get your people monitoring sea-based approaches; Darkseid’s used the coast before. GL, I want eyes up in the stratosphere. Arrow, you cover the city and prep evacuation. We meet again tomorrow, the JL as well as the Bats, to reconvene, to plan, and to make sure when Darkseid shows his face again, he will learn that Earth doesn't go down without a fight."

No one objected. No one offered a new plan. The deference was almost jarring. The room processed. The urge to fill the silence was almost overwhelming—Dick felt it crawling in the gap beneath his sternum, the old acrobat’s need to land on his feet and never let the hush linger long enough for the ground to feel too solid. But Bruce had always been the master of silence, and Dick let this one stretch.

“We should do something,” Flash said at last. “A memorial. Or at least an announcement.”

“We can’t make it public until the Darkseid threat is contained,” Dick answered. “We tell the world Batman is dead, we get chaos. And if he’s not…”

´He left the rest unsaid. Superman inclined his head.

“And you? What will you do?”

Dick almost said, “I’ll call Alfred.” Instead:

“I’ll run the board. I have to check on something in Gotham first. We can think about the announcements and the future when we're sure there will be one.”

Superman nodded, not happily.

“I’ll get the Watchtower prepped.” He rose—there was a dull clack as his chair leg scraped the floor, too loud for such a deliberate man. “If you need anything, Nightwing.”

The title hung in the air, old and new all at once. The Martian Manhunter stood, motion slow, as if any fast movement would shatter the air.

“This room is available for reconvene at any time. I will relay updates telepathically.”

Flash offered a wan smile.

“No offence, but don’t call me unless it’s urgent. The last time you hit my brain, I got a nosebleed in both nostrils.”

“Duly noted,” J’onn said.

He faded from sight, the seat reabsorbing his ghost. Dick waited for the rest to disperse, then pivoted. The weight behind his rib-cage shifted; not lighter, not heavier, but redistributed. It felt almost like a harness, a set of straps tightening over his lungs and heart. Dick watched them go. Wonder Woman lingered, her gaze a quiet pressure.

“You’re carrying too much alone,” she said, words barely above a whisper.

He matched her gaze.

“I was trained by the best. I was trained to take it up if anything happened. I am the oldest.”

She touched his forearm, the motion as gentle as it was final.

“He would be proud of you. But he would also expect you to sleep. Eat. Remember you’re not just a weapon. You're not just the fall back. You're his kid, too.”

Dick almost laughed at that, but stopped himself.

“Noted. Thank you, Diana.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Dick looked at her, seeing the stiffness in her posture, the worry.

“I’m not okay,” Dick said, “but I’m ready.”

Wonder Woman’s hand squeezed his shoulder, a quick flash of warmth.

“You’re the right one for it.”

When she left, only Lantern and Flash remained. Green Lantern’s shoulders had slumped, the posture of a man who’d seen this cycle too many times. Flash had gone still, his speed buried under the weight of shock.

“You really think he’s gone?” Green Lantern said. “For good?”

“I think,” Dick said, “that if anyone could come back, it would be him. But until he does, I’m doing what he’d want.”

Flash nodded.

“We’ve got your back, man.”

Dick nodded.

“Tell the others, if they want to quit, now’s the time.”

“They won’t quit,” Hal said. “They know what’s at stake.”

He waited for the last of them to leave before letting his hands fall from the table. Alone, the Hall of Justice echoed with its own emptiness. He didn’t allow himself more than a moment to grieve. There were protocols to enact, passwords to change, a city already trembling at the prospect of its protector’s absence. He blinked the tears away.

When Dick stepped from the Hall, the corridor beyond was washed in sterile blue light, the overhead fixtures buzzing faintly. He walked it in measured strides, straight-backed, refusing to show the limp that throbbed in his left leg. The glass walls on either side reflected him at infinite intervals, dark silhouette over and over, until he stopped seeing himself as the Boy Wonder, or the orphan, or even the heir. Dick saw their faces in his mind, the frozen tableau of the League at the moment the news hit. He filed it away as both liability and advantage—every emotion was a clue, every silence a point of leverage. Batman would have called it a vulnerability; Dick called it a reason.

He could only allow himself to see the mission. Bruce would have wanted it that way.

He stepped into the elevator, letting the doors swallow him. For a second, he allowed himself a single, unprofessional tremor—a knuckle rapping against his thigh, invisible to any outside observer. He pressed the button for street level. The mechanism hummed, mercilessly smooth.

He was not okay.

On the ride down, he permitted himself one more memory: Bruce, not as a monument or a myth, but in the old manor library, hunched over blueprints, talking strategy in a voice that was two parts monotone and one part exhaustion. Dick remembered the shape of the man’s back, the way he would sometimes reach for a mug of coffee with a hand that trembled fractionally, only to catch himself and steady the cup. He remembered thinking, even as a kid: Some people fight to live. He fights to die well.

One tear he couldn't stop. He swallowed, wiped it away, steeled his shoulders.

He was not okay but he had a job to do.

The elevator doors opened into the dusk, the skyline glittering with a thousand surveillance points. Dick squared his shoulders, let the chill touch his exposed jaw, and walked into the next phase, carrying the plan and the wound in equal measure.

Dick gunned the Batmobile through the outer city, hugging the silent arteries of Gotham’s service tunnels, and tried to let the speed do the work of adrenaline. Each passing light overhead cut the cockpit into frames: a flicker of gloves on the wheel, a reflection of pale eyes in the rear-view. It was a kind of hypnosis, a trick for burying what waited at the other end of the drive. He disengaged at the seventh marker—a triple-blink infrared sensor disguised as a water main. The armoured nose of the car slid open the black mouth of the hidden entrance, and with a soundless whoosh, Dick was inside the cave, alone except for the compulsion of duty and the weight of legacy pressing down from the stalactite ceiling. The cave had never felt larger. The blue glow of computer banks reflected off the river’s slow surface, tracing the catwalks with a surgeon’s precision. The air was tinged with ozone, machine oil, and a faintly chemical antiseptic. Where once the cave had promised refuge, a place to laugh at ghosts and test one’s mettle against shadows, now it felt like a mausoleum for secrets. The Batmobile’s drive system ticked with heat, cooling under the cave’s unchanging fifty-six degrees. Nightwing rolled the canopy back and let the air inside, a funk of petrichor and old sweat giving way to limestone and the antiseptic tang of the medical bay. He sat for a moment in the pilot’s seat, hands loose in his lap. The dashboard glowed with diagnostics and city feeds—five alarms in Park Row, an Arkham breach alert in soft orange-but Dick just watched the monitors flicker over his skin, not absorbing any particular image, letting the cascade of emergencies flow through him like vapor. When he finally moved, it was in a measured spiral: up from the seat, boots hitting bedrock with the weight of someone who’d once spent whole nights crawling the cave’s rafters for fun. Now the echoes sounded like someone else’s childhood, cartoonish and detached. He left the car and its ghosts and walked toward the low blue glow of the med station.

Alfred stood in profile, and for a moment Dick didn’t think he’d been seen, but Alfred’s head turned minutely in his direction, a careful fraction of acknowledgement. He had one hand on the back of a rolling stool, the other fussing with a tangle of IV lines at the bed’s edge. His posture was upright but the lines around his neck and jaw were etched deeper, the sharp white of his hair gone a gunmetal grey at the scalp. The boy in the cot was still. Bandages covered the left half of Damian’s face, the visible eye dark and motionless beneath a slash of bruised lid. Both arms were encased in makeshift splints. Overhead, the displays burbled with low, insistent tones—pulse, respiration, oxygen—but the readings were static, as if the body below had set the cave’s entire energy to a holding pattern.

“How long has he been like this?” Dick asked, voice rough in the cavern’s cold expanse.

He stopped a few feet away. Alfred didn’t answer immediately. He made a show of adjusting the microdrip, straightening the edge of a blanket, actions unnecessary for anyone but himself.

“Since the incident,” he said, clipped and formal. “The initial trauma induced an immediate loss of consciousness. There’s been no significant change in neurological activity.”

Dick looked down at Damian. The boy’s face was ashy, mouth slightly parted, hair falling across his brow in damp clumps. He was twelve, thirteen at most, but on the bed he looked even younger, the hard edges of his usual scowl dissolved into a blank passivity.

“Have you tried—” Dick started.

“Every protocol in the database, Master Richard. As well as several I have developed myself, if I may immodestly say so.”

Alfred’s hands moved with perfect steadiness now, but Dick saw the way the fingertips lingered longer than necessary on the boy’s wrist, as if searching for warmth. Dick took in the rest of the station: the medical cart, the cold tray of instruments arrayed with surgical precision, the redundant monitors stacked like watchful eyes.

“What about Lazarus treatment?”

A brief, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of Alfred’s mouth.

“Given Master Damian’s unique parentage, I assessed the risk of psychogenic complications as being considerably high. The League’s own case studies are… not encouraging.”

Dick exhaled, slow and even.

“Has he responded at all?”

“He opened his eyes for precisely three seconds at 0140 hours,” Alfred said, “but there was no sign of recognition. Since then, only autonomic responses.”

The words were precise, factual, a doctor’s report to a next-of-kin. But Alfred’s face had hollowed. The skin beneath his eyes was bruise-dark, the lines along his jaw deeper than Dick remembered from even the worst nights of his own childhood. Dick reached out and touched the medical bed’s railing, thumb running over the cool carbon fibre.

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

“There seemed little point in delegating the task,” Alfred said, and for the first time, Dick heard the jagged edge in his voice.

Instead he sat down on the next gurney over, resting his elbows on his knees. The cave seemed to inhale with him, the distant river echoing the hollow in his chest. The blue of the monitors traced Alfred’s profile in soft halos. His suit was perfectly pressed, but his tie was loosened at the throat, as if somewhere in the last forty-eight hours he had lost the will to maintain even the barest façade of indifference. Dick wanted to say something—some remnant of the old Nightwing banter, a joke about IV cocktails or cave cuisine—but all the words stuck.

“You don’t have to sit up all night, Alfred.” He looked down at Damian, then back to Alfred. “He’s a tough kid,” Dick said finally.

“Indeed,” Alfred said. “He is his father’s son.” Alfred’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. “And you say that as if there’s an alternative, Master Grayson.”

The voice held its customary precision, but the consonants blurred at the edges, a man who’d been stretching a single night’s sleep over three days. Dick hovered near the cot, keeping his hands to himself.

There was another silence, longer this time. The beeping from the monitors faded into background noise, leaving only the pulse of shared memory between them. Dick looked over at the old man.

“When’s the last time you slept, Alfred?”

“Sleep is a negotiable luxury at present.”

Dick frowned, and let the admonition die in his throat. He was not Bruce. He had no right to...

“If anyone deserves a break, it’s you.”

Alfred’s lips twitched again.

“The city does not take holidays, sir.”

“No,” Dick said. “But we could. *You* could.”

For a moment, neither moved. Dick stared at the bandages on Damian’s hands, the slight swelling at the temple, the flutter of the EKG line. He thought about all the times he’d played surrogate brother, reluctant leader, heir to a fortune he’d never wanted. In the stories, the hero always got back up. In life, sometimes you just watched the monitors and waited. He glanced up to see Alfred watching him, something searching in his gaze.

“You did everything right,” Dick said.

He didn’t know if he meant for Damian, or Bruce, or himself.

“So did you,” Alfred replied, and for the first time his voice was not a butler’s, but something closer to a parent’s, or a grandparent's, raw and spare and shuddering.

Dick rose, crossed the space, and placed a hand on Alfred’s shoulder. It felt both familiar and profoundly new, as if they were finding the limits of a family with every gesture. Together, they looked down at the boy on the bed, and listened to the only sound that meant hope: the unbroken beeping, the measured persistence of a heart refusing to stop.

“How long? In hours?”, Dick asked, after a while.

“Fourteen hours, twenty-seven minutes since the incident,” Alfred said, as if reading from a chart. “No change. We are providing supportive care only.”

Dick studied the bruises. He’d seen Damian beaten before, but never so limp—never as a body. The kid’s normal animosity, the wet cat loathing for anything Dick did or said, had always been kinetic, projectile. Now it was vacuum.

“He’s not going to like being out this long,” Dick said.

“None of us do, sir.”

They stood on either side of the cot, two sentinels in their own right. The room felt like a bunker during a bomb test, everything waiting for the next impact. Dick tried to work up the nerve for small talk, failed.

“Bruce…?”

Alfred’s Adam’s apple worked twice before he answered.

“I presume you’ve informed the League.”

“They took it as well as you’d expect.” Dick shifted his weight. “Superman wants to recon the site. Zatanna’s running an analysis. Clark offered to stay, but I told him Gotham would rather see the ‘S’ on a wanted poster than on the skyline.”

Alfred’s eyes, bloodshot in the blue light, blinked a slow assent.

“Master Bruce would have agreed.”

“He would have pretended not to.” Dick thumbed the hem of the blanket, straightening a corner. “He always said mission comes first.”

Alfred’s hands trembled as he re-checked the IV, but his voice was as steady as it ever was when he intoned, “He said many things, Master Dick. Some of them were true.”

Dick let that land.

Then: “What’s the prognosis?”

Alfred recited: “No cranial swelling. No respiratory compromise. We do not believe there is active haemorrhage. There is, however, no meaningful cortical activity at this time.”

“Is that—” Dick stopped, tried again. “Is that what it looks like? We are sure he’s not…?”

“He is not brain-dead,” Alfred said. Then, softer: “He is in a state of shock. Or whatever passes for it, given the cause of this. Master Damian is… waiting. For what I can not fathom.”

The beeping of the monitor seemed to slow, as if the machines were listening, too. Dick watched the rise and fall of the kid’s chest, the trembling of air at the nostrils. He counted the seconds between breaths, the old habit of a sidekick with nothing else to offer.

“Can you do anything? Can I?” he said.

“I can wait,” Alfred answered. “I can prepare for when he wakes up.” He looked at Dick, then. "You can think about how to ensure his safety, should the news of Master Bruce's demise... Reach begrudging ears."

Dick’s mouth felt lined with cotton.

“He’s going to be angry. If I decide anything without him.”

Alfred’s shoulders twitched, a nanometre of mirth.

“That is how we know he is himself. But it might be for the best.”

A silence stretched, tight and raw. The cave’s air handler kicked on, filtering the hush through grated ducts and cross-beams. Dick wanted to touch Damian’s forehead, but the idea felt fraudulent, a gesture he’d have mocked in someone else. Even if the new situation seemed unfavourable in this regard. He swallowed, instead. Nodded, just slightly.

Alfred surprised him by sitting on the rolling stool, hands splayed on his knees. The sudden collapse of posture, the abdication of uprightness, was more intimate than tears.

“Do you need anything?” Dick asked.

Alfred blinked, slow, as if calibrating the question. “I need for him to wake up. I will take care of documents necessary. And I need…” The words hung. “Never mind, Master Richard.”

Dick didn’t push. Instead he stood there, absorbing the cold glow, and let himself remember the first time Bruce had taken him down here: the awe of it, the scale and scope, the sense that this place was a cathedral and a prison and a home. He saw now how much it had cost, how the architecture of pain became legacy. He drew a breath and set a hand on Alfred’s shoulder, gentle but firm.

“If you need me, I’ll be upstairs. For anything. Please remember to take breaks, Alfred.”

"Is that an order, sir?"

The words reminding both of them of their new positions. Of the new relationship. Dick was the oldest. The official heir. He didn't say anything for a while, then:

"No. It's a request."

Alfred didn’t look up.

“I will call, sir. Should there be any change.”

Dick squeezed the old man’s shoulder, then released it, the warmth of that contact a rare and fleeting commodity. He stepped back, his silhouette cast in mutant blue across the far wall. The Batcave, even emptied of its architect, had a way of making everyone inside it feel observed. He climbed the steps to the main level, boots hollow on stone, and told himself that the mission came first—but he’d never say it out loud, not now, not with the weight of what was left behind. Above, Wayne Manor was shuttered and silent, windows blind against the city’s constant trouble. In the entrance hall, the portraits on the walls regarded him with silent accusation, every past generation of Wayne drawn with eyes just like Bruce’s: analytical, predatory, doomed to vigilance.

Dick paused at the landing, halfway between cave and surface, and let himself feel the loss for a single, measured heartbeat. Let himself feel the expectations, the weight of the new rules. Then he kept moving, one foot in front of the other, until the only thing he could hear was his own breath and the soft, distant promise of a fight still waiting to be won.

He was not okay, but he could not, would not break down. He had a job to do, and shoes to fill.

Chapter Text

There were two ways the war room could go silent: when Batman entered, or when he didn’t. Tonight, the silence belonged to the latter. Nightwing was first through the door, boots striking the reinforced polymer in a staccato that felt deliberately louder than needed. Or, so he thought. The Hall of Justice’s war room was a half-moon of brutalist glass and black steel, a stadium’s worth of nothingness facing a single central table. Even the light had a manufactured edge—too white, like a hospital at 3 a.m., like a dentist’s lamp fixed on a mouth gone slack from the pain. At the table’s centre, Gotham’s favourite son found the mission already waiting for him: a rotating, three-dimensional projection of Darkseid’s advancing forces, mapped in undulating lines of blue and orange. Proximity alerts flared every few seconds. Dick thumbed the interface to silence the alarm, but the ghosts kept coming—phantom armies, endless, each with its own grinning Parademon face. Someone had left a mug of black coffee next to the control pad; steam curled into the air, instantly vanishing under the AC. So, Tim was here already. He gave the room a slow once-over before sitting, hands laced behind his neck. The chairs to his left and right were still empty—Batgirl would be next, and then Red Hood, if Jason decided to show. Spoiler, as ever, would ghost in late. Tim was already in the corner, half-shadow, tapping on a WayneTech tablet and only pretending not to be nervous.

A brief flicker caught in the glass of the display wall. Dick let himself glance up. A man could get lost in the reflection here—three copies of himself, layered with the blue light of threat projections and the afterimage of what had just happened to Batman. Dick forced the memory away, blinking until his vision returned to the dry clarity of the present. The Batkids filed in without speaking. Batgirl’s step was careful, measured, the mask of composure just beginning to fray around the edges. Jason’s entrance was all elbows and kinetic grudge, his jacket already unzipped down to the armour, every inch of him a dare to the universe to go ahead and make the night worse. Spoiler slipped in behind them, lips pursed, eyes doing the same tactical math as Dick’s—who was in the room, who wasn’t, who would be the first to blink. Tim looked up, met Dick’s gaze for a second, then went back to his work.

No one spoke. They took to the seats as if summoned by invisible string, filling the left quadrant of the war room and leaving the right conspicuously empty.

The League arrived mostly in pairs, as if by instinct. Superman and Wonder Woman, first, their presence warping the room’s gravity even before they reached the table. Clark’s cape barely made a sound, but Diana’s boots rang out like gongs, each step measured and inevitable. They nodded to Dick, but didn’t sit.

Flash materialized next, only to vanish and rematerialize behind his chair three times, hands a blur on the backrest as if he could wear down the chrome just by thinking at it fast enough. He grinned at the Batkids, but his eyes were rimmed red. Green Arrow drifted in with less urgency, but clearly having shown up with Flash, gaze flicking from the tactical display to his own fingertips, picking at a callus as if hoping for a splinter.

Aquaman followed, shoulders beading with seawater, hair still wet and trailing salt in his wake. He looked as out of place as a great white at a city aquarium, jaw clamped shut in an expression that read as equal parts suspicion and boredom. Zatanna, who walked in with him, made a show of smoothing her gloves as she entered, lips moving in a silent benediction. The blue of her eyes was brighter than the holography. She paused a second longer than the others to look at Bruce’s usual, now empty seat, then crossed herself and sat.

Green Lantern was late, but not for lack of effort. The ring’s glow preceded her into the room, an emerald pulse that painted every cheekbone in the room green for an instant. He summoned a seat, then let it dissolve into the real chair with a frown.

Shazam, and after him Vixen, thundered in, tripped on his own cape, and managed to save both his dignity and the bowl of trail mix he’d looted from the hallway. He grinned at the Batkids, caught Dick’s eye, and sat. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to say something, but he just dug into the snacks instead.

Martian Manhunter arrived last. He simply phased into being in the corner, arms crossed, eyes unblinking, posture so controlled it bordered on absent. Vixen was already present, though Dick hadn’t noticed when she’d slipped in; she wore the totem high on her throat, its gold surface pulsing in time with her breath.

The room settled into a rhythm: the League to the right, the Batfamily to the left, and at the center, Dick Grayson, an orphan who had never wanted to be the adult in the room.

He rose.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, voice steady despite the tremor running along his spine. “We’ll keep this brief. You’ve all seen the threat profile.” He gestured at the writhing blue-and-orange cloud of Parademons and assault craft. “Darkseid’s advance is coordinated. If he breaches the perimeter in any of these four sectors—” Dick rotated the map to highlight them “—the planet’s in open war.”

Superman took a step closer.

“Batman had a plan for this,” he said, not a question but a low, almost reverent reminder.

Dick nodded.

“Several, actually.” He flicked his wrist, and the hologram shivered, reforming into branching trees of tactical probability. “He predicted a three-prong approach: tech, meta, and psychological. We counter each with focused teams, as per the protocols.”

“Does the plan account for Batman being…” Wonder Woman paused, her jaw locking for a second before she finished. “…absent?”

Dick did not flinch.

“It does now.”

There was a faint hiss as someone drew in breath—Vixen, maybe, or Flash. Dick let the question hang, then plunged ahead. He nodded, then gestured to the Batkids.

“If you don’t know them, these are the new Gotham ops: Batgirl, Red Hood, Spoiler, and Robin. You’ll address them by codename, and you’ll follow their instructions on the ground. They’re good at what they do. Better than good. And they all know Gotham better than even me.” The League absorbed this. Flash gave a thumbs-up to Tim, who managed a shy half-nod. Zatanna smiled at Spoiler, who winked back. Green Lantern eyed Jason warily, but said nothing. “Robin has isolated a vulnerability in the Parademon deployment pattern,” he continued, nodding to Tim.

Tim stood, fingers not leaving the edge of the tablet.

“It’s in the swarm logic. Each cell relays through a secondary hub before reporting to the Motherbox. If we can disrupt the hubs, we can fragment their communications long enough to create a kill window.”

“What’s the kill window?” Green Arrow asked, brow furrowing.

“Less than two minutes, but it’s a start,” Tim replied. “I’ll need a tech unit on the ground to plant the scramblers.”

Zatanna’s voice was low, but it carried.

“I can shield you from mind control, but only for a limited time. Parademons in the inner phalanx are being equipped with Anti-Life dampeners. Even my spells have a fail state.”

Green Lantern thumped his fist against the table.

“That’s why we go for the source. Take out the command and the rest are just teeth.”

Aquaman glowered at the projections.

“We’ll need to coordinate with the undersea lines. If Darkseid can tunnel under, we’re dead before we start.”

“Then we lock him at every point of entry,” Dick said. He thumbed another icon and the map flashed, revealing a series of red circles. “I’ll take the riverfront with Batgirl and Spoiler. Robin will cover the secondary uplink at the old power plant. Superman and Wonder Woman, you’re forward assault on the primary breach.” He let himself look at Clark. “You’re the only one who can take a hit from an Omega Beam and keep moving.”

Superman’s lips twitched, almost a smile.

“You’ve read the logs.”

“Every one.” Dick turned to the Batkids. “You good?”

Spoiler snorted.

“Better than good. Let’s show the League how it’s done.”

Jason cracked his neck, then actually smiled. It was audible in his words.

“Don’t get yourselves killed,” he said, and for a second it was as if Batman was in the room after all.

The room’s tension wound tighter. Dick scanned the table, noting who was already on edge—Flash jittered, Zatanna flexed her fingers, even Martian Manhunter blinked. The absence of Batman was a hollow in the center of every mind, each person pretending not to look at it directly. He straightened.

“One more thing,” Dick said. “We’re not doing this as separate teams. We move as one unit. Robin, you’re running point on comms. Batgirl, you have the emergency override. Spoiler, you’re backup for both. Red Hood—” He hesitated, just for a moment. “You’re on crowd control.”

Jason sounded surprised at that.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Dick said. “You’re the only one with experience running solo ops against overwhelming force. This is your element.”

Jason looked at him, eyes in his helmet flickering, then grunted.

“You got it, boss.”

Dick looked up at the League.

“Questions?”

Green Arrow rolled a toothpick between his teeth.

“Yeah. What if this is a feint? What if Darkseid’s just waiting for us to throw all our eggs in one basket?”

Dick met his gaze.

“Then we adapt. But we don’t let fear of a trick stop us from doing the job.” There was a moment—barely two seconds—where no one spoke. The drip of water from somewhere above punctuated the silence, a metronome for the unsaid. “Anyone else?” Dick asked.

No one replied. Superman looked at Dick, his gaze sharp but kind.

“You’re doing a good job,” he said, the words almost painful in their sincerity.

Dick swallowed, then let the smile come. It didn’t reach the corners of his mask.

“Let’s hope it’s enough.”

The meeting dissolved, but not into chaos. Teams huddled, plans solidified, gear was checked and checked again. The Batkids formed their own knot at the edge of the table, Dick at the center. The sense of finality was almost physical, a cold steel in the bones.

They would do the job. They would do it for Bruce. And if the world ended tonight, they’d make sure it went down swinging.

They were back in the war room. Surveillance markers had alerted all of them.

The Hall’s war room had always been designed for intimidation. That was its first defense: a space so exaggerated in scale, so mathematically sound in its sightlines and geometry, that even gods and aliens felt the tickle of nerves in the soles of their boots. It was the place where humanity’s champions reminded themselves of the stakes—planetary, existential, never less. Dick had always admired the psychology behind it, even as a kid. He admired it more now, running the show. He triggered the main interface with a flick, scattering the Darkseid projection into ten individual mission feeds, each hovering before its corresponding chair. The League watched, many for the first time seeing their own stats and liabilities reduced to neon data points and heat maps.

“Alright,” Dick said, voice carrying with the brisk confidence of someone who had never believed he’d be allowed to give these kinds of orders. “We don’t have much time. We break into three units, four if you count the tech support.” He tapped a haptic control and the room’s lights dimmed, the projections sharpening into lines of attack. “Frontal assault will be Superman and Wonder Woman. You hit Darkseid’s ground force at the port district, draw as many off the secondary grid as possible. Shazam, you’re with Aquaman—your job is to take out the eastern flank, hit and run tactics. Leverage the water as much as possible.”

Shazam blinked, surprised to be paired with royalty.

“Sounds—uh, splashy,” he said.

Aquaman grunted in agreement, already rolling his shoulders in anticipation.

“Don’t get in my way,” he told Shazam, but with a flicker of a grin.

Dick turned to the Batkids.

“Stealth unit is me, Batgirl, and Spoiler. We insert at the high-tension tower behind the main offensive. We’ll do ground work on Robin’s backup plan, as well. Red Hood, you’ll coordinate with Green Arrow for rooftop sniping and cover fire. Robin, you work the tech breach with Oracle.”

Green Arrow looked up, brow raised.

“You’ve got an awful lot of Batpeople running this show,” he said, tongue in cheek but with an undercurrent of unease.

Dick smiled, just barely.

“Batman didn’t believe in redundancy. I do. And I trust my family. Plus, this is Gotham. They know it better than anyone.”

“You keep saying ‘they’, Hal said, leaning forward. “Aren’t you a Bat, too?”

Nightwing shrugged.

“I may be part of the family, but I haven’t been active in Gotham for years. I would never assume things stayed the same, and in Gotham, they probably haven’t. My city is Blüdhaven, and before, it was New York. If the Titans weren’t off planet, we could count on their help as well.”

GL leaned back, apparently satisfied with that. Flash zipped to his feet, hands on the table.

“What about me and Green Lantern?”

Dick’s smile widened—he’d been waiting for this.

“Flash, you’re our irregularity. You and Lantern coordinate diversions, keep Parademons off-balance and confuse their pattern logic. You’re also our mobile extraction if things go sideways.”

Green Lantern nodded, ring already glowing.

“I’ll run the perimeter and form shields around the team as needed. If you need heavy lifting—” he looked at Flash, “—don’t hesitate to call.”

Zatanna cleared her throat, the silk of her gloves whispering against her palm. She looked over her mission log again.

“If I’m understanding correctly, I’ll also be working crowd control with Martian Manhunter and Vixen?”

“Correct,” Dick said. “Your spells are our best defense against mind manipulation. Vixen’s totem can amplify your reach, and Martian Manhunter will boost you telepathically. Think of it as a three-pronged firewall.”

Martian Manhunter, for the first time, spoke.

His voice was a gentle seismic event: “I can link the entire team telepathically. It will allow for silent coordination, but also means I’ll share the psychic load if any of us are compromised.”

Dick glanced down at his wrist, where the communicator gave a single silent buzz.

“Can you loop in someone in an undisclosed location? Oracle’s running remote, but we’ll need boots on the ground for backup comms if the network drops. Robin, you’re deputized to run to her if needed.”

Tim absorbed this with a visible straightening of his posture.

“Oracle’s mobile?” Martian Manhunter asked.

“She will be,” Dick said.

“Then yes. I just need to meet her, once. I need to feel her mind and its frequency.”

“We can arrange that.” He fingered the comm, toggled to a private channel, and said, “Suit up, O. It’s showtime.”

What he meant was ‘I need you to grab a Domino, throw on some armour, and get into the Batwing.’

No reply, just the faintest ping of acknowledgement. He returned to the table, letting the teams process their assignments. The League was still the League—none of them would admit to being caught off guard, but more than one stole a look at the Batkids like they were new animals at the zoo.

Green Arrow broke the silence, holding up a compact arrowhead with an elaborate meshwork of blue filaments.

“Is this the anti-Motherbox tech Batman used in Metropolis last year?”

Dick nodded.

“Improved version. Should trigger a localised EMP and scramble their signals for about six seconds. Aim for the carrier drones or anything with a glowing face.”

Green Arrow gave a low whistle.

“He really did keep all the best toys to himself, didn’t he?”

Batgirl leaned forward, her own voice unexpectedly loud in the hush.

“We’ve field-tested the new model. It works, but you get one shot. After that, the Motherboxes adapt. Don’t miss.”

“Noted,” Green Arrow said, eyes briefly meeting hers with respect.

Jason turned to Zatanna, expression sceptical.

“You really think a few words backwards will hold off the Anti-Life Equation?”

Zatanna smiled, all white teeth and dangerous charm.

“You’d be surprised what a well-placed incantation can do. Try not to interrupt me while I’m casting.”

Jason shrugged.

“Can’t make any promises.”

Vixen cracked her knuckles, the totem at her throat pulsing faintly.

“I’ll be channeling rhino for the charge, owl for recon, cheetah for chase. If you see me change shape mid-battle, don’t freak out. It’s on purpose.”

Flash grinned, vibrating in place.

“You ever tried gazelle? I hear they outrun cheetahs.”

Vixen fixed him with a look.

“Maybe I’ll try you next, Flash.”

He subsided, but looked pleased to be the target. Tim, ever the youngest old soul in the room, raised his hand.

“If we breach the Motherbox network, do we have a backup plan for disabling the Anti-Life array?”

Dick shook his head.

“Oracle’s got a counter-signal ready, but we don’t know if it will scale. If it fails, we improvise. You’re good at that, right?”

Tim nodded, eyes steeling. Zatanna raised a gloved finger.

“One thing. Mind links are risky with this kind of psychic interference. If you feel anything off, report to Martian immediately.”

Martian Manhunter inclined his head, serene as ever.

“I will monitor and buffer the worst. But Zatanna is correct: do not hesitate if something feels wrong. The Equation is insidious.”

Batgirl quietly tapped her cowl’s earpiece, then looked at Dick.

“The Batcave server’s ready for failover. Even if Oracle’s compromised, we can recover with the backup node.”

Dick met her gaze, a quick pulse of pride cutting through the tension.

“Good work.”

Spoiler had been quiet, but she caught Dick’s eye and raised her brow.

“You want me to run silent on this or draw attention as needed?”

“Both,” Dick said. “If you see an opening, take it. If not, fall back and relay to Batgirl.”

She smirked.

“Classic Nightwing. Ask for everything, all at once.”

He shrugged, spreading his hands.

“You’ve never let me down.”

Flash piped up again, “What’s our code word for bail? We should have a code word. Like, ‘banana pancake.’”

Green Lantern snorted.

“If I hear you say ‘banana pancake’ over comms, I’ll assume you’re concussed.”

Martian Manhunter’s lips twitched.

“Perhaps something more dignified. Or, if you must, something less memorable to potential eavesdroppers.”

“Fine,” Flash said. “We’ll use ‘Nightwing’s Hair.’ No one would ever expect it.”

This broke the room, just for a second. Even Superman’s lips parted in a wry grin.

Dick watched the dynamic—one-time strangers, now something almost like a family, trading sarcasm and strategy like ammunition. He wondered if Bruce would have recognised the feeling. Probably not. He had always been trying to keep them separate. He checked the time.

“We have fifteen minutes before the first wave. Gear up. Final checks. If you need anything—” he pointed at each team “—ask now or forever hold your peace.”

Wonder Woman stepped forward, her tone gentle but unyielding.

“Nightwing, do you have contingency for Darkseid himself?”

He met her eyes, the weight of the question settling on his collarbones.

“We slow him. We don’t stop him. Not unless he makes a mistake.”

She nodded, the subtext shared but unspoken: even Batman hadn’t cracked that one.

Vixen stood, stretching her arms, and glanced at Batgirl.

“You ready?”

“Born ready,” Batgirl replied.

The Batkids trickled out, splitting off to gear up. Dick was left with the table, the projections, and the eerie echo of footsteps fading down the hall. Martian Manhunter lingered.

“You are aware,” he said, “that none of them will ever admit they’re afraid.”

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t,” Dick said.

“No. But it helps to know they trust you.”

Dick looked up at the Martian, the sadness undercutting the usual humor in his voice.

“You think B would approve?”

Martian Manhunter’s gaze was opaque, yet somehow kind.

“I do not think that is the point, Richard. I think he would be surprised how much it matters that you do, however. Do not try to be him. Use your own strengths for this.”

With that, the Martian phased out, and Dick was alone for exactly four seconds before the private comm line vibrated at his wrist.

“Oracle here,” the voice crackled, faint but fierce. “In transit.”

“Good,” Dick replied, sotto voce. “You’re the only one I trust with the keys.”

“I know,” she said, and the line cut.

He let himself have one breath. One beat of uncertainty, buried so deep even he wasn’t sure where it lived. Then he squared his shoulders and followed the others to the prep room. He looked at each hero in turn, their faces tight and bright with fear, hope, or both.

The words came to him almost without thinking: “We do this for Batman. We do this for Earth. We have no choice but to defeat Darkseid. And I believe in each and every one of you.”

Bruce would have said it differently. He would not have admitted to trust or belief. But maybe J’onn was right. If he tried to be someone he was not, this was doomed from the start. Maybe like this, he could do it.

And, somehow, in the marrow of his bones, Dick believed it.

The city’s edge was never quiet, not even at four in the morning during an alien incursion. The port district was all fog and sodium vapor, the air so dense with threat that every light pulsed in its own halo of doom. To Dick, it looked almost peaceful, if you ignored the shimmer of Parademon wings reflecting off the harbor water and the seismic thump of distant explosions. He crouched with Batgirl and Spoiler behind a stack of shipping containers, sweat cooling on the back of his neck despite the Gotham humidity. On the ridge to their left, Shazam hung in the air, arms crossed, eyes trained on the ground below; to their right, the unmistakable shape of Superman hovered, cape flicking in the breeze like a warning flag. The comm hissed alive in Dick’s ear.

“Wonder Woman’s moving,” said Tim’s voice, sharper than usual.

“Copy that,” Dick whispered. “On your mark.”

The first contact happened with almost no warning. Superman streaked downward in a blur of blue and red, landing in the heart of the Parademon swarm with all the subtlety of a meteor strike. The ground rippled, concrete fracturing, and the shockwave sent at least a dozen of the soldiers cartwheeling through the air like ragdolls. Above, Wonder Woman descended, lasso already whistling, her boots trailing sparks as she skidded into a cluster of the flying brutes. For a moment, the battle was perfectly choreographed—a ballet of muscle and willpower, each hero finding the rhythm in their own violence. Shazam let out a war-whoop and punched the nearest Parademon so hard it burst into a spray of metallic ichor, then caught the next one by the ankle and used it as a club. The sound alone was enough to drown out even Flash’s manic color commentary, which Dick could hear snaking through the comm line:

“Superman and Wonder Woman are holding, repeat, holding, but there’s movement on the south ridge—”

Dick signalled the stealth unit. Batgirl ghosted forward, her cape snapping once before she hit the shadow of the next container. Spoiler followed, silent as breath, and Dick took up the rear, keeping low and scanning for motion sensors or tripwires. At ground level, the Parademons smelled like burnt copper and ozone. They could be heard before they were seen—a chitter, then the buzz of wings, and then the ugly thud of impact as they hit the pavement. Green Lantern’s ring lit up the sky in pulses of emerald, sculpting shields and battering rams out of nothing. Flash zipped through the carnage, running rings around Parademon clusters and sending the entire formation spinning like a disrupted beehive. On the rooftops, Dick spotted Green Arrow and Red Hood working in sync: Arrow nocked EMP heads while Jason picked off stragglers with perfect, contemptuous efficiency. Each shot was a miniature exorcism.

For two, maybe three minutes, the fight went their way.

Then Darkseid arrived.

There was no warning, just a shift in gravity, a sense of the air becoming thicker, wetter, as if the entire city had been dropped into a pool of mercury. The sky tore open above the port, a ragged black wound through which Darkseid stepped, calm as a funeral procession. His eyes glowed, not red but black at the center, and the silence that followed was total, broken only by the low click of his boots on asphalt. The world seemed to contract. Dick felt his mouth go dry.

Darkseid raised a hand. One by one, the Parademons fell still, their heads craning toward him in silent awe. For a second, the battle froze—then Darkseid spoke.

“Pathetic,” he said, voice travelling not by air but by certainty. “You bring children to die in your place, Nightwing? Then I shall finish the Amazon and Kryptonian first.”

The words landed like a physical blow. Dick had no time to answer; the Omega Beams carved through the sky, tracing lazy, almost bored arcs toward Superman and Wonder Woman. Superman took the first hit. It punched through his shoulder, splintering bone and sending him crashing into a warehouse wall. Wonder Woman ducked, but the beam curled in midair, snaking around to catch her in the leg and dropping her hard. Dick’s comm erupted in overlapping cries—Flash’s panicked yelp, Zatanna’s shouted spell, Martian Manhunter’s icy “Hold position.”

Batgirl and Spoiler had the sense to drop flat as the Omega energy roared past. Dick felt the heat sear his arm, his suit’s insulation barely holding. He rolled, sprang to his feet, and sprinted for the nearest cover. On the ridge, Shazam went down with a scream, the beam burning through his shield and sending him into the bay. Aquaman dove after him, disappearing under the water in a froth of foam and rage.

The second salvo was worse. Darkseid didn’t aim for the heroes; he targeted the city, the people in it. His eyes flickered, and the waterfront erupted, steel and concrete shattering into dust. Panic took over. The Batkids converged on Dick, Batgirl limping, Spoiler clutching her ribs.

“Status?” Dick snapped, voice hoarse.

“Bad,” Batgirl said, blood seeping through her glove.

“Hood and Arrow are boxed in,” Spoiler gasped. “They can’t get a clean shot.”

Dick toggled to the League channel.

“GL, we need evac—now.”

Green Lantern’s reply was instant, desperate. #

“Trying, but he’s got countermeasures. My constructs are collapsing.”

Vixen’s voice cut in:

“Martian Manhunter says to fall back. Zatanna’s preparing a spell.”

Dick took stock: Superman and Wonder Woman down, Shazam out, Aquaman god-knows-where, Flash running interference but flagging, Lantern under fire, mental defence unit scrambling. He did the math: even with the element of surprise, they were losing. And only a few minutes in.

The only thing left was to adapt. He pointed at Batgirl and Spoiler.

“We go for the command hub. Robin’s plan—right now.”

Batgirl grimaced, but nodded. Spoiler’s lips were white, but she steadied.

They sprinted through the debris field, ducking and weaving as Darkseid’s minions turned back to the fight. Batgirl used her grapnel to vault a fallen crane, landing with a stumble but upright. Dick followed, muscle memory overruling the pain in his arm and back.

Ahead, the tower loomed: a hodgepodge of alien tech welded to Gotham’s industrial guts. The command hub pulsed with light, ringed by Parademons. If they could reach it, maybe they could disrupt the entire swarm. Tim’s voice, tinny but clear, reached them:

“You’ll need to physically plug in the scrambler. Top of the tower, near the array.”

“Copy,” Dick said.

He threw a wingding—custom charge, nonlethal—and watched as it stuck to the nearest Parademon, then detonated in a burst of blue static. The creature dropped, twitching, wings spasming.

“Go!” he shouted.

They ran. Batgirl hacked at the lock, Spoiler took out two more Parademons with carefully-aimed gas pellets, and Dick climbed, hands raw on the cold steel. Up, up, ignoring the pain in his side and the roar of battle behind. At the top, a single Parademon guard waited. It was bigger than the others, stitched together with metal and muscle. Dick didn’t hesitate—he flung himself at it, using its momentum against it, driving his elbow into the soft tissue of its throat. Batgirl followed, a silent blur, landing a kick that snapped its arm.

The scrambler was the size of a lunchbox. Dick slammed it into the port, felt it lock with a click.

“Robin?” he panted.

“Signal’s good,” Tim replied. “Give it ten seconds.”

Below, the Parademons hesitated, their movements suddenly jerky, uncoordinated. Some collapsed, others turned on each other in confusion. Batgirl smiled, a wild thing.

“It’s working!”

Then the Omega Beam sliced through the tower.

The top thirty feet sheared off in a blaze of red, and Dick felt himself falling, Batgirl beside him. He twisted, wrapped his arms around her, and triggered his glider—just enough to slow them as they crashed through a canopy, then onto a rooftop, then finally the ground.

He lay there, winded, Batgirl groaning beside him. Spoiler landed next, rolling to absorb the impact.

Dick’s comm hissed.

“Nightwing!” It was Superman, voice ragged. “We need regroup, now.”

He forced himself up.

“On it.”

Darkseid stood in the centre of the wreckage, not even winded. The Batkids regrouped behind a barricade, and Dick looked up to see the rest of the League—battered, bleeding, but standing. For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then Flash spoke: “I think he’s pissed.”

Green Lantern managed a weak laugh.

“Good. I like him better that way.”

Dick looked at his crew—faces streaked with blood, costumes in tatters, but alive.

“Ready?” he asked.

They nodded. Even Batgirl, barely able to stand, gave a hard grin.

“Then let’s finish this,” Dick said.

And they charged. They hit the ground running, boots and hearts pounding, every instinct screaming that this was suicide and every scar in Dick’s body screaming that it didn’t matter. Batgirl was beside him, bleeding but alive; Spoiler trailed, jaw set, limping but not slowing. Ahead, the world was a battlefield: Green Lantern weaving domes of light against red Omega flares; Flash zigzagging through the enemy at speeds so ludicrous he blurred the afterimage from Dick’s eyes. Darkseid loomed in the wreckage, his silhouette wreathed by fire and the shattered wings of his own fallen Parademons. He raised his hand and the ground itself convulsed, sending a rolling shockwave through the docks. Dick braced, teeth rattling, and saw the rest of the League scattered like bowling pins.

That’s when the sky split open.

A Boom Tube exploded into existence above the port, tearing a wound in the air itself. From it fell Orion, sword blazing, mouth open in a bellow that vibrated Dick’s fillings. He landed with such force the pavement cratered, then swung the blade in a burning arc, cutting three Parademons down before they could react.

Mister Miracle followed, flipping end-over-end through the sky with impossible precision, lobbing gravity mines and catching Darkseid’s attention for one crucial second. The Parademons hesitated, their programming briefly stumped by the sudden incursion of gods into a mortal fight.

Dick heard the comms light up.

“New Gods on site,” Oracle crackled. “Repeat, we have New Gods.”

Zatanna and Martian Manhunter wasted no time. Zatanna’s spell snapped through the chaos, echoing like a shotgun in a marble hall:

“tnarg llahs yeht troppus dna eb yeht yam desaelp!”

The nearest Parademons reeled backward, heads clamped between their claws. Martian Manhunter leveraged the telepathic surge, his voice in every mind on the field:

“Orion and Miracle will draw the fire. Move on the objective.”

Dick didn’t hesitate. He vaulted a burning car and landed on a half-melted statue of Justice, boots finding traction on the outstretched scales. He looked down at the League—battered, scrambling, but still alive.

“We adapt!” Dick shouted, his voice carrying above the din. “We overcome! New formation—on me!”

The effect was instantaneous. Superman, mobile again, rocketed in from the left, heat vision slashing a path through the enemy. Wonder Woman, one leg trailing blood, used the lasso to whip a Parademon into three more, then sprinted to join Vixen and Aquaman as they regrouped. Flash reappeared at Dick’s side, hair smoking from a near miss.

“What’s the new plan?” Flash panted, hands jittering with adrenaline.

“GL and you run diversion—biggest whirlwind you can manage. Batgirl, Spoiler, you’re with me. We get Robin to the tech hub, disable the Equation.”

“Classic,” Flash said, and was gone.

Green Lantern, picking up the cue, formed a massive, spinning construct—part turbine, part tornado—and began sucking the Parademons into its maw. The shriek was incredible, but so was the clearing it bought. Flash zipped around the perimeter, corralling strays and guiding them into the emerald vortex. Dick grabbed Batgirl’s arm.

“You good?”

She nodded, face pale but determined.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They tore through the opening, using the chaos to weave around the worst of the fighting. Dick saw Red Hood and Green Arrow perched high on a toppled gantry, arrows and bullets peppering the enemy with coordinated, brutal precision. Every time a Parademon tried to break from the main pack, one or the other put it down.

Ahead, the tech hub flickered—huge, alive, and crawling with guards. Dick spotted Robin and Oracle on approach, moving in tandem. Robin had a battered grapple in one hand and a modified batarang in the other, sweat running down his face. Oracle drove in the prototype Batmobile, its shell reflecting the hellscape in a black gloss.

“Robin!” Dick yelled. “Status?”

“Two minutes to breach!” Tim shouted, barely looking back.

Spoiler covered the left flank, dropping smoke bombs to keep the Parademons guessing. Batgirl hit the right, knuckles split and leaking, but her swings stayed true. Dick ran up the middle, ducking and weaving, until he reached Robin’s side.

“Cover me,” Tim said, and Dick did, blocking a stray energy blast with his own body.

He felt it singe, but kept his eyes on the kid. If Tim went down, the whole thing fell apart.

“Oracle, plug in!” Robin shouted.

Oracle, in the open hull of the car, face bloodless but eyes alive, yanked a cable from the dashboard and hurled it to Robin, who caught it one-handed. He jammed it into the access port at the base of the tower.

“Override engaged,” Oracle said, voice trembling with pain or excitement, Dick couldn’t tell which.

For a second, nothing happened. Then the hub spasmed, a ripple of white noise blasting out and flattening the nearest Parademons. They shrieked, fell, writhed on the ground. The effect cascaded out, wave after wave of drones dropping from the sky.

But Darkseid didn’t even notice. He was busy with the gods.

Orion had taken the fight to him, trading blows that cracked the concrete and sent debris flying. Mister Miracle danced around them, laying traps and shouting taunts that Dick barely understood. Zatanna and Martian Manhunter lent psychic cover, amplifying the effect, but even combined, it was only a stall.

Wonder Woman, Vixen, and Aquaman hit Darkseid from the flank. The trident bit deep, and Vixen—channelling some prehistoric monster—sank claws into the villain’s calf. Darkseid swatted her away like a bug, but for a second, his balance shifted.

“Now!” Dick screamed.

Flash and Green Lantern coordinated their move: Flash ramped up to top speed and used a Green Lantern ramp to launch himself straight at Darkseid’s face, connecting with a punch that, for a split second, made the god blink. Dick seized the moment. He signalled Batgirl and Spoiler, and together they sprinted for the tech hub’s main relay. Robin was waiting, already deep in code, fingers flying over the touchscreen.

“Almost there,” he muttered.

A Parademon—one of the few still moving—charged at them, teeth bared. Dick intercepted, slamming his baton into its chest. It collapsed, sparks flying, but not before it slashed Dick across the leg. He winced, barely registering the pain. Spoiler threw him a worried glance.

“Done!” Robin shouted.

The world stilled.

The Parademons froze, then collapsed, lifeless. The city went silent, save for the distant sound of the gods battering each other into dust.

Dick took a breath. Then another.

He looked at his team: Batgirl, slumped against the wall but smiling; Spoiler, tending to her wounds with one hand and signaling “OK” with the other; Robin, panting, eyes bright; Oracle, her face glowing with reflected data, sitting back in the car.

“Did it work?” Batgirl asked.

“Check for movement,” Dick said.

There was none. Every Parademon in view was down.

They’d done it.

“Swarm is down” Dick called into the comm. “Repeat: swarm is down!”

Green Lantern whooped.

“Nice work, Gotham crew.”

Wonder Woman’s voice, faint but proud:

“Well done. Now help us finish this.”

Dick looked at Batgirl.

“Think you can still fight?”

She grinned, a bloody rictus.

“Try and stop me.”

Spoiler rolled her eyes.

“Let’s go.”

They regrouped, then charged back into the fray, the last of the Parademons already dissolving to dust. And in the centre of the carnage, Darkseid finally turned to face them. Face Dick. He looked straight at him.

It was almost over. One more fight. Dick took a moment to savour it—the hope, the fear, the absolute, perfect clarity of purpose. They would win. Or die trying.

Darkseid stalked toward them, shoulders rolling with the weight of a world’s malice. Nightwing felt the air grow heavy, the gravity of the villain’s presence warping even time—each second stretched, then snapped, as if refusing to tick forward until someone finally did something impossible.

Wonder Woman was first. She sprang from the shattered curb, lasso spinning, and managed to loop it around Darkseid’s forearm. He didn’t so much as flinch; he simply jerked his arm, and Diana skidded across the asphalt, boots gouging furrows. She held fast, jaw clenched, and braced her feet, the gold rope thrumming with energy.

“Now!” she roared.

Vixen took the cue, channelling the mass and strength of an elephant, her frame ballooning with power as she charged. She slammed into Darkseid’s side, driving him half a step off-balance. Aquaman followed, riding a cresting wall of brackish harbor water that he’d summoned with the trident. The tidal wave knocked Darkseid’s legs out from under him, dropping him to one knee and shaking the entire dock with the impact.

For a heartbeat, Dick thought: They might actually do it.

The remaining Parademons rallied around their master, but the Batkids and League were ready. Spoiler, battered and limping, darted behind a group of them and set off a series of flashbangs, leaving the creatures writhing and blind. Red Hood went hand-to-hand, pistols empty, using the barrels as blunt clubs. Shazam, barely back in the fight, grinned as he lifted two Parademons by the ankles and knocked their skulls together, sparks flying. Nightwing watched the line between victory and oblivion narrow to a razor. He toggled his comm, praying Robin and Oracle were still up.

“Robin! We need the Anti-Life disruption—now! Can you get there?”

Robin’s voice crackled back, breathless.

“Almost there. Oracle’s in.”

At the hub, Robin slammed the final override into place. Oracle, hand trembling, flicked the main relay. A pulse of blue-white energy rippled through the grid, setting off a cascade failure in every remaining Parademon’s chest. They dropped, mid-flight, some exploding in showers of black metal and fire.

This time, Darkseid noticed.

He howled, a sound so vast and ancient it drove Dick to one knee. The villain’s eyes blazed, twin columns of destructive certainty. He tore the lasso free and reached for Vixen, but Wonder Woman used the brief distraction to wind the rope around his neck and yank backward with all her might.

“Everyone!” Dick shouted, “on me!”

The team responded without question. Green Arrow fired a volley of specialised arrows—each one designed to pierce and deliver micro-explosives into the seams of Darkseid’s armour. Red Hood, battered but still upright, timed his remaining shots to hit the exposed plates at just the right moment. Superman staggered up, cape in tatters, face bruised and lined with pain. He looked at Nightwing, nodded once, then dug both hands under a section of fractured highway.

“Need a lift?”

Superman rasped. He got injuries quicker than the sun could help, right now. Dick laughed, just once.

“Do it.”

Superman hurled him like a bullet. Dick somersaulted through the air, using every muscle memory Bruce had drilled into him since childhood. He landed on Darkseid’s shoulders, driving two electrified escrima sticks into the base of the villain’s skull.

For an instant, the world went white. Dick tumbled off, landing hard and skidding across the ground when his slashed leg gave out under him. He tasted blood, but didn’t care. Behind him, the others converged: Wonder Woman lashed the lasso tighter, Vixen hit with everything she had, Aquaman speared Darkseid’s hand to the ground.

Then Batgirl and Spoiler appeared at his side, supporting him as he staggered up.

“You good?” Batgirl panted.

“Never better,” Dick lied.

He couldn’t put any weight on his leg right now. This was going to takes ages to heal.

“Then let’s end this.”

Flash and Green Lantern raced into position. Flash created a funnel of air that pinned Darkseid, while Green Lantern formed a complex, shimmering cage. Shazam shouted his magic word, the thunder rolling through the clouds and lighting up the battlefield.

For one beautiful, impossible second, Darkseid was contained.

Robin’s voice cut through: “Do it now! Hit the Omega relay!”

Dick didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Batgirl’s last charge, signalled to Green Arrow, and together they fired—arrow and baton—into the exposed panel on Darkseid’s chest. The devices struck, detonating in a web of electric arcs.

Darkseid convulsed. The Omega Beams went wild, shooting harmlessly into the sky. The villain collapsed to one knee, then the other, the world shuddering beneath him.

Nightwing looked up at the monster, saw the disbelief, the betrayal that any human—even a borrowed son—could bring him low.

“Nightwing”, the god snarled.

Dick walked up, leg trembling when he put pressure on it, but staying upright, and stood eye to eye with the god.

“Tell Apokolips,” Dick said, “that Earth doesn’t break. Not even without Batman.”

Darkseid glared, then vanished in a pulse of dark energy, his retreat as sudden and silent as his arrival. Dick broke down to his knees, panting.

Silence.

The wind off the harbour picked up, cold and briny. The port was wrecked, the city skyline behind it a ruined horizon. But they were alive.

Dick looked around: Batgirl hugging Spoiler, both laughing and sobbing; Red Hood pulling himself upright, bloody but probably smirking; Superman and Wonder Woman, battered but unbowed, clasping hands. Robin and Oracle, standing at the epicentre, exhausted but victorious.

He gathered the Batkids in a huddle, them walking up to him, surrounding him as Batgirl and Spoiler both helped him up.

“We did it,” Batgirl said, voice trembling.

“More than that,” Dick replied, voice thick. “We did it together.”

Vixen limped up, trailed by Flash and Green Lantern. The League was grinning, triumphant, even as they leaned on each other for support. Superman came to Dick, hand outstretched.

“You led us. He’d be proud.”

Dick shook the offered hand, the compliment too big to process.

“Let’s go home,” he said.

The Hall of Justice was still standing. They limped through its doors, carrying the injured, leaving a trail of grit and blood on the marble floors. Alfred was there, in a domino mask as well, the little shit, hands clasped tight, tears running down his face as he saw them.

Dick caught his eye and managed a smile.

They’d done it.

The world had not ended. The dawn was still coming.

But in that dawn, Dick finally saw the truth: he didn’t need to be like Batman.

He only needed to be himself, and the family he led was enough to save the world.

The Hall was emptying by the minute, each hero drifting off to wounds and loved ones and whatever passed for a normal life after saving the world. The Batkids lingered near the exit, hesitant, as if afraid to step out from under the high glass dome and discover it had all been a dream. Dick watched them, his own exhaustion tempered by a bone-deep pride.

He limped over, favouring his bad leg, splinted and bound and clapped Jason on the shoulder.

“Get everyone home. And don’t make A chase you down for curfew.”

Jason grinned, bruised and unrepentant.

“No promises.”

Spoiler and Batgirl exchanged a look—conspiratorial, already plotting the debrief—but Batgirl caught Dick’s eye and nodded, a silent thank you. Spoiler simply hugged him, quick and fierce, then let go before anyone could make it awkward. Robin, ever the holdout, waited until the others had gone before speaking.

“You did good, Dick.”

“Yeah?” Dick ruffled Tim’s hair, drawing a scowl. “You too, Robin.”

They stood for a beat, nothing but the hum of distant repair drones filling the silence.

“You staying here?” Tim asked.

Dick shrugged.

“Guess I’m on cleanup duty.”

Tim nodded, then left, the echo of his boots receding into the vastness. Only then did Dick notice Superman and Wonder Woman waiting near the far side of the Hall, backs to the massive, muralised wall where the founding members’ shadows stretched to the ceiling. He made his way over, every step a catalogue of new pains. His gaze flickered to Batman on the mural, just for a second. Superman smiled, soft and genuine.

“You always were the last one to leave.”

Wonder Woman’s lips quirked.

“Old habits die hard.”

They offered him a place at the foot of the mural, and for a moment, Dick felt the weight of history settling over his shoulders.

“You did more than hold the line,” Superman said. “You built it, held it together. Bruce would be proud.”

Dick swallowed, looked away.

“I just followed the notes. He had a contingency for everything.”

“That’s not true,” Diana said, gaze unwavering. “He never had a contingency for hope. That was always you. And you were the one who took all the notes and made them into an actual strategy. Don’t sell yourself short.”

The compliment made Dick’s ears burn. He tried to wave it off, but Clark shook his head.

“We’ll be making an announcement in the morning,” Superman said, more gently. “About Batman. About the League. We wanted your input first.”

Dick winced.

“You really want me to do the press tour?”

Superman almost laughed.

“No. But I want you to think about what comes next. Gotham needs a Batman.”

Dick hesitated.

“You think I should—”

Diana’s hand landed on his arm, a touch equal parts strength and comfort.

“You could, if you wished. Or you could lead as yourself. Either way, the city is in your hands. It is your decision whether they believe it to be in Nightwing’s, or in Batman’s though.”

Dick had never wanted the cowl. Even now, it felt like a dare, a gauntlet thrown at the feet of a man who’d spent his life running from legacies.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Hold out on the news, for now.”

Superman nodded, as if that was the best answer possible.

“And if you ever want a place on the League,” Wonder Woman added, “the door is open.”

Dick grinned, surprised by how much the offer meant.

“You might regret that.”

She smiled.

“We’ll take our chances.”

For a moment, the three of them stood together, not as icons, but as people: one raised by gods, one raised by farmers, and one raised by the world’s greatest detective. Dick broke the silence first.

“Thank you,” he said. “For believing in me. In all of us.”

Superman clapped him on the shoulder.

“The world’s in good hands.”

As they walked away, Dick lingered in the shadow of the mural, looking up at the stylised faces of heroes past and present. He tried to imagine Bruce here, arms folded, pretending not to smile at the way things had turned out. He couldn’t, quite. But maybe that was the point.

Outside, the sky was already paling toward sunrise. Dick walked to the doors, paused, then stepped into the dawn, unmasked, carrying only what he’d earned. He felt lighter than he had in years. Maybe, he thought, it wasn’t the mask that made the hero after all. And if Superman and Wonder Woman believed in him, who was he to disagree?

Chapter Text

After the battle, after the parade of injuries and congratulatory nods and even the League’s ceremonial fist-bumps, there was always the return to the cave—a closing of the world back into shadow and echo. For a few minutes after dawn, nobody spoke. The smell of ozone and burnt wiring clung to their skin, and even the usually indomitable Bruce’s ghost had gone quiet. In its place: a fresh, raw wound, as present as the new cracks in the Batcomputer’s screens.

He stood in the Batcave’s heart, caught between two monitors—the first displaying Damian’s vital signs in a gentle, metronomic lull, the second vomiting Gotham’s overnight crime stats onto the big screen with all the nuance of a police scanner on meth. The contrast gnawed at Dick. He tried to make sense of the difference—Damian, all silent potential, his brain lit up in slow-crawling synapses; the city, never quieter than when the real threats had been excised and only small human cruelties remained to fill the void. The war was over, at least for now. The city had woken up to birdsong instead of Parademon sirens, Gotham’s predawn shadows almost placid. But in the cave, the air was thick with a tension more suffocating than any omega-beam. Dick paced, restless, between the medical bay and the main computer. His own reflection, gaunt and pale against the cave’s blue glow, followed him in the glass of the server racks. The Batkids were assembled at the central table, each gravitating to their favourite posture of defence. Jason hunched against the far wall, boots braced wide, arms folded like a drawbridge permanently closed. Cassandra perched on the table’s edge, fingers splayed on the slick surface, her face carved in obsidian resolve. Tim occupied an entire chair but managed to fold himself into the smallest shape possible, tablet clenched like a lifeline, eyes flicking between the screen and the cave’s digital ghosts. Steph, oddly still, sat at the near end of the table with both hands cupped over a mug of something that might have once been coffee, her gaze locked on Dick as if expecting—praying for—answers. They were all together. That should have been a comfort. But Dick only felt the void—Bruce-shaped, as ever, but expanding now, ballooning to fill the entire underground cathedral. He tried the opening he’d rehearsed.

“Alright, team. First up, health check—Damian’s stable.” He gestured at the boy’s prone figure in the alcove, dwarfed by both the gurney and the anxiety pooling in the room. “Alfred says his odds get better every hour. All of us have recovered, no injuries that will hinder us long.” No one spoke. Even Steph’s mug hit the table with a soundless tap. Dick forced himself forward. “Second, crime’s down forty percent since the League cleaned up the port. If we can hold this—”

“That’s not why you called us,” Tim said, voice too thin for the size of his accusation.

Dick blinked.

“I called you because' we’re family.”

Jason’s snort was a small explosion in the hush.

“Family? Thought the point was we were soldiers.”

Cassandra’s eyes glimmered, but she said nothing. Steph looked away. Dick took a breath.

“Look, I know we’re all feeling it. Bruce—” He nearly choked on the name. “He always ran the after-action meetings. But he left a plan, and we have to—”

Jason’s fist hit the table so hard the lights on Damian’s monitor spiked.

“Don’t talk to us like we’re your interns, Grayson.”

Dick squared to face him.

“I’m not.”

“You are. You’re playing dress-up in the big chair.” Jason’s glare was pure challenge. “You’re not Bruce.”

Steph put a hand out, palm up.

“Jay, come on—”

He spun on her.

“No, let him say it. We’re just supposed to sit on our asses and wait for Daddy’s protocols to download? Gotham doesn’t work that way.”

Tim’s gaze flicked from Dick to the floor.

“He’s not wrong.”

Cassandra’s voice was a whisper:

“Proactive, not reactive.”

It landed harder than any yell. Dick tried to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“We don’t have Bruce. We do this by the book, or we burn out in a week.”

Jason paced a lap around the table, each step a percussion.

“That’s your plan? Sit here and cry until we hear from him? You think the League or the city gives a damn about us if we stop performing?”

“That’s not—” Dick started, but Jason’s laugh cut him off.

“It is, though. You want to talk family, fine. Family doesn’t keep secrets, Dick.” He jabbed a finger at the main display. “You and Alfred and the Girl Wonder over there”—nodding at Steph—“spent two days purging Bruce’s system before we even saw the network logs.”

Steph’s face went hard, but Dick saw the flush of guilt.

“You all knew what happened, you were there! We were making sure nobody—”

“Nobody what?” Jason’s tone was venom. “Learned the truth? That our old man maybe wasn’t coming back this time?”

A silence thickened. Damian’s EKG blipped on, oblivious. Cass pushed off the table, muscles tensed as if for a fight.

“We move,” she said. “We don’t wait.”

Tim’s voice, from behind the tablet:

“I’ve checked every feed. Every trace. The signal’s dead, Dick.” His hands shook as he set the device down. “If he wanted us to follow a plan, he’d have left a map. He left nothing.”

Dick felt his composure splintering.

“That’s not how he operated, and you know it. He didn’t know what would happen.”

Jason stalked closer.

“You know what I think? I think you want this. The cowl. The ‘mission leader’ badge. But you’re too scared to go full Batman because you know you’re not him, and neither are any of us.”

Steph stood, shouldering herself between the boys, but softer this time.

“Can we just… be people for a minute? We just saved the world. That’s supposed to matter.”

Jason looked at her—really looked—and his mouth twisted.

“You wanna hug it out, Stephanie? Great. You do that. I’m going to go make sure the city doesn’t eat itself while you all finish your feelings.” He crashed his fist down on the operations table, sending a ripple through the surface that made even the chairs jump. “Unbelievable,” he said, voice gone ragged from shouting over explosions all night. “We do all the heavy lifting, all the work, and what do we get? A goddamn group photo and a pat on the head. I’m done playing second fiddle to another Batman wannabe.”

He yanked his helmet from the table, scooped up his jacket, and stalked toward the exit. Each step was punctuation, the boots echoing like gunshots up the spiral concrete.

“I don’t, if you want to know…”

Dick tracked him with his eyes, but didn’t move to stop him. Didn’t do more than react to the accusation. He couldn’t. Not when he himself knew how much of an imposter he was. Jason's departure left a palpable tension lingering in the Batcave, an unspoken rift that seemed to widen with each passing heartbeat. Dick stood there, surrounded by the quiet hum of technology and the weight of leadership pressing down on his shoulders. The words hurled at him by his brother echoed in his mind, resonating with a truth he was hesitant to confront. Steph's attempt to bring some semblance of peace felt like a feeble bandage on a festering wound.

The Batkids, once a cohesive unit, now felt like shards of broken glass scattered around the table. Cassandra's unreadable gaze, Tim's shaken resolve, and Steph's silent plea for unity—all spoke volumes in the suffocating silence that enveloped them. Cass watched Jason go, her arms folded across her chest. She looked at the ground for a moment, then slipped away to the lockers, where she started methodically gathering her things. There was a grace in her, even now, and an invisibility—Dick realized only halfway through that she’d already changed out of the suit and into nondescript black sweats and a battered backpack.

“Cass,” Dick called, trying to make it a question.

She didn’t turn, but paused, shoulders tense.

“Checking in with Titans,” she mumbled, voice barely more than air. “They should be updated, they should be back soon. And you are not able to go, for the moment.”

“You could stay. Rest.”

She hoisted the backpack, and for the first time, met his gaze.

“You’ll call, if…?”

She left the sentence unfinished, the way a wound sometimes scabbed over with nothing but silence.

“Of course,” Dick said.

He would call if Bruce showed up. He would text, or call, when Damian woke up. He would call when he missed her, but he knew that would not be appreciated right now. Cass nodded, once, then faded up the stairs and out through the auxiliary tunnel. Dick heard the brush of her footsteps for a long time after, lighter than anyone else’s, until they were gone.

Which left Tim, hunched over the Batcomputer, tapping out sequences on a virtual keyboard. He’d been silent all night. Dick wasn’t sure if Tim had spoken a single word since the battle - besides informing him earlier about the Bruce situation. He hovered, hands on the edge of the desk, eyes rimmed red and haunted.

“Tim,” Dick said, careful.

No answer. Dick moved closer, saw the database window open on the screen: a search protocol, cycling the words “Bruce Wayne,” “deceased,” “presumed missing.” The timestamp on the loop said it had been running for nearly two days.

“You need sleep,” Dick said, “or at least food. Alfred’ll kill us if he finds out you—”

Tim’s hands froze. The silence was electric. Then, all at once, Tim stood up so fast the rolling chair banged the back wall.

“You’re just giving up,” Tim said. The voice was thin, tight, fighting to hold together. “You know that, right? You and them. The League, the city, all of you—you just write him off. There’s no body, no evidence, not even a note this time, and you—”

He broke off, breathing hard.

“Tim,” Dick said. He put a hand on the other’s arm. “We all miss him. But it’s over. Darkseid’s rays—”

“Are never perfect. Nothing ever is!” Tim said, voice suddenly sharp as glass. “You taught me that. Batman taught me that. He’s out there somewhere. And you just… what? Let the League tell you it’s time to move on?”

Dick winced.

“You watched the blast hit him. We all heard—”

“We haven’t found him,” Tim said, louder now. “We haven’t found his body, anywhere. And only minute traces.” He jabbed at the monitor, where the data streamed: DNA residuals, nothing more. “He could be alive. Trapped. Gone somewhere we can’t see.”

Dick had no good answer. They’d run the protocols, checked the satellites, even swept the city’s sewers with Martian Manhunter’s psychic reach. Every line had come up blank. Even so, Dick could see the logic in Tim’s eyes: a desperate, necessary hope, as vital as blood.

“If you want to keep looking,” Dick said quietly, “I won’t stop you. But—”

“But you won’t help, either,” Tim said. He swallowed, Adam’s apple jumping. Then, with a flicker of motion, he reached up, undid the snaps at his collar, and peeled the Robin insignia from his uniform. It was a small, battered patch, still sticky with last night’s glue. He placed it on the table, as gently as if setting down a baby bird. “Don’t call unless you actually want to find him,” Tim said.

And then he turned, walked past Dick, and up the stairs. At the door, he hesitated, as if there was a speech queued up—but he left it unsaid. Dick watched the patch for a while. The yellow R glared up at him, an accusation, a question mark in primary colours. The cave was so quiet now, even the bats seemed afraid to make a sound.

The quiet after an exodus was different from the quiet of defeat. It was thicker, more intentional—a hush that pressed at Dick’s skull and made every movement sound suspiciously loud. Even the Batcave’s usual symphony of trickling water, fan-blades, and the clack of shifting stalactites seemed cowed, like it might draw attention from ghosts best left sleeping. He drifted to the medical bay again. Damian lay motionless, still bracketed by a semi-circle of diagnostic monitors, the bandages on his hands stained a lighter red than the boy’s usual cape. Dick let himself collapse into the rolling chair beside the bed, hands loose between his knees. The displays chirped and blinked with numbers that meant nothing to him. For the first time in hours—maybe days—he let the exhaustion reach him, curling up through his spine and into the back of his eyes. He wanted to say something. To Damian, to Bruce, to the empty cave. But nothing fit, so he just sat and listened to the soft, stubborn whine of the heart monitor.He didn’t hear Stephanie approach until she was nearly at his shoulder. She had a talent for going unnoticed, not because she was silent, but because she moved like a question nobody had bothered to answer. In her hands was a paper cup, the logo worn off by condensation. She set it on the table by the bed.

“Electrolytes. Not great, but better than cave coffee.”

Dick accepted it and drank, the salty bitterness forcing his face into a grimace.

“God, that’s terrible.”

“I know,” Steph said, and there was no smile, only a weary solidarity.

She reached out and smoothed the blanket over Damian’s chest, as if tucking in a fussy child for a nap. Her hands were gentle, at odds with the torn knuckles and the purple shadow blooming on her jaw. She stood a little straighter, her focus on the boy and not on Dick.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. Her voice was so soft Dick almost missed it. “You told me I’ve never let you down and… I won’t start now.”

He nodded, but didn’t trust himself to say anything. He would tell her she could go. That he wasn’t forcing her. That she should not feel guilty by his words in battle.He didn’t want to risk her leaving too, though. It was undeniably selfish, but he was already in way over his head. He couldn’t do this completely alone. They stood together for a while, the monitors their only witnesses. Dick felt the words pile up in his chest, unsaid, until he couldn’t hold them back.

“I’m not forcing you to stay, but… I’m not ready,” he said.

Steph blinked.

“To what?”

“To do it alone. Or at all.” He swallowed, throat thick. “Bruce was the plan. I was… backup. Now it’s me, and I—” He glanced at Damian, so small and pale in the bed. “What if I can’t do this?”

Steph met his eyes, and for once, there was no joke lined up, no pointed comeback.

“Then you do it anyway,” she said. “Because someone has to. Because he’d want you to. And because Gotham doesn’t get holidays.”

Dick huffed a breath, almost a laugh.

“You’re starting to sound like him.”

She shrugged.

“Someone has to.”

He looked at her, really looked: hair still wet at the ends from a makeshift shower, cowl pushed up onto her forehead, suit patched together with duct tape and ambition. She looked like every Robin he’d ever known: reckless, too-young, and braver than sense allowed.

“He’s going to need someone,” Dick said, gesturing to Damian.

Steph smiled, and it was more sad than happy.

“He’ll need Robin, to cope. He’ll have you, to help him. To raise him right. And Dick?”

Dick stared at the abandoned emblem, still on the table where Tim had left it. Steph picked it up, rolling it between her fingers. The yellow R glinted in the low light, and for a moment Dick saw himself in it—every dumb hope, every failure, every fight that started in a mask and ended with someone trying to glue themselves back together.

She pinned it to her own suit, just above the heart.

“I’m not staying because I feel pressured by what you said. I’m staying because I want to. This is a temporary measure,” she said, motioning to the emblem. “Until the next owner is ready to take it.” Dick felt something unclench in him, just a little. “Batman needs a Robin,” Steph said. “And Gotham… needs Batman.”

Dick found himself grinning, despite the weight on his chest.

“You volunteering?”

She shrugged, again. Took a breath. Tapped the emblem.

“Blüdhaven can handle you not being there. The symbol matters. That’s what you taught me.”

He nodded, and for a moment they just stood together, watching over the youngest in their strange, battered family.

Steph was first to break the silence.

“We should set up a patrol schedule. Crime’s not taking a nap.”

Dick smiled, exhaustion and relief mingling in his blood.

“Yeah. We should.”

He stood, then reached out and placed a hand on Damian’s forehead, like checking for fever. The skin was cool, but there was a stubborn pulse beneath it—so like Bruce’s, even when at rest.

“We’ll be here when you wake up, Dames,” Dick said.

Steph stood beside him, quiet and still, and somehow her presence felt like a promise. The cave, for the first time in days, didn’t seem so empty. Not any closer to him being able to do this, but less empty nonetheless.

Chapter Text

The Batcave after midnight was a different animal—quieter than the grave and twice as haunted. The only light came from Damian's medical monitor, which cast an aquarium-blue glow over the far corner and stencilled Dick’s shadow in slow pulses onto the wall. The computer array had powered itself into sleep mode, and even the bats above kept their chattering to a minimum, as if they’d finally realised the joke of naming a hero after them.

Dick sat hunched on the bench behind the main console, elbows on knees, unlacing one Nightwing glove with the other’s teeth. The sweat inside smelled of static and metal and stress. He yanked the glove off, dropped it next to the keyboard, and let his forehead rest against the cold edge of the desk.

He tried, for a full minute, not to look at Damian.

The beeping was softer now, almost forgiving. It measured time in the way all hospitals did, in fractions of a second so granular it made you doubt you’d ever spent a real day outside. Damian’s chest rose and fell under the sheet, every breath an act of rebellion against the odds. Dick found himself counting the intervals, re-calibrating his own pulse to line up with the boy’s, and then feeling guilty about the petty theft of hope. When he heard Steph’s boots on the stairwell, he didn’t move. He pictured her at the threshold, hesitating—probably thinking of a joke, testing it on her tongue, then discarding it because she could see his posture from a mile away.

“Is there a secret handshake for catastrophic Mondays?” she asked, voice so low it barely cleared the Batcave’s echo.

Dick grunted, not quite ready to play. She circled the console, hands in the pockets of a too-big hoodie, and leaned back against the panel, facing him. The Robin patch, half peeled from her own chest and barely stuck on with some kind of neon-green athletic tape, looked less like a badge and more like a dare. Steph’s face was a mess of healing bruises and the kind of exhaustion that didn’t wash out with a shower. She smelled faintly of antiseptic and the sugar-free gum Bruce insisted on stocking for stakeouts.

She let the silence spool out, and for that Dick was grateful.

“You miss Blüdhaven?” Steph finally asked, gaze tilted up to the cave’s stalactites.

“Only on nights Gotham wins,” Dick said. “Which is to say, once or twice a week.”

Steph smiled.

“That’s the spirit. Self-pity with a side of in-joke.”

Dick flexed his fingers, knuckles popping audibly.

“Why are you up?”

The blonde rolled her eyes.

“Like you ever ask yourself that? Besides. I wanted to check—”

She gestured at the monitors, which blinked out an endless wave of unreadable hospital hieroglyphics.

“He’s stable,” Dick said, then softer, “for now.”

“Good.” She ran a thumb along the console, flicking at invisible dust. “That’s… good.”

They both glanced at the row of empty chairs clustered around the central table. Jason’s old seat, backed up against the wall like he’d always preferred an exit strategy. Cass’s, neatly pushed in but canted at an odd angle—she’d once said she could see the most with her back to the cave mouth. And Tim’s, which Steph had commandeered in his absence but still treated with the reverence of a borrowed tuxedo. All empty, each with its own ghost. Steph took in the empty war room with a tilt of her head.

“We look like we lost a poker game to our own ghosts.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Dick said. He didn’t mean to, but the next words came out anyway: “I don’t know if I can do this.”

As if the confession were overdue and expected, Steph didn’t answer and just nodded. Dick closed his eyes.

“You ever have a dream where you’re supposed to be someone else, and everyone knows it except you?”

“Every night since I started this gig.” Steph gave him a gentle nudge with her knee. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

Dick let out a shaky breath.

“I was trained to take over. Every move was—” He shrugged. “I thought when the time came, there’d be a script.”

“There isn’t,” Steph said. She studied her fingernails. “You think Bruce had one?”

Dick looked at the cowl, sealed under glass in its shrine.

“If there was, he burned it before I was born.”

Voice lowering, the teen scooted closer.

“You think Batman was the mask and Bruce was the real guy, or the other way around?”

He huffed.

“Neither. Both. Depends on the day.”

Steph chewed her lip.

“I think he was making it up. The whole time. He just made it look like he knew what he was doing.”

Dick found himself laughing—a short, bitter sound.

“He always did.”

She shrugged, shoulders touching his now.

“Maybe that’s the move. Pretend you know until you actually do.”

Dick ran both hands through his hair, feeling the grease and grit.

“I’m tired, Steph. Like, not just tired. I’m—”

She put a hand on his shoulder, grounding him.

“You don’t have to be Bruce. None of us can. We just have to keep going.”

The monitors pinged, harmonising for a moment before diverging again. Dick looked at her, saw the sincerity in her eyes. He wanted to believe her. He really did.

The elevator door at the far end of the cave hissed, and both turned to see Alfred descending, tray in hand, posture impeccable even at two in the morning. The man had the air of someone who’d buried kings and nursed their ghosts back to health, often in the same week. He set the tray down—a pair of mugs, real coffee this time, and a single white envelope.

“If you’ll pardon the interruption,” he said, “I believe Master Damian’s condition calls for a toast.”

Steph stood, saluted.

“To waking up in Gotham, where nothing ever makes sense.”

Alfred poured coffee with surgical precision, handing a mug to Dick.

“He would be proud of you, Master Richard,” he said, voice soft. “But he would also remind you that even he did not do this alone.”

Dick gripped the mug, warmth blooming through his palms.“He had you,” he said.

Alfred’s smile was fleeting, but real.

“And so do you.”

Steph raised her own mug.

“To family. Even if it’s the weirdest one on record.”

Dick managed a smile, and this one felt less like surrender and more like a promise. They stood together, three shadows against the cave’s far wall, watching over the boy in the bed and the city above. For the first time since Bruce disappeared, Dick believed—just a little—that maybe he could be enough.

It took Dick twenty minutes to work up the nerve to visit the suit, after Alfred had left.

There was a kind of gravitational field around the display case—a clear, coffin-shaped monolith in the corner, illuminated by cold LEDs that flattened every seam and contour into a single, unbroken line. The Backup Batsuit stood inside, untouched since the day Bruce disappeared in the main one: cowl angled in a permanent scowl, arms by its side, the heavy cape curled behind like a shadow that refused to unstick.

Steph hovered at the perimeter, hands shoved deep into the pockets of her hoodie, eyes darting from the glass to Dick and back. She tried, at first, to make the approach casual: a joke about the way Alfred always polished the case so well you could see your future mistakes reflected in it, a lopsided grin about whether they should take a selfie for old time’s sake. But the closer they got, the more the jokes evaporated. Dick reached out. His fingers trembled just enough that the touch left a perfect print on the glass, right above the chest emblem. He curled his hand into a fist, let it rest there, as if the warmth of skin could make the suit less empty.

“Someone has to wear it,” he said.

The words were quieter than the cave’s hum, but Steph caught them. She shifted, looking down at her own uniform—patched, torn, the yellow “R” tacked on with what looked like a safety pin. She pressed her palm flat against the glass, next to his.

“And Batman needs a Robin,” she said.

There was no irony in her voice, not even a tremor. They stood there, the two prints side by side on the glass. In the reflection, Dick saw himself doubled: once as he was now, and once in the armour, the cowl swallowing his face, the chin squared by someone else’s rage. He knew he would disappear, slowly, if he put it on. He knew it would change him, irreparably.

He still tried to picture himself inside the suit. It didn’t fit, not in the mind’s eye or anywhere else. He was taller than Bruce, but narrower. His movements were lighter, less of a threat and more of a suggestion. He’d always liked motion—the momentum of running, the give of air between him and the next rooftop. He certainly wouldn’t be able to flip around anymore. The Batsuit was a blunt instrument, a message delivered in all caps. It had never been his style.

“We’d have to alter the armour,” Dick said, running a hand up the seam of the forearm. “Elbow joints are too stiff. Shoulders are built for someone who blocks, not someone who dodges.”

Steph nodded.

“Plus, the cape’s gonna mess with your quad-flip.”

He almost smiled.

“You remember that?”

“Third story of the old Sionis Glassworks. You biffed the landing and told Tim it was ‘tactical flair.’ He didn’t buy it.”

He shook his head.

“He never did.”

There was a lull. Steph broke it, voice softer:

“You going to put it on?”

Dick hesitated.

“Not yet. Maybe not ever. The city needs a Batman, but I don’t know if it needs…” He trailed off, unable to finish. This one.

“Not Bruce,” Steph supplied. “But maybe it needs you. Your Batman version.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he opened the case completely, disengaging the magnetic lock with a sigh. The scent of kevlar and oil spilled out, oddly clean, as if Bruce had always expected to come back and slip right in. Dick reached for the cowl. He weighed it in his palm: heavier than his own mask, the inside lined with padding that still held the faintest impression of Bruce’s brow. He set it down on the shelf, not ready to try it on. Steph watched, arms folded.

“You want me to call you ‘Boss’ now?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Only if you want to get benched.”

She grinned, then sobered.

“I’m gonna keep this going,” she said, flicking at her Robin patch. “At least until Damian’s up for it. But you gotta train me. Like, really train me. Not just the punching stuff. I’ve barely been a Robin in between, and I don’t have the typical style.”

He looked at her.

“What’s the catch?”

Steph shrugged.

“We work together. No solo heroics. Gotham gets both of us, or neither. I’ve been on my own before, and Spoiler might be benched, but her missions aren’t. And I want to learn the flips.”

He could live with that.

He turned the cowl over in his hands after taking it from the shelf again, then tried it on, just for a second. The fit was snug, the world narrowed to a slit of vision, and the weight pressed down on his head like a confession. He took it off again, relief immediate. Steph tried to hide a smirk.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Doubt it,” Dick said. But he closed the case and looked at the reflection again, this time with Steph at his side. “The view is obstructed, as much as the movement is going to be. I need adjustments, probably a new one altogether. This one is going to suffocate me, if not literally, at least metaphorically.”

She straightened her shoulders, suddenly all business. She, too, touched the glass carefully.

“We’ll keep his legacy alive until he comes back. And when Damian wakes up, I’ll help him transition to Robin.”

Dick nodded. He believed her. Together, they turned away from the case, leaving two prints behind on the glass. Side by side, but never quite overlapping.

The Batcomputer’s surface shimmered with an unbroken sheet of city: every rooftop, alley, and power line rendered in cold, glowing lines. It was a view Bruce had always favoured—top-down, god’s-eye, the city mapped to a thousand metrics and threat indices. Dick remembered watching from the sidelines as Robin, wondering how anyone could see so much and still miss the small stuff, like a locked window or a kid sleeping under a fire escape. Wondered if it was just not important enough. Now he knew it likely wasn’t, because he could see it still.

Tonight, the map was alive with new energy, every block pulsing in sync with the movements of Gotham’s after-hours population. Dick stood in front of it, tracing his finger along the riverside—East End to Crime Alley, old school patrol. Steph hovered just behind, peering over his shoulder, the Robin patch now sewn onto her new suit, already in Robin colours, with yellow floss. The computer’s blue glow painted them both in shades of unearthly calm, the only movement the flash of Dick’s hand and the floating data clusters that bloomed wherever he pointed. Dick was in his altered, newly made suit. Lighter, less stiff in the joints, though it would still not allow any tricks. He could dodge now, as well as block. He could sweep feet or jump and kick ribs, at least. The cowl looked the same, but was a completely different material, as requested. Lighter. Softer. Not at all something Bruce would have worn, which was the only reason he could put it on.

“We’ll need to be strategic,” Dick said, flicking the map to a zoomed-in grid. “With Tim gone and Cass with the Titans, unlikely to return soon, we’re covering twice the ground with half the people. At least Jason’s disappeared off the earth, though I’m not sure if Red Hood’s goons running around leaderless is helping or making things worse.”

Steph squinted at the screen.

“If we reroute through the Viaduct, we can shave off fifteen minutes. Plus, it’s the only way to catch Penguin’s shipments before they disappear into the tunnels.”

Dick nodded, impressed. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

She shrugged, half-proud.

“Bruce might have memorised every sewer lid in the city, but I know the sandwich shops. That’s where the real intel lives.” She tilted her head, thinking.

“Tell me”, he said. “I want to hear it, no matter how out there.”

With a swallow, she nodded.
“I heard they’re getting more brave. Batman hasn’t been seen in weeks, and the battle had eyes and witnesses. We need to get you seen. We need to get them to back down.”

“Noted. We will, today. Gotham’s got Batman back, even if it won’t know how different it will be.” He marked the suggested route with a sweep of his hand, then colour-coded it in red. “You want to handle that sector?”

Steph smirked.

“If I bring back a hot dog, you’re not allowed to complain.”

He couldn’t help but smile.

“Deal.”

Dick leaned into the console, eyes scanning the rest of the city’s red zones.

“Killer Croc has been quiet too long. Means he’s either dead or planning something big.”

Steph zoomed out, pulling up the secondary feeds.

“He’s not dead. Word is he’s recruiting out of Blackgate, fresh faces only. Probably gearing up for something in the West End. I also heard he’s teaming up with Freeze, even if I have no idea how that one will work.”

Dick made a note.

“That leaves the Narrows. Riddler’s still dormant?”

She nodded.

“He’s been streaming maths lectures online. Boring ones. I think he does believe Batman is gone, and waits for the next turn. He’s always preferred to spar with Tim’s Robin, lately.”

Dick allowed himself a moment to remember when the city’s villains had at least the decency to be flamboyant. Now they wore khakis and logged onto Social media.

“Okay,” he said. “We split the city in half. Meet at the midpoint every two hours, check in, re-calibrate if needed.” He handed her a comm. “You good with that?”

Steph tested the earpiece, adjusting it to fit under her mask.

“Born ready. All good.”

They stood in companionable silence, watching the digital Gotham breathe and churn. Over in the medical bay, Damian’s monitors kept up their steady beeping—a background counterpoint to the high-tech planning and the hush of the cave. Dick found himself glancing at the boy more often than the screens.

“When he wakes up,” Dick said, not if, “he’s going to want his job. The one Bruce all but promised him.”

Steph followed his gaze.

“He can have it. I don’t mind being the stand-in. And my ass looks better in purple anyways.”

“You could make it permanent,” Dick said, only half joking. “I don’t think the red looks bad, per se.”

She grinned.

“Let’s get through tonight first. And don’t lie to me about missing the way Nightwing clings to you.”

He powered down the map, saving their routes to a portable drive. Sighing, he put on the cowl. She wasn’t wrong. This suit felt stifling, even with the adjustments.

“You ever get the feeling the city likes to mess with us? Like, the second we think we’re ready, it throws us a curveball?”

Steph blew out a breath.

“Always. That’s why we train.”

“Speaking of,” Dick said, “let me pack up. We hit the roof in ten.”

Steph gave a mock salute and jogged off toward the changing area. Dick lingered, letting the computer cycle through the last few updates, then closed his eyes and tried to imagine Bruce sitting at this console, making decisions with a precision that bordered on cruelty.

He wondered if the old man would approve. Probably not, he thought, then shrugged. But maybe that was okay.

The cape was heavier than he remembered, but he made it work. He took one last look in the mirror—a shadow with a blue chevron, chin set in stubborn denial—and felt the armour click into place, a little less foreign with each passing second.

Steph reappeared in full Robin, the patch now expertly stitched, her utility belt double-stocked. She gave a little bow.

“Ready, Batman?”

He let the word slide off him, then nodded.

“Let’s go.”

They took to the Batmobile together, Dick jumping in, Steph following. She carefully caressed the consoles.

“You think he’s watching?” she asked.

Dick followed her gaze, thinking of Bruce, wherever he was.

“If he is, he’s critiquing our posture.”

She snorted.

“Good. Wouldn’t want him to get bored.”

The cave opened, and the city’s chill poured in, biting and alive. They closed the roof and sped out, the skyline lit with the flicker of neon and emergency lights. Steph pulled her hood up, hands flexing at her sides.

“What now?”

Dick looked at her—really looked, and saw a partner, not a shadow.

“Now,” he said, “we work.”

They reached the starting point of the patrol route and launched into the night, new shapes against the old city, and for a moment, even the wind sounded different—like maybe, just maybe, it believed in them too.

Chapter Text

The Batcave’s medical bay was a hermetic world, bracketed from above by the bony thrust of stalactites and below by the pulse of a thousand buried data lines. It had no windows. The only measure of time was the rotation of Gotham’s shiftless darkness through the cave’s distant entrance, and, more reliably, the slow drain of battery life on the overhead fluorescents.

Dick kept vigil in this place as if the world outside had stopped moving. Maybe, for all practical purposes, it had. He’d set up a routine in the beginning—first week: check Damian’s monitors every hour; second week: every fifteen minutes; now, in week three, he’d dispensed with pretense and simply hovered. If he wasn’t physically present, he was close enough to hear every fluctuation in the machinery, every micro-chirp or anomalous drop in the IV’s volume.

Damian had not so much as twitched in twenty-one days. The boy’s face was caught in a truce between repose and defiance, mouth set in the shadow of a scowl, eyebrows drawn as if refusing even now to cede ground. Beneath the hospital-grade blanket, the rest of him seemed to shrink a little more each morning, the sharp lines of his jaw softening, the muscle on his arms slackening with each new hour of inactivity. The only sign that he was still fighting was the beeping: consistent, measurable, unbroken.

Dick had lost the thread of what time it was—four in the morning, or possibly five—but he knew the exact second since the last abnormality on Damian’s chart. He’d watched the heart-rate graph so long that the pattern had migrated to the inside of his eyelids; he could still see it when he closed his eyes, which he sometimes did, for ten or twenty seconds at a stretch.

He adjusted the IV out of reflex, checking the line for bubbles, then checked the oxygen mask. He bent over Damian’s face, the face that seemed to change every day a tiny bit, listening for breath, and when he was satisfied, settled back onto the rolling stool and stretched his spine until it popped. His lower back ached with the memory of motion. His jaw was sandpaper; he’d stopped shaving after the first week, when it became clear that the only thing more constant than Damian’s coma was Dick’s inability to leave the room for longer than a piss.

Alfred came in every day with fresh supplies: sandwiches under clingfilm, sliced fruit, carafes of coffee, vitamin packets with the label peeled off so as not to make Dick feel like a geriatric. The first few days Dick had tried to keep up, to pretend the caretaking was reciprocal, but now the tray sat at the edge of the cot, half-sandwiches curling at the bread, coffee cooling to room temperature before being replaced with a new carafe. The fruit was the only thing that vanished; Dick ate the apples compulsively, chewing the seeds as if they might grow something inside him.

Sometimes he talked. He was careful at first—updates on the city’s status, a soft brief on crime levels, the way the new Robin had rerouted Penguin’s gun shipments, the fact that Red Hood was currently incommunicado, probably sulking in some rooftop garden. He thought, at first, that Damian would want to know. After a while, Dick started talking about less consequential things: an inane news item from the morning, the bats nesting in the new alcove, how he’d caught the biggest cave cricket he’d ever seen and set it loose in the utility shaft as a science experiment. It didn’t matter that there was never a reply. He’d grown up with silence, but never this kind—the silence of anticipation rather than closure.

He spoke to fill the vacuum.

The lights cycled automatically at the quarter hour, a softening from white to a pinkish hue that was meant to imitate sunrise. Dick, rubbing his forehead, noticed the shift and wondered idly what day it even was. He let his hand drag down to his jaw, feeling the stubble, and was halfway through the ritual of checking Damian’s pupils with the little penlight when he saw it:

The finger. The smallest one, even tinier than it was the week before, left hand. A twitch, so subtle it might have been a trick of shadow. He dropped the penlight, knuckles cracking as he snatched the boy’s wrist and pressed two fingers to the pulse point, as if proximity could will the movement to repeat.

The beeping monitor ticked up by one. Then again.

Dick’s own breath caught, stuttering in his chest. He leaned closer, whispering—whispering, because he was afraid to spook the miracle into reversing itself.

“Hey. Damian. If you’re in there, this would be a really good time to give me a sign.”

The finger twitched again. This time, the motion travelled up the hand, a shudder that rippled the muscles from palm to elbow. The eyelids followed, first a tremor, then a deliberate, agonisingly slow flutter.

Dick nearly laughed, or wept. The distinction didn’t matter.

The monitor, as if cued by the universe itself, began to accelerate, each beep louder and closer together than before. It was the most beautiful, reckless music Dick had ever heard. He let go of Damian’s hand only to cradle the back of the boy’s head, guiding it gently forward as the eyelids opened for the first time in three weeks.

“Come on, buddy,” Dick murmured, voice hoarse with hope. “You got this. Just open your eyes. Just once.”

The room held its breath. And then, impossibly, so did Dick.

The world came back in a spasm of yellow light.

It began as a filament at the base of Damian’s neck, a spectral pulse that blossomed along his spine in a strobe of radiance—yellow, bright as traffic signals at midnight, then blinding, then gone. Dick nearly bit through his tongue in surprise. The air itself shimmered; for a split second, Dick thought the power had surged, maybe a short in the monitors, but then the corona of light cinched tight around Damian’s body and vanished with a snap.

All the old tension returned at once, multiplied: the boy’s limbs curled inward, his head jerked, his mouth opening in a thin O as if to scream, but there was no sound at all. A second passed, and another, until Dick felt a deep cold gnawing at his hands, which were still cradling Damian’s skull like the world’s last egg.

Then, silence broke.

Damian exhaled—a soft, high-pitched whimper, completely unlike the clipped, disdainful voice Dick remembered. His eyelids flared open, and beneath them: not green, not blue, but the pale, unfocused confusion of the very young.

Dick’s first, idiotic thought was that the kid was drugged. He scanned the monitors again—heart rate high but not catastrophic, oxygen solid, brain activity spiking. The body in the bed was smaller than he recalled, and not just in the way all the sick shrank. Not slightly like it had done in the last few weeks. The outline of Damian’s skull had changed, his hands smaller, softer; the hospital pyjamas bagged comically around his frame, swallowing his arms and legs like a shroud. The IV line looked comically oversized in his tiny wrist. The mask hung from one ear.

Dick sucked in a breath so sharp he could hear the cartilage in his own nose crackle.

“Hey,” he managed, his voice so thin it might have been the echo of a prior life. “You’re—” He almost said “safe,” almost said “home,” almost said a hundred other things. What came out was: “You’re awake.”

Damian blinked at him, twice. His face twisted, an expression more confusion than pain.

“Who—who are you?”

The voice was a reedy soprano, nothing of the old irritation, nothing of the acid wit. The eyes, too, were wrong: too round, too large for the face, and utterly unguarded. Dick let go of the boy’s head, recoiling as if burned, and nearly knocked over the cart of medical supplies. He caught himself and tried to smile, but his lips felt stretched and foreign.

“I’m—my name is Dick. I’m your—” He hesitated. “I’m your family.”

The little boy squinted, as if the words didn’t line up with reality.

“Where is this?”

The vowels were unstable, the rhythm of speech more like a question than a demand. His accent was heavier than before as well. Dick glanced around the room, suddenly aware of how hostile it must look to a child: banks of monitors, cold lighting, the smell of sterilisation and wet concrete. He considered lying, but the old Wayne instincts held.

“This is the Batcave,” he said, quietly. “It’s under a big house, in the city. You’re safe here. I promise.”

He reached out, intending to smooth the blanket over Damian’s chest, but the boy flinched, recoiling into himself, clutching the edge of the sheet to his chin with both fists. For a split second, Dick saw the outline of the man Damian could have become—jaw set, eyes narrowing, the body language of someone already at war with the world. But then the composure fractured, and the eyes went glassy with tears.

“I want my mother,” the boy said, in a voice so small it could have crawled under the door.

Dick nearly lost it. He wanted to stand, to pace, to scream at the world for putting this on his shoulders. Instead, he crouched beside the bed, lowering himself until he was at eye level with the little boy.

“I know you do,” he said. “She’s not here. But you’re not alone. I’ll look after you. No matter what.”

The words sounded hollow. Dick could see Damian didn’t believe him; he kept his grip on the blanket, knuckles blanching.

“Why am I here?” The words were slurred with tears now. “Is it because I was bad?”

Dick’s heart shattered. The edges of it cut up through his rib-cage and into his throat.

“No,” he said, too fast, too desperate. “You’re not bad. You’re just… sick. Something happened. You got hurt, but we’re fixing it. We’re going to make you better.”

The boy studied him, trying to parse the story, but his gaze kept flickering to the machines, the needles, the bare stone above.

“My grandfather got mad,” he said, as if repeating something from rote. “He said if I wasn’t better he would send me away.”

Dick wanted to go back in time and murder Ra’s al Ghul all over again. He wanted to shake the world until it coughed up the monster who could make a child afraid to sleep.

Instead, he said, “Your grandfather is gone. He can’t hurt you anymore. He’ll never hurt you again.”

Dick wasn’t sure if that was strictly true, but it was as true as anything could be. Damian didn’t react at first, but after a moment, he loosened his grip on the blanket.

“Will I get to go home?”

Dick nodded.

“As soon as you want. But right now, you need to rest. You’re safe here, I promise.”

The monitors steadied; the beeping went from frantic to a gentle, lullaby pace.

Dick waited, letting the silence stretch. He knew better than to crowd the kid. It was a minute, maybe two, before Damian looked back at him, face wet, the residue of tears shining in the artificial light.

“Will you stay?” the boy asked. He didn’t say please, but the need was so raw that Dick felt it anyway.

“I’ll stay,” he said, and meant it.

He smoothed the blanket the rest of the way over Damian’s chest. This time, the kid let him, even if he eyed him with suspicion. He kept his hands loose, visible, careful. He didn’t touch the boy unless invited.

Damian’s eyes drifted closed, then fluttered open again, as if afraid of what might happen while he slept.

“I’m thirsty,” he said, plaintive.

Dick almost laughed in relief.

“I can do that,” he said. “Let me find a cup.”

He poured water into a little plastic mug with a straw, the sort designed for post-op patients, and brought it to Damian’s lips. The boy drank greedily, almost choking on the first swallow, but then slowing as he realised he was being watched. When he finished, he wiped his mouth on the back of his tiny fist, and for a second Dick saw the ghost of the old Damian in the move—a flash of pride, a refusal to be babied, even when babied was all the world had to offer.

Dick set the cup aside, then settled back onto the rolling stool, feeling the exhaustion in every inch of his body. He glanced down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. Damian stared at him.

“Will my mother come back?” he asked, the voice trembling, but steady.

Dick wanted to tell the truth. He wanted to say yes.

Instead, he said, “I don’t know. But I’ll take care of you until then. And after.”

Damian nodded, accepting this, and turned his face to the wall.

Dick sat with him until the breathing steadied, until the little boy fell into an uneasy sleep. He promised himself, in the dark and the cold, that whatever this was, whatever had happened to the kid, he would not let Damian face it alone.

He owed him that much. He owed Bruce even more.

And if the universe had decided that Dick was to be a father now—well, he’d seen worse fates. He reached over and gently, so gently, brushed the hair from the boy’s eyes.

“You’re not alone,” he whispered, to the sleeping form and to himself.

And then, for the first time in weeks, Dick let himself believe it might be true.

When Damian woke again, it was with the shocked alertness of a creature who suspected that sleep was a kind of trap. His eyes snapped open and he stared at the cave ceiling—at the bare rock, the shadow lattice cast by the overhead fluorescence, and the slow, lopsided spiral of a moth circling the UV bug zapper. For a full minute, he just watched. Dick did the same, his chin propped on his fist and his whole body gone hollow with fatigue, but unwilling to even blink for fear that Damian would vanish, or regress, or worse.

It was Damian who broke the silence, voice small and still husky with sleep.

“I dreamed about… a room. With water, and men yelling.” A pause, as if searching for vocabulary. “And then I was here.”

Dick nodded, kept his tone soft.

“That was real. You were in a bad place. But you’re safe now.”

The boy blinked, slow and suspicious.

“Are you… my doctor?”

Dick had to laugh, but not unkindly.

“No, bud. I’m not that smart.” He pushed himself upright, rolling the kinks out of his shoulders. “Do you want to get up? Look around? I can help you walk, if you want.”

Damian considered, then gave a stiff nod. Dick swept the blanket aside and braced his hands around the kid’s rib-cage—he was feather light, barely heavier than the cape he’d once worn. The kid’s body was an awkward compromise of proportions: legs a little too short for the torso, hands soft and small and missing any hint of callus or scar. They’d have to cut the pyjamas to make them fit; as is, they puddled around the boy’s feet, making each step a gamble.

With Dick’s help, Damian tottered to the edge of the bed and planted both feet. The first attempt at standing lasted all of two seconds before his knees buckled and he sat down with a thump, eyes wide at the betrayal.

“I used to know how,” he said, not quite asking for help, but close.

“It’s okay,” Dick said, hoisting him back up with infinite patience. “You’ve been in bed for a while, it’s normal. You’ll get the hang of it again. Muscle memory. Or maybe just stubbornness.”

This time, they made it three steps before Damian insisted on trying alone. He wobbled, teetered, and caught himself on the side rail of the next gurney. Dick shadowed him, hands out but not touching.

The cave was different at child-eye level. The med bay bled into the trophy corridor, which stretched away into infinity, a gauntlet of glass cases and LED spotlights. Damian stopped at the first display: a faded circus poster from Dick’s own childhood, the colours leached to near pastels, but the outline of the trapeze clear enough to draw a finger along.

“What is that?” Damian asked.

“My family,” Dick said. “Before all this.”

He could have elaborated, but there was no need; the kid was already drifting, shuffling along the hall, fingers pressed to each display case as if checking for secret doors. He paused at the T-Rex skeleton, the fake one Bruce had commissioned as a joke and then kept because Alfred said it would “lend character” to the place. The dinosaur loomed, teeth bared and claws frozen mid-swipe. Damian craned his neck all the way back to take it in, mouth slightly agape.

“Did you kill it?” he asked, awe and horror indistinguishable in the words.

Dick grinned.

“No. Bruce did, but only with paperwork.” He pointed to the plaque. “It’s not real. Just for show.”

Damian processed this.

“It looks dangerous.”

“Yeah. But it’s just a statue.”

“Some statues are haunted,” Damian observed, and for a moment Dick felt the hairs rise on his forearms.

“That’s true,” he said. “But if this one is, it hasn’t given us any trouble yet.”

They moved on. Next, the giant penny—two stories high, dented and riddled with half a century of cave dust. Damian circled it, hand skimming the edge.

“That’s real?” he asked.

Dick nodded.

“Yep. Story for another time.”

He stepped towards the Batsuit. Then looked at Dick.

“This is real, too?” Dick observed Damian's reaction as they approached the Batsuit, waiting for the inevitable question to arise. His heart clenched as he saw the boy's eyes widen in recognition, a flicker of understanding sparking in his gaze. Damian turned to him with a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty, his brow furrowing as he processed the significance of the suit before him. "Is this... yours?" Damian's voice was small, tentative.

Dick took a deep breath, choosing his words with care.

"It's sort of mine. But it used to belong to someone else—someone very important."

The boy hesitated, then fixed his gaze directly on Dick.

"Are you Batman?"

The question hung in the air between them, heavy with unspoken implications. Dick felt a surge of surprise at how perceptive the boy was even at such a young age. He met Damian's gaze, feeling an unspoken weight settle on his shoulders.

"I am, currently at least. Do you remember anything?" he asked gently.

Damian looked confused at that.

“What am I supposed to remember? I know mother told me Batman is my father. Are you my father?”

Dick felt a surge of emotions welling up inside him, a mixture of responsibility, protectiveness, and a tinge of sorrow as he met Damian's inquisitive gaze.
He crouched down to meet the boy at eye level, the gravity of the moment palpable in the air around them.

“No.”

Damian frowned, an adorable look on his small features.

“But she told me. And she told me she would send me to him, when I'm ready.”

Dick sighed.

“She did. She sent you here, to train with your father…” Damian looked as if he wanted to grin smugly, but Dick continued. “She sent you here when you were ten.”

That threw the kid for a loop.

“But… I'm four?”

Dick sighed at that, a deep, sad sigh.

“Something happened. To you. So, now you are four. Until we can fix it, if we can.”

Damian's brows furrowed in confusion at Dick's response. His eyes searched Dick's face, looking for any hint of deception.

"Where is he, then? Why isn't he here?" Damian asked, his voice tinged with doubt and a hint of accusation.

Dick could see the disbelief in Damian's eyes. The boy was grappling with the idea that his father wasn't there when he needed him most.

"He's not here because... something happened to him as well," Dick said, his own heart heavy with the weight of the truth. He was repeating himself. "I'm here to take care of you, Damian. Your father can't be here right now."

But Damian shook his head, his small features contorted in frustration.

"You're saying he isn't here because he doesn't want me, aren't you?" he demanded, his voice rising with each word. “Or are you lying, because I'm bad?” Tears started welling up in his eyes. “You don't want me, so you're saying you're not him!”

Dick watched Damian closely, his heart aching at the child's accusation. He could see the fear and doubt in Damian's eyes, a reflection of a young boy who had been thrust into a world he didn't understand. The weight of abandonment and confusion settled on the young boy's shoulders, evident in the furrow of his brow and the tremble of his lower lip. He seemed close to a panic attack, or a tantrum, now.

"You're not bad, Damian," Dick said softly, reaching out a hand but stopping short of touching the boy. "Your father loves you. There are reasons he can't be here right now, but it doesn't mean he doesn't want you." Damian's gaze flickered between Dick and the Batman suit. The boy's small frame seemed to shrink under the weight of uncertainty and insecurity. "I'm here for you, Damian," Dick said, carefully reaching out a hand. Damian looked at it in confusion. “Do you want me to comfort you? I won't touch you unless it's okay. But it might help.”

The boy blinked.

“Why would you comfort me? Mother told me only my father would be there for me. That only he would take me in when the time came. So…” He looked up, eyes defiant, a glimpse of the boy he used to be. “Since you’re here. And trying to comfort me… You're my father. You're here. You're Batman. You didn't leave me alone when I asked for you to stay.”

It seemed decided to the kid, who nodded to himself and started walking again, looking at the next thing. Dick stared after him, helpless, for a long moment, before walking back towards him, to be there in case he fell.

He would try again later. He supposed it made sense, to the mind of a four-year old. Even if he was highly intelligent. He watched Damian inspect the world, taking everything in as if trying to catalogue it for later. Each new sight drew a question, and each answer seemed to bring another. After five minutes, Damian was winded, and his knees began to knock with fatigue.

“You want to sit?” Dick asked.

Damian hesitated.

“Am I allowed?”

“Yeah,” Dick said, “you can do whatever you want, within reason.”

When he stepped closer, the boy carefully looked to the far side of the cave, where the bed and the computer were. It was far. Damian looked up at Dick, and then he held out his hand. Dick blinked, before stepping closer and lifting him with gentle movements, settling him on his hip. He carried the kid over to the computer bank, plopping him onto the spinning chair, then knelt to eye level. The monitor’s glow painted Damian’s face in halogen blue. He squinted at the endless graphs and blinking data, then looked up at Dick.

“What do you do here?” he asked, direct as ever.

Trying hard not to feel ashamed at being carried, it seemed, a light dusting on his cheeks. Dick thought.

“We help people. We watch the city, keep it safe. Sometimes we chase bad guys. Sometimes we just… fix things.”

Damian’s gaze was sceptical.

“But you’re not my father,” he said, more a statement than a question.

The words hit Dick in the sternum, but he kept the smile.

“No. But I’m doing my best.”

Damian stared at his own hands, turning them over as if hoping to find a clue stamped into the palms.

“Why am I small now?” he asked. “You said I was ten, once.”

Dick bit his lip. He could have lied, but that wasn’t how Bruce would have played it. Clearly his vague words didn’t help.

“Something happened. An accident. You got younger. We’re trying to figure it out.”

“Will I stay like this forever?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said. “But we’ll be with you, either way.”

A silence stretched out. Then Damian’s stomach gurgled, audible over the cave’s hum.

Dick grinned, glad for the distraction.

“You hungry?”

The kid nodded, eyes wide.

“C’mon,” Dick said. “Let’s raid the kitchen. I bet Alfred left something good.”

He carried Damian piggyback now, because it was the fastest way, and because the kid needed the rest. The kitchen was a linoleum cubicle crammed with enough supplies to feed an army for a month. On the counter: a covered tray, two glasses of milk, and, to Dick’s delight, an entire loaf of bread with a jar of peanut butter beside it. He set Damian down at the table and started assembling sandwiches, slicing them into bat shapes with a cookie cutter someone (probably Steph) had smuggled in. Damian watched every movement, fascinated.

“Why bats?” he asked.

Dick shrugged.

“It’s the theme.”

Damian giggled at the first sandwich, then crammed it into his mouth with both hands. He got peanut butter all over his face and looked up, sheepish.

“You can use the napkin,” Dick suggested, then watched as the kid dutifully wiped his cheeks.

They worked through four sandwiches before Damian slowed down. Dick let him eat at his own pace, fielding questions about the bat colony (“Are they trained?”), the size of the kitchen (“Why so small?”), and the rules of peanut butter consumption (“Am I allowed jelly? Mother told me it is a staple in the country of my father.”).

Dick’s phone buzzed once, then twice, urgent pings from the city’s alert system. He silenced it, unwilling to break the moment.

After a while, Damian yawned, his whole body curling into itself. Dick wiped the last of the crumbs from his mouth.

“You want to go back to bed?”

The kid shook his head.

“Will you… stay?” he asked again, quieter this time.

Dick nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.”

He carried Damian back to the med bay, tucking him in with exaggerated care. He was about to step away when a tiny hand shot out and clamped around his wrist.

“Don’t go,” Damian whispered. “Please, Baba.”

The word froze Dick in place.

He’d heard it before—on phone calls with Talia in Arabic, about Bruce; in old messages from the League, even once or twice from Damian himself, in moments of unguarded need, pain and sleepiness towards Bruce. But this was different. This was trust, weaponized as a single word.

Dick sat on the edge of the bed and stroked the kid’s hair, willing himself not to lose it. He still would explain it, later.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Damian blinked, then, in a rush of sleepiness, was gone again, hand still gripping Dick’s wrist.

Dick stared at the ceiling, mind reeling.

He pulled out his phone with his free hand and typed a message:

Damian’s aware of his surroundings now. He’s… changed. Thanks for the food in the kitchen. Will explain. Please bring tiny clothes.

He sent it to Alfred, then, after a pause, with the removed line about the food, to Steph.

The cave felt warmer than before. Less like a bunker, more like a home.

He let himself relax, just a little, and watched the kid breathe.

Steph dropped into the cave the evening after the text, already in full Robin colours and trailing the stale-sweat smell of a night spent chasing Gotham’s latest batch of “themed” carjackers. Her mask was askew, the yellow R on her chest freshly stitched, and both knees of the suit had been patched with a different colour of fabric—orange on the left, red on the right, as if she’d been bored and gone for a style upgrade mid-patrol. She would go out soon.

She barely made it down the spiral staircase before she spotted Damian.

The kid was awake again, no longer content to lie still, and had set up shop in the corner of the med bay with an entire colonnade of makeshift towers: a blood pressure cuff wrapped around a flashlight; three medicine cups stacked like a ziggurat; an EKG lead dangling from the “roof” as a flag. He wore a too-big T-shirt from Dick’s old college days and nothing else, legs knobby and pale under the fluorescent light. The look on his face was pure engineer—serious, focused, and oblivious to everything but the challenge at hand.

Steph stopped cold, took in the sight, and did a double-take worthy of a Looney Tune.

“Holy transformation, Batman,” she said, low but not quite under her breath.

Dick, perched on the edge of the cot, sipped coffee and tried not to look as anxious as he felt.

“He’s been up for about half an hour,” Dick stage-whispered. “Built three things, deconstructed two, and critiqued Alfred’s oatmeal. In Latin.”

Steph’s lips parted—she was going to say something smart, but the moment landed and she just whistled.

“That’s… that’s really him? I know you said he changed, but…”

Dick nodded.

“It’s Damian. Just… smaller. And maybe less likely to try to kill me for the time being.”

Steph approached the little architect slowly, crouching to his level. She held out both hands, palms up, as if approaching a skittish animal.

“Hey, dude. Remember me?”

Damian stared, suspicious, eyes darting from Steph’s face to her patched suit. He scowled, then gestured at her uniform with a flick of the wrist.

“Your colours do not match,” he said. The word “do” was an accusation.

Steph grinned.

“Yeah, I know. It’s the style now. You like it?”

Damian regarded her for a second longer, then nodded, once. She moved a little closer, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“I’m Steph. You can call me your sister, if you want. Or your friend.”

The kid mulled that over, then returned to his building.

“Sister,” he said, as if filing away the label for future reference.

Steph’s smile softened. She reached into her belt, fished out a foil-wrapped chocolate bar, and held it out.

“Peace offering?”

Damian looked at Dick for permission. Dick nodded.

“Go ahead. You earned it.”

The little boy took the chocolate, unwrapped it with surgical precision, and broke off a tiny square. He sniffed it, tasted it, then set it aside and resumed his work.

Steph shot Dick a look: is this normal?

Dick shrugged.

“He likes building more than eating, apparently.”

Steph lowered her voice.

“How are you holding up?”

Dick winced.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Welcome to the family,” Steph said, grinning.

Then she gestured for Dick to join her on the floor. He did, sitting with his knees up and his arms locked around them, like a camp counsellor at a very weird summer retreat.

Damian, focused on his project, mumbled, “Do you always eat food like this here?”

The blonde glanced at the oatmeal, then the chocolate, then at Dick.

“Sometimes we get pizza. Sometimes Alfred cooks real stuff. You hungry?”

Damian shook his head, but then hesitated.

“Can I have the rest of the chocolate?”

Steph passed it over, and he ate with a neatness that bordered on robotic. Dick leaned in, voice barely above a whisper.

“He called me Baba last night.”

Steph raised her eyebrows.

“That’s good, right? Means he trust you. Even if it’s going to get weird when he actually remembers.”

“I think so. But it also means… I’m it. I’m the parent now.”

Steph didn’t laugh. Instead, she laid a hand on Dick’s arm.

“You got this. He trusts you already. You’re the most parent-shaped person I’ve ever met, Grayson.”

Dick smiled, but the worry was still there.

“I’m scared I’ll mess him up even worse than he already was.”

Steph looked at Damian, then back at Dick.

“You ever hear the story about when my mom got me a goldfish for my birthday?”

Dick shook his head. Steph grinned, a little sad.

“She forgot to buy food, so for a week I fed it pieces of bread. It lived, but it got huge, and the scales turned white. Mom called it a mutant. But it was the best birthday I ever had, because I got to take care of something. Even if I did it wrong.”

Dick snorted.

“Not sure that’s a glowing recommendation.”

Steph squeezed his arm.

“You’re not a goldfish. Neither is Damian. All you gotta do is show up. Every day. He’ll forgive the rest.”

They watched the kid for a few minutes. He’d taken apart his tower and was now building a bridge out of tongue depressors and syringe caps. When it collapsed, he looked frustrated, then immediately started again, tweaking the supports.

“He’s persistent,” Steph said.

“Yeah,” Dick replied. “That part didn’t change.”

After a while, Damian set down his work and looked at them, uncertain.

“Are you mad that I’m small now?” he asked.

The question was so blunt that it took Dick a second to answer.

“Not mad,” Dick said. “Just surprised. But you’re still you, and that’s what matters.”

Steph nodded.

“You’re the coolest kid in the cave, hands down.”

Damian considered this.

“I don’t remember much,” he admitted. “But I like it better here.”

Dick’s heart lurched. Steph tousled the boy’s hair, then stood.

“I gotta go run a patrol. But I’ll bring you back a souvenir. Maybe a new toy for your collection.”

Damian nodded solemnly. Steph clapped Dick on the shoulder.

“Take care, Baba.” She said it loud, so Damian would hear.

Dick made a face, but the word didn’t sting so much, coming from her.

After Steph left, the cave was quieter. Damian scooted over, sat next to Dick, and leaned his head against his arm.

“Will you teach me to build a tower that doesn’t fall down?” he asked.

Dick smiled, for real this time.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

They sat together, building bridges out of nothing, until night turned into morning.

By late morning, the cave’s hum softened from mission control to background noise, and Dick found himself standing in the corridor outside the emergency shower, holding a bath towel and an oversized Gotham Knights T-shirt. The towel had a faded print of cartoon bats, likely a relic from the manor’s long-ago guest rooms. The T-shirt, size XS, was still comically large for a four-year-old, but after a quick consultation with Alfred via text, Dick decided it would suffice for pjs.

Getting Damian into the shower was less a negotiation and more an exercise in strategic patience. The boy regarded the tiled cell with suspicion, as if suspecting a trap. He tapped the drain cover with a bare toe, then scrutinised the safety rail as if expecting it to detach and become a weapon.

“It’s just water,” Dick promised, trying to sound more in control than he felt. “No tricks. And if you hate it, I’ll let you skip tomorrow.”

Damian considered, then stepped in, hugging his bony arms to his chest. Dick turned on the water, tested it, and dialled the temperature to a perfect lukewarm. Steam fogged the mirror, blurring the world to greyscale. Damian stood under the spray, blinking, then let out a startled yelp when water got in his ear.

“Sorry, bud,” Dick said, reaching in to help.

He lathered a dollop of shampoo and started to gently scrub the kid’s hair. It was strange—intimate, and so, so fragile. Damian’s head fit easily in his palm, the skull ridged and new. As Dick worked through the tangles, he thought of every time he’d patched up his own wounds in this same shower, how nothing had ever seemed softer or more defenceless than this right now.

When the hair was clean, Dick wrapped Damian in the towel and dried him off with clinical efficiency, careful not to jar the delicate joints. He dressed the boy in the Knights tee, cinched it around the waist with a shoelace, and found a pair of thick socks that nearly reached his thighs. Damian inspected the socks with a faint smile, then did a little dance on the rubber mat, the first time he’d looked at peace since the transformation.

“You good?” Dick asked.

Damian nodded.

“It’s better than before,” he said. “It smells like you.”

Dick’s face went hot.

“Yeah, well. I’ve got a lot of those.”

They ate a quiet dinner in the cave kitchen—grilled cheese and canned soup, the kind of meal Bruce would have disapproved of but Alfred would have made anyway. Damian ate slowly, scraping the crusts off with surgical precision, and asked a thousand questions about the cave’s power supply, the city’s nighttime population, and whether the bats ever got lost.

“They know their way,” Dick answered. “They use echoes. Like sonar.”

Damian blinked.

“I want to learn that. A way to always find home.”

Dick grinned.

“You will. I’ll teach you.”

After dinner, they cleaned up together, and Dick showed Damian how to stack the plates in the sanitiser. Damian listened, attentive, and repeated the steps under his breath until he had it memorised.

When naptime approached, Dick led Damian back to the med bay. He’d made up the cot with extra blankets, piling them high for comfort. Damian crawled under the covers without protest, but didn’t lie down. He sat cross-legged, expectant, hands clasped in his lap.

Dick perched on the end of the cot, uncertain.

“You want a story?”

Damian nodded, then added, “A real one.”

Dick thought, then began:

“Once upon a time, there was a knight who lived in a big, dark castle at the edge of the city. The knight wasn’t always brave, but he always tried to help people, even if he was scared. He had lots of friends, but they were all a little strange—one wore purple, one told jokes, one liked to punch people and ask questions later.”Damian’s eyes got wide.

“Did the knight have a squire?”

“He had a few,” Dick said. “Some of them left for a while, but they always came back. They had to, because the knight was stubborn, and he never remembered to eat breakfast.” Damian snickered. “One day, the knight found out that he wasn’t the only one fighting monsters. There were other knights, and even some people who weren’t supposed to fight at all, but did anyway. So the knight started a family, and everyone took care of each other, even when they were mad, or tired, or scared.”

“Did they win?” Damian asked, voice small.

Dick ruffled the boy’s hair.

“Every time. Sometimes it just took a while.”

Damian considered this, then scooted down until his head touched the pillow. He pulled the blanket up to his chin.

“Thank you,” he whispered, not quite meeting Dick’s eyes.

Dick sat a moment longer, then stood to turn off the main light, leaving just the soft blue of the monitor to paint the room.

As he reached the door, he heard Damian’s voice, quiet but unmistakable:

“Will you be my Baba forever? I know you said you’re not, but…”

Dick froze. He turned, looked at the boy, who looked back with open, trembling hope.

Dick crossed the room, knelt beside the cot, and stroked the kid’s hair.

“As long as you need me to be,” he said.

Damian nodded, eyes already heavy. He drifted off, breath deepening and evening out, the blankets rising and falling like the slowest, steadiest pulse.

Dick stood, silhouetted against the cave’s soft light, and watched the sleeping child for a long time. He thought about Bruce, about his own parents, about every lost family that had cobbled itself back together in the cracks and cold of Gotham.

“I promise I won’t let you down,” he said, the vow soft but real.

And I promise you will get to be a child first, he added, just for himself.

The cave was silent, except for the gentle rhythm of two hearts, one new and one old, keeping time together in the dark.

Chapter Text

The Batcave was quiet, for once, and that should have been a warning. Dick had grown up in the aftershocks of tantrums—the way the air pressure changed before Jason punched a hole in the drywall, or the way Cass’s shadow would disappear up the wall seconds before the boom of her fist against the punching bag. But Damian was a different breed: he didn’t telegraph, he detonated. You could count on one hand the number of true blowouts since the regression, but each one had left a mark on the cave’s memory.

Tonight’s outburst began with a thunk against the med bay wall, and then a second, harder one, the hollow sound of plastic on stone. Dick was at the computer, scanning through case logs, when the third impact rang out—a sharper crack, followed by the skitter of something across the tile. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and listened to the rhythm. He counted two more impacts, then a rising staccato of kicks. Damian’s voice, when it finally broke through, was a shriek:

“It doesn’t fit! It doesn’t fit, Baba, it doesn’t—” and then a howl so furious it dissolved into hiccuping sobs.

Dick stood, ignoring the creak in his knees, and walked to the source. In the middle of the training area, Damian stood surrounded by a debris field: a foam sparring staff snapped in two, a tangle of resistance bands, three small hand weights scattered like shrapnel. He wore a scowl so deep it seemed carved into the bone, his tiny fists balled at his sides, knuckles white. His chest heaved, sweat pasted his hair to his forehead, and tears had already started to cut pale tracks through the heat on his cheeks.

Dick crouched, one arm braced on his knee. He waited. Damian glared at him, lip quivering.

“It’s all wrong,” he said. “My hands—” He held them out, trembling, as if Dick could confirm they were defective. “They’re too small. I can’t even—” He kicked at the ruined spar, then jerked back when it bounced up and nearly hit him in the ankle. “I can’t even break anything properly. This body is…useless.”

Dick let the words hang, watching for the next wave. Damian delivered, voice rising in a wail:

“I remember how! I remember all of it! I dream about fighting, and running, and climbing—” His breathing spiked, and he shuddered. “But when I wake up, I can’t even hit the target, or jump, or—”

He trailed off, shoulders wracked. Dick moved closer, kneeling until their faces were level. He held out his hands, palms up, and waited. Damian looked at him with a blend of hatred and desperation. Then, suddenly, he flung himself forward and pounded both fists against Dick’s chest.

“You don’t get it!” he screamed. “I’m trapped. I can’t… I can’t…”

He kept going, raining blows that barely stung through the layers of suit and muscle, but Dick didn’t move. He just wrapped his arms around the boy, holding him in place as Damian sobbed into his sternum and kept hitting, the blows getting weaker and sloppier with each pass.

“It’s okay,” Dick said, soft and repetitive, “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay—”

“I’m not,” Damian wailed. “I’m not okay. I’m broken.”

Dick squeezed him tighter, letting the heat of his own body soak into the shivering, furious mess in his arms. “You’re not broken,” he said. “You’re just… not finished yet.”

Damian went still, except for the tremble in his back.

For a long minute, neither of them spoke. Dick could hear the heart rate monitor across the cave, ticking a slow, steady pulse, and the whine of the elevator as it cycled through its nightly diagnostics.

Finally, when Damian’s breathing evened out, Dick loosened his grip just enough to see the boy’s face.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked.

Damian turned away, sullen.

“No.”

Dick let that be.

But after another minute, the boy spoke again, voice almost inaudible.

“They’re worse at night.”

Dick nodded.

“The dreams?”

Damian hesitated, then gave a tiny, jerky nod.

“They’re not…they’re not always the same. Sometimes I don’t even remember them after I wake up.” He looked at the floor. “But then I do, later. And it feels like…”

He shook his head, at a loss for words. Dick filled in the gaps.

“Like you lived it once, but now it’s all out of order.”

Damian met his eyes, surprised.

“Yes,” he said, the word tiny.

Dick sat all the way down, legs folded.

“You want to tell me what you dream about?”

Damian bristled, but then his face softened, some of the anger seeping out.

“It’s…there’s a pit,” he said. “And it’s green. And it smells like…like chemicals, and something else. I know I’m supposed to be scared of it, but I’m not. I just…feel cold.” He glanced at Dick, then away. “Sometimes there’s people. They’re yelling at me. I don’t know the words, but I know it’s bad.” He shrugged, the motion tiny but helpless. “Then I wake up.”

Dick felt the chill in his own spine. He’d heard stories about the Lazarus Pit, had seen what it did to Bruce and even to Jason, once, but Damian had never mentioned being inside one before. The old Damian had always denied it, said he’d only ever seen it from a distance. But this new iteration had a fresh set of traumas. Or maybe—Dick’s mind flicked through the possibilities—maybe they were memories from a different timeline, or things that Ra’s had threatened but never carried out. Maybe Damian had lied, and it had actually been enforced before.

Or maybe it just felt that way, in the dark.

He placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

“That pit you’re dreaming about—it’s called the Lazarus Pit. Your grandfather used to use it. It’s dangerous, and scary, but it can’t get to you here. Okay?”

Damian nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

“Do you want to know anything else about it?” Dick asked, careful.

Damian shook his head.

“No. I just want to stop dreaming about it.”

Dick smiled, but it hurt.

“Yeah. Me too.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder, then stood up, dusting off his knees. “You want to help me clean up?”

Damian hesitated, then nodded. He wiped his face on his sleeve and started gathering the scattered hand weights. When he bent down to pick one up, he grunted in frustration—it was heavier than he expected, and his small fingers couldn’t get a good grip. He shot a look at Dick, daring him to say something.

Instead, Dick just picked up the broken spar and held it out.

“We’ll get you one that fits tomorrow,” he said. “Promise.”

Damian took it, a little less angry than before. They tidied the mess together, working in silence. After everything was back in place, Dick sat on the edge of the training mat and patted the spot next to him.

Damian flopped down, cross-legged, and stared at the floor.

“Hey,” Dick said, “if you ever want to talk about the dreams, or if you wake up and you’re scared, you can come find me. Even if I’m asleep. Even if it’s the middle of the night. Okay?”

Damian didn’t answer right away, but then nodded, a fraction softer than before. Dick slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in, rough but not unkind.

“You’re stuck with me, kid,” he said. “Might as well get used to it.”

Damian’s mouth quirked up, almost a smile.

“Fine,” he said. “But only if I get to pick the next training exercise.”

Dick laughed.

“Deal. But if you choose dodgeball again, I’m calling child services.”

Damian snickered, and for a moment, the weight lifted.

They sat there for a while, just two shadows in the cave’s blue glow, and Dick realized that maybe the best thing he could do was exactly what he’d just done: be there, be patient, and keep showing up, no matter how many times the world fell apart and had to be rebuilt.

When it was time for bed, Damian went without protest. Dick tucked him in, then lingered at the door, watching the rise and fall of the blankets.

“Baba?” Damian called, just before Dick flipped off the light.

“Yeah, bud?”

“Do you think I’ll get bigger again? Like before?”

Dick paused, then nodded.

“I think so. Might take a while, but we’ll figure it out. And if it's not reversible, you'll still grow.”

“Okay,” Damian said, and closed his eyes. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Damian.”

The Batcave’s gym was chaos by design—rings suspended from ceiling girders, balance beams running between columns, the padded floor stitched with a thousand scuffs and stains from a thousand training sessions gone sideways. In the far corner, Dick had constructed something new: a scaled-down obstacle course, part playground, part boot camp, all held together with duct tape, hope, and the knowledge that Alfred could fix any structural issue with a raised eyebrow and a day’s notice.

Damian was unimpressed. He stood at the start line, arms folded, face set in what Steph had once dubbed the “mini-Bruce” expression—a kind of supercilious gloom that only brightened for violence or vindication.

Dick crouched beside him, pointing at the first station: a tunnel made from foam mats, followed by a crawl under laser pointers taped to broomsticks, a mini climbing wall, and finally a set of logic puzzles on touchscreens, scavenged from Bruce’s own detective course. It was more playroom than gauntlet, but for a four-year-old with a history of murder and mayhem, it was about right.

“We’re doing this as a team,” Dick said. “You lead, I follow.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“Why?”

Dick shrugged.

“Because you said you remember everything you could do. Because your dreams tell you. Time to put it to the test.”

Damian scowled, but there was a flicker of interest.

“What if I finish before you?”

“Then you get to pick dinner,” Dick said. “Alfred’s cooking. Stakes are high.”

That got a smirk.

“Fine. But you can’t go easy on me.”

“I promise I won’t.”

Damian approached the tunnel with caution, eyeing the entrance for traps. Satisfied, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through, moving with surprising speed. Dick waited until he was halfway, then followed, the tunnel groaning in protest at his larger frame.

“Too slow, Baba,” Damian called, echoing through the foam.

They hit the laser crawl next. Damian slid under the makeshift beams, moving flat and low. At the final row, his foot caught on the tape, and the broomstick clattered to the mat. He froze, mortified, and looked at Dick as if daring him to comment.

Dick grinned.

“You get extra points for style.”

Damian’s scowl deepened, but he didn’t correct the error. He just reset the broomstick and moved on, jaw clenched.

At the climbing wall, things got harder. The holds were tiny, and Damian’s fingers struggled for purchase. Dick hovered behind, hands ready to catch, but the kid powered up two rows before his arms started to shake. He slipped, lost his grip, and landed hard on the crash pad, fists pounding the mat in rage.

“I can’t,” he spat. “I’m not strong enough.”

“You will be,” Dick said. “But right now, we’re a team. So we help each other.”

Damian glared, but accepted Dick’s cupped hands, using them as a step to reach the next hold. He clambered over the wall, breathing hard, and stood on the other side with a mixture of pride and humiliation.

The last station was the puzzles: a sequence of colour and pattern games, simple for Dick but diabolically difficult for a preschooler. Damian attacked them with fury, jabbing at the screen, muttering to himself. The first two went quickly, but the third—an abstract logic sequence Bruce had used to weed out new Robins—stumped him.

Dick waited, silent, until Damian’s lip started to tremble.

“Want a hint?” he asked, careful.

Damian shook his head, but after a long minute, he said:

“One.”

“Look for the repeating pattern,” Dick said. “It’s not about the shapes, it’s about the gaps between them.”

Damian frowned, stared at the puzzle, then tapped a solution. The console chimed, and the lock clicked open.

He didn’t smile, but Dick saw the glow in his eyes.

“That’s it,” Dick said. “Course complete. What do you think?”

Damian considered, then shrugged.

“It was… acceptable training.”

Dick laughed, ruffling the boy’s hair.

“You did great.”

Damian batted his hand away, but not very hard.

“You lost, Baba. I win dinner.”

“Fair and square,” Dick said. “But you’re cleaning up the crash pad.”

Damian groaned, but set to work, dragging the mat into place. Dick helped, stacking the foam blocks, and watched as the boy’s mood reset, frustration draining away with each small success. When the gym was back in order, Damian flopped onto the mat, arms spread wide.

“I remember being faster,” he said, voice soft.

“You will be,” Dick promised. “You’re already braver. But you can be a child, as well.”

Damian rolled his eyes, but the compliment stuck.

After a minute, he said, “Next time, make the wall higher.”

Dick grinned.

“Deal.”

They sat together in the hush of the empty gym, side by side, sweat cooling on their skin and hearts thumping the same exhausted, satisfied rhythm.

Alfred arrived in the Batcave with the stealth of a seasoned predator. No one else could make the echo of hard-soled shoes on bedrock sound dignified, but Alfred Pennyworth had spent a lifetime turning the ridiculous into the sublime. He entered the gym bearing two objects: a manila folder under one arm, and a basket of cookies—still steaming, the smell of sugar and browned butter curling through the cave’s chill like a small, private rebellion against entropy.

Dick saw him first, and grinned. “You’re early,” he said, sitting up straighter on the crash mat.

Damian, caught mid-nibble on a cookie he’d filched from the snack drawer, snapped to attention, crumbs spangling his lap. He dusted himself off with dignity, then popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth, eyes never leaving Alfred.

“I’m never early,” Alfred said, setting down the basket, “merely less late than expected.” He surveyed the obstacle course, one eyebrow cocked in appraisal. “Ingenious, Master Richard. Creative problem-solving is the hallmark of a truly desperate parent.”

Damian bristled at the last word, but Alfred didn’t linger. He moved to the workbench, laid out the folder, and smoothed its surface with the care of a man prepping a field dressing.

“Shall I?” he asked.

Dick nodded, waving Damian over. “You’re part of this, too, kiddo. Come here.”

Damian hesitated, then shuffled over, chin up and gaze wary. Alfred opened the folder.

“Your most recent blood work,” he said, glancing at Damian, “shows nothing amiss. All metabolic and hormonal levels are within normal range—for a boy your current age, that is.” Damian considered this, then nodded, as if it was exactly what he’d expected. “Psychological screening is similarly unremarkable,” Alfred continued, “though, and I mean this with affection, you remain as stubborn as ever.” Damian’s mouth twitched. “However,” Alfred said, voice softening, “our consultants concur with what we’d already suspected. The…reversal, if you will, appears permanent. There is no evidence of further regression, nor of any means to accelerate normal growth. You are, for all intents and purposes, a healthy four-year-old. Albeit, one with a rather impressive vocabulary and, it seems, a penchant for violence.”

Damian asked, in a voice that barely quivered, “Does that mean I’ll be like this forever?”
Alfred considered, then knelt down to eye level—a rare move for a man who regarded kneeling as an invitation to sciatica.
“It means, Master Damian, that you have a wonderful opportunity. To be a child, in a way few people are ever allowed. To grow up with people who care for you, and to make the most of this new start. Because grow up is what you will do. At the normal rate of a four year old.”
Damian looked unconvinced. Alfred rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and looked past him, to Dick.

“You know, Master Damian, when Master Bruce was your age, he had a tantrum that shattered every pane of glass in the west wing. The housekeeper resigned on the spot. I was left to sweep up both the glass and the pieces of his pride.”
Damian’s eyes went round.

“He broke all the windows?”
Alfred’s lips twitched.

“With a cricket bat and very little regard for property values.” Dick laughed, a genuine sound, and felt some of the tension slide off his shoulders. “Master Bruce was quite the handful,” Alfred continued, “but he was also the most remarkable child I have ever known. He grew up into a remarkable man, not because he was perfect, but because he cared. And because he had people—eventually—who would not let him fall.”

Damian looked at Dick, searching for a reaction. Dick met his gaze, the news washing over him in two waves: relief first, then a low, throbbing ache he hadn’t anticipated.

“Thank you,” Dick said to Alfred. “Really.”

Alfred closed the folder with a snap.

“Of course.”

Damian climbed onto the mat, cross-legged, picking at the hem of his shorts.

“Is this really forever? Are you mad?” he asked, quiet.

Dick sat beside him, voice gentle. “Looks like it, bud. But we’ll figure it out together. And you will grow up again. So not forever. I would never be mad about that.”

A long silence followed, filled by the tick of the computer banks and the smell of cooling cookies. Alfred moved closer, lowering himself onto the mat with the creak of old bones and older suits.

“Master Damian, may I offer some advice?”

Damian nodded, suspicious but attentive.

“When Master Bruce lost his parents,” Alfred began, “he was not in a better mood than you are now. He was angry—oh, so angry—but he was also terrified. He lashed out, refused help, insisted he could fix everything alone.” Alfred’s smile was sad and proud all at once. “He failed, of course. Often. Sometimes spectacularly. But he never gave up. And, in time, he allowed himself to accept the help of others. Even mine.” He reached out, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Damian’s ear after waiting to give the boy chance to retreat. “You are not alone in this, Master Damian. Not ever, unless you choose to be.”

Damian’s lip trembled, but he held steady. Dick put a hand on his back, rubbing slow circles.

“Alfred’s right. We’re a team. And if you want to talk about anything—anything—I’m here. Anytime.”

For a moment, Damian seemed on the verge of tears, but he swallowed hard and shook his head.

“I’m fine,” he said, stubborn to the last.

Alfred handed him a fresh cookie, this time without comment. Dick watched the exchange, heart twisting. He glanced at Alfred, who gave a small nod of approval. When Damian was distracted by the treat, Alfred leaned over, voice low.

“You’re doing well, Master Richard. Better than you think.”

Dick snorted.

“I feel like I’m making it up.”

Alfred’s eyes glinted.

“We all do, at first. The trick is to care enough to keep trying. And that, my boy, none of us doubts.”

Dick laughed, the sound raw but honest. Damian, finishing his second cookie, looked up.

“May I have milk?” he asked, the request so normal that it stunned them both.

Alfred stood, smooth as a butler at a royal court.

“I’ll fetch some. Do not destroy the cave while I’m gone.”

When he left, Damian scooted closer to Dick, so close their knees touched.

“Baba?” he said, voice uncertain.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Will I ever get to be a Robin? Now that I'm stuck like this…”

Dick smiled, ruffling his hair.

“If you want to. But you don’t have to be. You can be anything.”

Damian mulled this over, then nodded, satisfied.

When Alfred returned with the milk, the three of them sat together on the mat, passing the glass around, cookies crumbling and sticking to their fingers. For a little while, the Batcave felt less like a tomb and more like a home. Alfred broke the spell first, standing to brush off his trousers.

“If I may,” he said, “you have an appointment in the morning. Doctor’s orders.”

Damian scowled.

“I don’t like doctors.”

Dick winked.

“You like breakfast, though. We’ll get pancakes after.”

Damian considered, then nodded.

“Okay.”

“Also, the room is ready. So, Master Damian. You're free to move upstairs.”

When Alfred left, Dick cleaned up the mat, then sat beside Damian, shoulder to shoulder - or shoulder to ribs.

“You know,” Dick said, “being your Baba isn’t what I planned. But I don’t think I’d trade it for anything.”

Damian didn’t answer, but the smile he gave—quick, fierce, unguarded—said more than any words. They stayed like that for a long time, two lost kids and a world rebuilt around them, one cookie crumb at a time.

The walk up to the Manor’s living quarters felt ceremonial, like a graduation march with no diploma at the end. Dick led the way, Alfred at his side, and Damian sandwiched between them, silent and shifty-eyed. The kid had always hated transitions—moving from one state to another, one place to another, one role to another. Now, scaled down and stripped of most of his old armor, he seemed even more allergic to change.

“Up we go,” Dick said, trying for lightness as he thumbed the code that unlocked the main residential corridor.

The lights snapped on in a wave, illuminating polished wood and ornate molding, the air heavy with lemon oil and history. Damian lagged at the threshold, head cocked, nostrils flaring as he processed the unfamiliar.

“It’s not as cold as the cave,” he said, reluctant admiration in his tone.

Alfred smiled, shepherding him forward.

“Insulation, Master Damian. A modern miracle.”

Dick steered them to the end of the hall, where a door stood half-open, a square of blue spilling out.

“This one’s yours,” he said, pausing at the entrance.

Damian peered inside. The room was small but not childish: deep blue walls, white trim, blackout curtains framing a big bay window. A toddler bed sat against one wall, Batman sheets tucked with military precision; next to it, a child-sized desk, sharp corners blunted with rubber bumpers. A bookshelf ran the length of one wall, filled with a mix of picture books and, Dick noticed, a few of the advanced science and history texts he’d slipped in as an experiment. There was a rug—dark gray, with a pattern of tiny bats—and on it, an easel and a set of brand-new drawing supplies.

Damian entered cautiously, as if expecting a net to drop from the ceiling.

He did a circuit: ran fingers over the bookshelf, opened the closet (empty save for a few sets of pajamas and a miniature suit), tested the springs on the bed by sitting, then bouncing once, experimentally. He inspected the desk drawers, the lamp, even the hinges on the door.

At last, he turned to Dick.

“It’s… adequate,” he pronounced.

Dick grinned.

“High praise, coming from you.”

Alfred chuckled, smoothing a wrinkle in the comforter.

“You’ll find it quite secure. We’ve added window sensors, reinforced the locks, and set the alarm for this section to chime only in the kitchen, should you wish to move about at night.”

Damian absorbed this, then shrugged.

“Thank you,” he said, so softly it was almost inaudible.

Dick nodded at the drawing supplies.

“We got those because you used to like sketching. You don’t have to use them if you don’t want.”

Damian eyed the easel with suspicion.

“Will you make me?”

“Nope,” Dick said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “If you ever feel like drawing, they’ll be here. If not, that’s fine too.”

Damian considered this, then turned his attention back to the bookshelf. He pulled out a thick volume—an encyclopedia, probably heavier than his head—and sat cross-legged on the rug, flipping the pages. The room, once a static museum piece, started to look lived in. Alfred stepped out, leaving Dick in the doorway.

“You did good,” Dick said to himself, watching the kid trace a diagram of an airplane with one finger.

He waited a beat, then crouched next to Damian.

“You sure you’re okay with this?”

Damian frowned.

“It’s just a room.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “But it’s your room. You can make it whatever you want. We changed it, from how it was before.”

A long silence, then:

“Can I move the bed?”

“Anywhere you want.”

Damian nodded, already making a blueprint in his head.

Dick stood, gave the kid space. Before he left, he glanced over his shoulder: Damian was stacking the pillows at the head of the bed, aligning them with surgical precision.

“Looks good,” Dick said.

Damian didn’t look up, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

“Where's your room?”

“Right opposite. I'm never far away, okay?”

As Dick closed the door, he caught a glimpse of the kid picking up a crayon, holding it like a scalpel, and drawing—tentative, careful, but drawing all the same. He felt Alfred’s presence behind him, a question unasked.

“He’ll be fine,” Dick said, but it sounded like a prayer.

Alfred just patted his shoulder.

“So will you, Master Richard.”

Dick nodded. He wasn’t sure he believed it yet. But the sound of crayons scratching paper was a good start.

The next day, Dick, Steph, Alfred, and Damian made the pilgrimage to the children’s clothing store. It was an ordeal—Steph in her element, bouncing between racks and narrating every sartorial atrocity she encountered, Alfred trailing like a stately ghost with a tape measure and a legal pad, and Damian caught in a perpetual state of existential horror as he surveyed the displays. The store specialized in “Gotham chic” for the under-ten set: in the current floor, rows of pint-sized suits, tiny fedoras, glitter-bombed tulle dresses, and a wall of graphic tees blaring cartoon animals in radioactive colors. Steph darted immediately to the sparkliest section and began building a pile for herself (“I think sometimes that you forget I am still a teenager and can find stuff in my size here”), while Alfred methodically ticked off essentials from the list: seven pairs of socks, five undershirts, two sets of pj’s, three formal outfits, and enough rain gear to survive a monsoon.

Damian hovered in the aisle, arms crossed, gaze withering. Dick kneeled next to him, voice low.

“You don’t have to wear anything you hate, you know. We’re just here to make sure you’re not running around in pyjamas all day.”

Damian scowled, then, after a moment, allowed, “I require at least one jacket.”

“Good call,” Dick said. “Let’s see what they’ve got.”

The jacket section was marginally less traumatic, featuring several rows of bomber-style coats and pea jackets. Damian zeroed in on a slim, red number with black trim, fingered the lining with approval, and slung it over his arm. He rejected every shirt that featured a dinosaur or a pun. He found a set of training clothes—black joggers, gray T-shirts—and examined the seams with the intensity of a textile engineer. For shoes, he selected boots modeled after Dick’s own, down to the laces.

After a few laps, Steph appeared with her haul: a pile of graphic tees, a sequined miniskirt, and a hoodie that looked like it had been dipped in highlighter.

“Ready for the runway, little man?” she chirped, holding out a pair of sunglasses. “I think these would look sick with the jacket.”

Damian regarded her like she’d suggested a live cobra as an accessory, but after a second, he took the glasses and set them on his nose. The effect was absurd and perfect.

“Nice,” Dick said, holding up a hand for a high five.

Damian left him hanging, but the corners of his mouth curled in grudging satisfaction. Alfred presided over the fitting rooms, adjusting hems and collars, marking everything with tailor’s chalk. They would get the clothes anyways.

“Turn, please,” he said to Damian, who complied with military precision.

“You’ll grow into it,” Alfred said, after each item.

Steph, already in her second outfit, pirouetted past.

“You look awesome, Dames.”

Damian glared, but wore the jacket a few minutes longer than necessary.

At the checkout, Dick loaded the cart, added a pack of superhero band-aids for emergencies, and reached for his wallet. The cashier—a woman with bright pink hair and an easy smile—rung everything up, glancing from Damian to Dick.

“He’s adorable,” she said, sliding the tag on the red jacket. “You’re a great dad.”

Dick opened his mouth to correct her, but Steph beat him to it:

“He tries his best,” she said, beaming. She put her haul on the table too. “And that's why he will get his favourite sister some things as well.”

Dick raised an eyebrow at her. The cashier laughed.

Alfred offered no correction, just handed over the loyalty card.

They left the store weighed down with bags. Steph crowed over her new hoodie, twirling in the sunlight. Damian walked ahead, red jacket zipped and sunglasses on, carrying one of his own bags with grim determination. Dick watched him, pride swelling.

“Hey you two, want to get ice cream before we go home?” he offered.

Steph whooped; Alfred rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest.

They sat on the curb, cones in hand. Steph licked her rainbow swirl, recounting every shopping victory. Damian chose chocolate, but ate it with forensic care, each bite measured and precise. Dick nudged him.

“You happy with the haul?”

Damian nodded, mouth full.

“Anything else you want to do today?”

A long pause, then:

“I want to help with dinner.”

“Done,” Dick said.

They finished their ice cream, the city buzzing around them. For a moment, Dick let himself believe it: that this was enough, that the pieces could stay put for more than a day at a time. Steph poked him in the ribs.

“Great dad, huh?” she whispered, loud enough for Damian to hear.

Damian looked at him over the rim of his sunglasses, then said, “He tries his best.”

Dick laughed, and the world felt just a little more manageable.

They walked home, bags swinging, sunlight glinting off the new jacket. No one said it, but it was clear: this was their family now, and it was as good as any Dick could have ever hoped for.

The Batcave was a different creature at dusk. The overheads dimmed automatically, the shadows gathering in the corners like old cats. Dick sat at the workbench, cycling through case files, every so often glancing at the blueprint he and Tim had been tweaking for an upgrade to the city’s drone surveillance net. He was reading, but not really reading; his focus kept drifting to the far end of the cave, where Damian sat cross-legged on the floor, building a fortress out of magnetic blocks. It wasn’t a random structure. Dick could see the logic: a squat central keep, flanked by two cylindrical towers, the whole thing ringed with a wall and a neat line of tiny “guards” cut from paper. Wayne Manor, recreated from memory, only the scale was slightly off. The towers were a little too tall, the windows too narrow, as if Damian were compensating for something he couldn’t name.

Dick watched him work, heart caught between pride and ache. The kid had always been a builder, but never like this—before, everything was weapons, traps, escapes. Now it was symmetry and security. He'd already changed so much, compared to the angry boy from before. He was so lost in thought that Alfred’s approach startled him.

“Apologies,” the butler said, voice pitched for hush. He held a thick, official-looking folder, blue with gold foil on the spine. “You have a natter to attend to,” he added, and gestured at the papers.

Dick took the folder, flipped it open, and scanned the first page.

“What’s this?” he asked, though the answer hovered in the air.

“Finalized today,” Alfred said. “After much wrangling. The courts required extensive documentation.”

Damian looked up, squinting at the folder. Dick thumbed through the contents. There were a dozen forms, some stamped, some notarized. The first was a petition for legal guardianship—his name at the top, Damian’s in the ward field, the text stark and unambiguous:

“Richard John Grayson to assume all rights, responsibilities, and privileges pertaining to the minor, Damian Wayne.”

There was a copy of a document he’d never seen: a letter, dated years ago, signed in Bruce’s precise hand, declaring that in the event of his death or incapacitation, custody of “any minor child or ward” would default to Dick.

He blinked, reread it.

“Did you know about this?” he asked Alfred.

The old man nodded.

“Master Bruce believed in contingency above all else. He prepared the document shortly after Master Jason joined the household.” A pause. “It also applies to Miss Brown and Master Drake, though I imagine only one of them will appreciate the gesture.”

Dick laughed, then sobered.

“How did you get this through? We still haven’t declared him—”

“Absent, not deceased,” Alfred said, firm. “And, legally, your status as eldest ward and former adopted child allowed for a transfer of guardianship. I spent weeks on the phone.” His lips twitched. “You are officially a parent.”

Dick closed the folder, hands shaking just a little. Damian crept over, peering at the folder.

“Is that my file?” he asked, wary.

“Sort of,” Dick said. “It means I’m in charge of you. For real.”

Damian considered.

“You already were.”

“True,” Dick said, ruffling his hair. “But now it’s on paper.”

Damian seemed to accept this. He poked at the folder, then wandered back to his blocks, picking up where he’d left off.

Dick waited for the dread to hit, the cold sense of finality. But it didn’t come. Instead, he felt a weird, soaring pride. Alfred watched him, eyes bright.

“You don’t have to sign now. But the sooner you do, the sooner we can move forward.”

Dick nodded, pulled a pen from his pocket, and—after a moment’s pause—signed on the line. It felt both like an ending and a beginning.

“What about his age? Do we need to change the birth certificate?”

Alfred smiled sadly.

“There was no need, as Ms. Al Ghul never officially filed one. I took the liberty.”

He pulled it out, and handed it to Dick.

"Damian Wayne?”

Alfred just nodded.

“He is a Wayne, and he deserves the name. There is a line on the adoption papers where you could change it, though. If you wanted.”

Dick blinked, then looked at Damian. The kid seems to have heard, because he looked up.

“What's your name?”, he asked, carefully.

“Grayson. Bruce never officially adopted me until I was an adult, so I never changed it or merged them.”

Damian blinked.

“Can you make me a Grayson? Or Wayne and Grayson, if father has to play a role?”

Dick took a surprised breath.

“I… yeah, of course, bud. If you want me to?”

Damian got up again and walked closer, staring at the paper. He couldn't read, yet.

“Do you want to? Want me?”

Dick looked at him, at his vulnerable expression, at the fear of being rejected, uncapped the pen again and wrote the name Damian Grayson-Wayne on the line for a new name.

“Damian Grayson-Wayne. There you go. Of course I want you, baby.”

Then he put it back into the folder. When he finished, Alfred took the folder, tucking it under his arm. Damian smiled and moved back.

They watched Damian for a while, the boy building higher and higher, the towers growing until they threatened to topple. Dick half expected him to destroy it, to knock it all down and start over. But when the wall began to sag, Damian just added a buttress, reinforcing the structure until it stood firm.

Dick leaned back, let himself breathe. Alfred set a hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing well, Master Richard. Better than you think. He would be proud of you.”

Dick glanced at the folder, at the boy, then at the butler who had raised them both.

“Doesn’t always feel like it,” he admitted.
“It never does,” Alfred replied. “Parenthood, I have found, is a most inefficient enterprise. One never knows if one is succeeding until it is far too late to amend the mistakes.”

Dick smiled, the words familiar but comforting. They sat together, watching the future build itself out of nothing but patience and determination, in the deepest room of the world’s most haunted house.

For the first time in a long time, Dick believed they might make it.

And, looking at the fortress, he suspected that Damian did, too.

Chapter Text

The Batcave after dark — outside, that is; the Batcave was always kind of dark, with its artificial lighting — was a kingdom of faint hums: the long exhale of cooling processors, the nearly imperceptible staccato of dormant security systems, the soft complaint of old stone settling beneath the manor’s unimaginable weight. Dick had learned, in the way that children inherit mannerisms from absent parents, to find comfort in the low background drone, the promise that so long as the machinery sang, the world was not ending. Tonight, though, the console’s song seemed louder. Or maybe it just resonated differently, now that Dick had legally assumed the role of father to a boy who both was and was not himself. He sat hunched over the main monitor array, blue light washing out the cuts on his knuckles, the new stretch of his stubble from being unable to shave. He was too restless. His left hand kept tracing the same motion: thumb over the keyboard, index and middle fingers tapping the armrest, ring finger hooked underneath. It was a nervous habit he’d picked up as Robin, and in the low, blue glow, it felt like time itself had looped back on him. He forced his hand flat, then let it curl again, unable to stop the ghost of muscle memory. A habit he’d started when he just needed some exercise. Maybe he should put in a training session, do a few flips and somersaults to get the pent up energy out.

A flicker in the corner of the monitor—just a diagnostic ping, but the shape of the pop-up, the colour of the alert—shoved him straight back into memory. Not a slow drift, but a full-on, bat-grapple yank through time:

—He was twelve, sweat-soaked and lung-bursting in the old grey tights, doing laps through a homemade obstacle course Bruce had called “agility training” and Alfred had called “grounds for a child endangerment suit.” The first time through, he’d caught a toe on a wire and face-planted, hard. He could still remember the taste of blood and gravel. Bruce had stood over him, impassive. “Again,” he’d said, and when Dick hesitated, Bruce’s gloved hand had found his elbow, guiding it—not rough, but relentless, setting his arm at the perfect angle for the next vault. “Discipline is everything,” Bruce had said, voice low. “The city will never fight fair. We fight better.” And that had been that: up, over, again, until the motion carved itself into bone.—

Dick blinked, and the Batcave returned. The chair creaked as he shifted, and he found himself, for the hundredth time, wondering if the man had ever truly slept, or if he just powered down like the mainframe when no one was looking. The question had taken on new urgency, lately. Being a parent, even by accident, was a perpetual confrontation with the way time warped and bent around responsibility. He wondered if Bruce had known it would feel like this.

A set of footsteps echoed down the stone stair, quiet but purposeful: the four-beat rhythm of a child who was trying not to seem small. Dick smiled before he turned, knowing exactly who it was. Damian padded into the circle of light, dressed in fleece pyjamas patterned with tiny black masks. He had a picture book under one arm, and his hair stuck out at unholy angles, as if sleep had repelled him bodily from his bed. He stopped at the edge of the platform, looking up at Dick with the mixture of appraisal and accusation that only a four-year-old who had already been a teenager could manage.

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” Dick said, not unkind.

Damian considered this, then set his book on the floor and climbed up into the seat next to Dick. He sat cross-legged, toes poking out from the frayed edge of the pyjamas, and regarded the bank of monitors with an expression of deep scepticism.

“Are you fixing the city again?” he asked, voice gone hoarse with sleep.

“Just running updates,” Dick said. “No fixing tonight. We’re on break.”

Damian nodded, but kept his eyes on the screens. After a minute, he reached over and tapped the edge of the console.

“I had a dream about the robots again. The ones with the red eyes.”

Dick felt his chest tighten.

“Were they chasing you?”

“No,” Damian said, matter-of-fact. “I was chasing them. But they cheated. They flew away.”

Dick almost laughed, but caught himself.

“That’s frustrating.”

Damian nodded.

“Next time I’ll get them. You have to be smarter than the robots, right?”

“That’s the idea,” Dick said.

He watched the boy out of the corner of his eye. Even with all the changes, the regression, there were fragments of the old Damian here: the refusal to be cowed by adversity, the odd pride in losing only to machines. Dick wondered how much of the old life would come back, and how much was lost for good. How much the child would be changed, from growing under his own influence, rather than the League’s. Damian traced his finger along the plastic seam of the console. Then, without looking up, he asked:

“Is Father Bruce coming back soon?”

The question was a scalpel. Dick had rehearsed the answer a hundred times, but it still hurt every time he said it. He turned, putting both elbows on his knees so they were eye to eye.

“I don’t know, Dames,” he said, voice soft. “He’s not gone. But he’s not…here. Not right now.”

Damian considered.

“You said he had to go away to protect the world.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “It was a big job. He didn’t want to go, but—”

“Somebody had to,” Damian finished, a little too old for the pyjamas. He went quiet for a long time, brow furrowed in calculation. Then: “Do you think he misses me?”

Dick felt the weight of the answer settle in his chest.

“I know he does,” he said. “He misses you every day.”

Damian nodded, but his fingers kept working the seam of the console, a nervous energy Dick recognised from too many late nights in the Cave.

“Can you tell me a story about him?” Damian asked, voice small.

Dick blinked.

“What kind of story?”

Damian shrugged.

“Any. I want to remember. To know. Even if it’s one of your memories.”

So Dick told him the first story that came to mind, about the time Bruce had rescued a baby fox from the alley behind Wayne Tower and smuggled it into the Cave for “scientific observation.” The fox had immediately shredded two pairs of Bruce’s best shoes, evaded the security net, and hidden in the mainframe for three days. Bruce never managed to catch it, and after a week Alfred had declared it the new head of household. Damian listened, rapt, face twisted in a mixture of disbelief and delight.

“Did the fox get to stay?” Damian asked, when Dick finished.

“Yeah,” Dick said. “Bruce said it would be more trouble to kick it out. So he just let it stay. Named it Red.”

Damian nodded, content.

“Father is good at letting things stay, even when it’s trouble,” he observed.

Dick grinned.

“You have no idea.”

A comfortable silence. Then Damian leaned against Dick’s shoulder, book cradled in his lap.

“Can you read this?” he asked, holding it up.

Dick took the book. It was a library copy, battered but cared for, with a cover illustration of bats swooping over a full moon. He opened it to the first page, and Damian scooted closer, eyes wide and unblinking. As Dick read, Damian fidgeted, swinging his legs, sometimes mouthing the words along with him. The story was simple: a baby bat afraid to fly, taught by its siblings and mother to be brave. At the end, the bat soared into the night, not afraid anymore.

When the story finished, Damian was quiet, just sitting and breathing, eyes still locked on the page.

“Do you want to go back to bed?” Dick asked.

Damian shook his head.

“Can I stay here with you?”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “Of course.”

He slid down in the chair, letting Damian curl against his side. The computer screens flickered, cycling through endless lines of code, but for the first time all week, Dick didn’t care. The world could wait.

After a while, Damian said:

“Baba?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t need Father Bruce anyway. You’re my Baba now. And you’re the best Baba. And now I don't feel bad about that anymore. Because I have you here.”

He said it with the finality of a child who had, for the moment, decided to stop needing the impossible.

Dick felt his throat close up. He put an arm around Damian, pulling him in tight.

“You’re a pretty fantastic kid, you know that?” he said, voice rough.

Damian grinned, soft and careful, and buried his face in Dick’s shoulder. They sat together in the humming blue dark, and for a moment, the Cave was more home than crypt. Dick closed his eyes, feeling the kid’s weight against him, and tried to believe that the world might actually let them keep it this way. But the words swirled through his head, the worry stark. If Bruce came back…

The elevator door opened with its familiar pneumatic sigh, and Dick limped into the Batcave, trailing a swirl of fine city dust and a thin line of blood down his left leg. The new suit, already on its second patch job, had torn open at the knee, leaving a jagged smile of exposed skin. Steph followed, mask in her hand, hair plastered to her forehead in an unruly crown of sweat.

“Ten bucks says Alfred’s awake,” Steph said, glancing at the clock. “He knows when you’re bleeding. I think he’s got the cave bugged for pain frequencies.”

Dick grimaced, flexed his hand.

“He probably does. I’m pretty sure he’s the actual Batman.”

“Don’t let the kid hear you say that,” Steph said, with a sidelong glance.

As if summoned by her words, the rapid-fire sound of bare feet on stone stair echoed down from above: a gallop of little legs, punctuated by the wet slap of sockless heels. Damian appeared at the edge of the main platform, oversized Batman sleepwear ballooning around his frame, eyes wide with the fixed intent of a very small missile.

“Baba!” he shouted, charging across the floor.

Dick braced for impact as Damian collided with his thigh and hugged it, face burrowed on the side of his thigh. Thankfully, the uninjured one. Steph grinned, mouthing a silent “told you” before heading to the first aid kit.

“You were supposed to be asleep,” Dick said, tousling Damian’s hair with his gloveless hand.

Damian didn’t let go, but craned his neck up to inspect the damage. His eyes narrowed at the blood, then at the tear in the suit.

“Who did that?” he demanded.

“Just a scrape,” Dick said. “Nothing major.”

Damian’s suspicion did not waver. He inspected the injury with the grave concern of a trauma surgeon, then looked up at Dick, all business.

“Did you punch them?”

Steph, now at the med station, snorted.

“He punched two guys. One of them had a glass jaw. The other had a pipe, but I got him.”

“Did they have guns?” Damian asked, voice hushed.

“A couple. But they missed,” Dick said, leaving out the part where one had nearly grazed his shoulder and how the armour of the batsuit had blocked a few more.

How he’d been distracted, and let it happen. Damian nodded, as if this met expectations. He loosened his grip and inspected the torn suit again.

“Can I learn to fight? I want to help.”

Dick blinked.

“You’re a little young for crime-fighting, bud. You’re not even six.”

“But I did it before. With the League,” Damian said, matter-of-fact. “I remember some. And if I forgot, you can show me.”

Steph returned, dabbing a cotton pad with antiseptic. She knelt and started cleaning Dick’s leg, looking up at Damian with a soft, amused smile.

“You gotta do a lot of training first. Punching is only, like, ten percent of the job. The rest is paperwork and eating sandwiches at weird hours.”

Damian seemed to accept this. He sat down next to Dick, cross-legged, and watched as Steph taped a gauze square over the worst of the scrape.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, voice small.

“Not too bad,” Dick said, keeping his face neutral.

“Good,” Damian said. “You should rest. I’ll watch the cave.”

Dick grinned.

“Deal.”

Steph finished the patch job, then gave Dick a look over Damian’s head.

“He’s not gonna let you out of his sight.”

“I noticed,” Dick whispered back. “I think the abandonment issue is coming through again.”

Steph stood, tousling Damian’s hair on the way.

“I’ll head out. You two get some sleep.”

“Bye, Robin,” Damian said, using the name as if it were a proper noun.

“Night, Bat-kid,” she replied, and disappeared up the stairs.

When the footsteps faded, Dick looked down at Damian. The kid had shifted closer, one arm hooked around Dick’s shin, cheek pressed against the fabric of Dick’s pant leg. He looked up, face scrunched.

“Baba?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Dick nodded.

“Yeah, baby. I’ve had worse.”

Damian looked unconvinced.

“You have to be careful. If you get shot or fall off a building, there’s no one left to help me.”

Dick felt the pang, sharper than the antiseptic. He crouched, so they were eye to eye.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Promise.”

Damian studied his face, searching for any trace of lie, then nodded, satisfied.

“I still want to learn,” he said. “You can teach me. Even if it’s not punching.”

Dick smiled, ruffling the kid’s hair.

“We’ll start tomorrow. My rules, my speed, and I make all the decisions. You can hate them, but you won’t question them. Deal?”

“Deal,” Damian said, voice fierce.

Dick eased himself down onto the mat, letting his body relax for the first time all night. Damian curled up next to him, head pillowed on Dick’s arm. He was asleep in minutes, breathing deep and even, small hand tangled in the hem of Dick’s shirt. Dick stared at the Batcave ceiling, letting the fatigue pool in his limbs, and thought about the impossible task of teaching a child to fight the world without letting it devour him. He didn’t have an answer. But with the kid snoring against his side, Dick figured he had time to figure it out.

The morning broke late in the Batcave, the main hall still shadowed, but the training area already alive with the filtered light of a hundred overhead fluorescents. Dick stretched, testing his patched leg, and led Damian across the damp, echoing floor to the mat room. They passed the dinosaur skeleton and the hall of trophies, but Damian didn’t slow or gawk; he had a destination, and his gait was brisk, bouncy, more animal than child. The training room had changed. Alfred and Steph must have worked overnight, because the crash mats were doubled up, and someone had set out a series of obstacle course cones scaled to half their usual size. A wall bar hung at kid height. Someone had left a bottle of chalk and a towel with a cartoon bat stitched into the corner.

Damian stopped at the edge of the mats and looked up at Dick, waiting.

“You remember the rules?” Dick asked.

Damian recited, voice sharp:

“No aiming for the head. Land on the mats. Stop if you say so. No screaming.”

Dick arched an eyebrow.

“Screaming’s allowed. Sometimes it helps.”

Damian’s mouth quirked, but he nodded, as if to say: for you, maybe. Dick knelt, tying the laces on his own shoes.

“You don’t have to be perfect. Today’s just for fun.”

Damian watched, hands balled at his sides, barely keeping still.

“Can we start now?”

Dick grinned.

“You ready?”

“Always,” Damian said.

They began with a warmup. Dick led, pacing slow, letting Damian mirror his stretches and movements. They ran in place, did jumping jacks, and Dick demonstrated a forward roll. He landed, popped up, and gestured for Damian to try.

The first attempt was chaos—too much momentum, not enough tuck, and Damian ended up rolling sideways, giggling despite himself. Dick laughed, then showed him the motion again, slower, exaggerating the curl and the way his hands shielded his head. Damian watched, intent, and on the second go, he made it clean, knees up, chin tucked, the roll neat and soft. He beamed at Dick, eyes shining.

They progressed. Dick showed a simple cartwheel, then a handstand—spotting for balance, then letting Damian try alone. The kid wobbled, toppled, and once fell over in a heap, but he kept getting up. Chalk dust streaked his palms. Sweat stuck his hair to his face.

Between sets, Dick corrected his form: a hand here, a foot there. He touched Damian’s shoulder, adjusted his hips, turned his wrists. He remembered, with uncomfortable clarity, the way his dad had done the same for him—always gentle, always precise, never scolding, but never satisfied until Dick’s body lined up exactly the way it was supposed to. Damian absorbed everything, repeating each adjustment with mechanical focus. He would stare at his own limbs, re-calibrating after every try, and when Dick praised him, he went still, as if storing the words somewhere deep.

After half an hour, Dick sat on the mat, catching his breath. His leg was straining him quicker than usual, but was good to get the energy out.

“You need water?”

Damian shook his head, but when Dick handed him a bottle, he chugged half, face flushed with effort.

“You’re getting better already,” Dick said.

“Because you’re teaching,” Damian replied, as if that was the only possible reason.

Dick ruffled his hair, then demonstrated a forward roll one last time.

“Want to try for a perfect ten?”

Damian grinned.

“I can do it.”

He lined up, focused, and launched into the roll. He tucked, turned, and when he came up, he landed square, feet planted, arms out. He wobbled, steadied, then turned to look at Dick, a tiny smile on his face. Dick clapped.

“You nailed it. That’s better than I did my first day.”

Well, he had been younger than Damian, but still. Damian bounced on his toes, pride written across his whole body.

“Do we keep going?”

“Tomorrow,” Dick said. “You did enough for today.”

Damian nodded, sweat trickling down his brow. He walked to Dick, collapsed beside him on the mat, and leaned in, shoulder pressed to Dick’s ribs.

They sat in silence, the hum of the cave settling around them.

“Baba?” Damian asked, voice muffled by the mat.

“Yeah?”

“I like when we do this together,” he said. “It feels…right.”

Dick let the words settle. He looked at the boy, small but stubborn, chalk on his cheeks and hands, and felt a warmth he hadn’t known he was missing.

“It feels right to me, too,” he said, and meant it. “And I’m glad it’s me who gets to show you these things.”

Damian closed his eyes, still breathing hard, and Dick just sat there, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. He rested a hand on the boy’s back, a simple, steady touch, and wondered if maybe this was all the discipline the world needed: two bruised souls, building something better from what was left.

They stayed like that a long time, until the Cave’s shadows began to shift and Alfred’s footsteps sounded at the top of the stairs.

“Breakfast?” Dick said, after a while.

Damian nodded, standing.

“Can we have cereal?”

Dick grinned.

“You read my mind.”

They walked out of the training room, side by side, and for the first time, Dick felt the world might not be waiting to fall apart. It might, for once, be learning how to hold.

Chapter Text

He ran through a corridor of glass, barefoot, the cold slicing up from the stone and through his skin like fishhooks. Overhead, the lights throbbed green, the colour of the Lazarus pit, the colour of venom, the colour of the bruise on his mother’s throat the day she said goodbye. He ran, but every step snagged; the floor grew tacky, sticky, and the sound of wet footsteps behind him multiplied—two, then four, then a stampede. He turned, tripped, sprawled flat. Hands grabbed him—no, claws, hooked into his shoulders and yanking. He tried to scream, but the sound bottled up behind his teeth, a pressure so great it felt like his head might split. The claws spun him around, and standing over him was himself: taller, older, wearing the colours of the League, eyes blacked out, mouth fixed in a sneer.

“Failure,” said the doppelganger, voice warped to Talia’s cadence. “Weak. You let them strip everything away.”

He tried to stand, but the hands holding him down were everywhere, a dozen copies of himself, and behind them loomed the hulking shadow of the man who taught him pain. A voice barked: Again. Again. Again. He was made to run the corridor again, his feet shredded, his lungs raw. If he stopped, the hands would drag him back. The corridor narrowed, the walls pressed inward, the light pulsed until it became a weapon. He fell, rolled, landed on his knees in the League’s training yard. The other children circled, masks over their faces, every eye on him. Someone tossed a sword at his feet. A man’s voice said: Show us your worth. Do not embarrass your lineage.

A goat was brought out, whimpering and wild-eyed, tied to a post. He tried to pick up the sword but it was too heavy, or his arms were too weak, and the laughter started—at first a giggle, then a deranged symphony. The man with the beard spat on him, and the sword was taken away, and the children began to throw stones. One hit his face. He tasted blood. Another voice, his grandfather’s, hissed: If you do not kill, you will be made an example.

He woke to the taste of blood and a sheet wrapped tight around his legs, sweat slick on his skin, the air in his throat vibrating with the echo of his own scream.

“Damian!”

The sound came from beyond the nightmare, sharper, impossible to ignore. A door thudded open. Blue light spilled through the gap, and Dick was there in a loose T-shirt and boxers, face creased, one eye still trying to finish the dream he’d been ripped from. Damian’s body hurt, all over. His heart thudded behind his ribs like it was trying to get free. He was cold, the sweat already freezing on him, and his fists had torn two long lines into the bedsheet. He didn’t realise he was crying until Dick was at the side of the bed, hands on his shoulders, asking, “Dames? Dames, you with me?”

He tried to say yes but his tongue wouldn’t listen. The words tangled. His throat was raw. He felt the instinct to hide, to pull into himself, to become so small the world would lose track of him, but the hands wouldn’t let him go. They were strong, but not cruel. Dick sat down on the bed, pulling Damian up and into his lap. He fought it at first, every muscle in his body stiff with leftover terror. He kicked, thrashed, even bit at Dick’s forearm in panic. The hands didn’t let go.

“Easy,” Dick murmured, his breath warm on the back of Damian’s neck. “You’re safe. It’s just me. It’s over.”

The words cut through something. Damian collapsed, all strength gone, and sobbed into Dick’s chest, ugly and loud, hot snot smearing across the faded logo of Dick’s university. He wanted to stop but he couldn’t. It was like a dam had burst and the more he tried to hold it in, the more his body rebelled. His face felt on fire and he hated that he was shaking so hard.

Dick just rocked him, back and forth, back and forth, arms banded around his ribs in a way that made it impossible to escape and, after a minute, made him feel like maybe he didn’t have to. Dick’s voice was steady, quieter now, words spaced out like stepping stones: “You’re alright. You’re here. I got you. Nothing’s going to get you, not ever again.”

It took a long time to stop. By the time he could breathe without gasping, the wet patch on Dick’s shirt was the size of a grapefruit, and Damian’s body hurt in a new way: wrung out, weak, like every muscle had tried to snap and failed.

He pushed back, not to escape but to look Dick in the face. Dick met his eyes, calm as ever, and didn’t ask if he was okay. That made it somehow better. Damian hated how his voice sounded, thin and childish.

“It keeps happening. The same one. Over and over.”

“Nightmare?” Dick asked.

He nodded.

“You want to talk about it?”

He didn’t, not really, but the question was like a hook, and the next words spilled out before he could stop them.

“It’s the League,” he said, and his mouth twisted around the word like it tasted bad. “They make me…they make me…” The rest of the sentence collapsed in his chest. He sucked in a shuddery breath and tried again. “I see the training. The…punishments. They bring out the goats. And the kids. The ones who lose.”

Dick’s jaw clenched at the last word, just a flicker, then he nodded.

“Yeah. I know the kind.”

“I always wake up before it happens,” Damian said, “but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes they—”

He broke off, but Dick didn’t press.

“Dreams can’t hurt you,” Dick said, and his voice had that calm he used when he was talking to someone about to jump off a roof. “But they suck. You want to know what helps?”

Damian nodded, rubbing his face with the back of his hand.

“Reminding yourself where you are. Who’s with you. What’s real.” Dick squeezed his shoulder, not hard. “You’re not there anymore, Dames. You’re here. With me. With Alfred. With Steph.”

He tried to believe it, but the edges of the dream clung to him, a film over his skin.

“I’m scared it’s going to come back,” he whispered. “That if I go back to sleep…”

Dick nodded, like he’d expected it.

“It probably will, tonight. But you don’t have to go back alone.”

Damian glanced away, ashamed.

“I don’t want to be scared. I wasn’t before.”

“Before, you were older,” Dick said. “And they made you hide it. That doesn’t mean you weren’t scared then, too.”

Damian shook his head, refusing that truth.

“I was better.”

Dick let the words hang, then pulled him tighter, setting Damian’s head under his chin.

“You were tough,” he said. “You still are. But you’re allowed to be scared. That’s how you get through it.”

They sat like that, time leaking away, until Damian’s pulse stopped stuttering in his wrists. He spoke again, quieter this time:

“Will it ever go away?”

Dick answered without sugar.

“It gets easier. Not fast, but it does. Sometimes you remember less. Sometimes the dreams change.” He tipped Damian’s face up. “But I’ll be here, every time you wake up. Even if it’s a hundred times in a night. You won’t have to do it alone.”

The promise landed deep, right in the place the fear lived.

He let his head droop, the exhaustion a hundred times heavier now. The nightmare was still in his bones, but it didn’t feel as sharp.

Dick stayed, hand rubbing lazy circles on his back, until Damian’s eyes started to close again.

This time, when the dream came, it was softer, and the hands that caught him were warm, and he remembered the voice that said: You’re not alone.

By morning, the world outside Damian’s window was winter grey, thick with a flavourless snow that had started around three and showed no signs of stopping. The light was thin and old; even with every bulb blazing in the kitchen, the shadows hung heavy under the cabinets, and Damian flinched away from each one as he padded in, feet bare on the tile. His head hurt. His eyes burned. It was an effort just to keep the world in focus. He’d had two more of the same nightmare, after the pleasant one. At the table, Alfred stood in his usual fortress of calm, setting out breakfast as if it were any other day—porridge, sliced apple, a mug of tea steaming gently next to a glass of milk. He didn’t comment on Damian’s hair, which stuck out in weird angles, or on the shivering, or the way Damian watched the room for threats before sitting. Dick was already at the table, hunched over a bowl of cereal and a stack of crime scene reports, which he was marking up with a pink highlighter. He looked up as Damian entered, and his face crumpled with a quick, secret smile—gone as fast as it appeared.

“Hey, champ,” he said. “Rough night?”

Damian grunted, crawling up onto the bench and pulling his knees to his chest. He eyed the porridge, then stabbed at the apple with a fork, missing three times before giving up and just biting it.

Alfred refilled Dick’s coffee, then set a hand on the top of Damian’s head, a brief, gentle pressure.

“You needn’t attend lessons today if you’re feeling under the weather,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Damian said, though his voice had that brittle edge that meant anything but. He stared at the table, refusing to look at either of them.

“Still,” Alfred persisted, “it wouldn’t do to—”

“Just leave it,” Damian snapped, and the words cracked sharp in the kitchen’s hush.

The silence that followed was worse than any reprimand. Damian could feel both sets of eyes on him. He waited, counting the seconds, until the air started to feel less thick. Waited, for whatever punishment came. Alfred, to his credit, didn’t sigh or tut. He only set a napkin next to Damian’s elbow and returned to the stove.

Dick took a long, slow breath, then said, “You wanna talk about it?”

Damian said nothing.

Dick looked at Alfred, then back at Damian.

“More Nightmares?” he asked, voice pitched low.

A small, involuntary jerk, barely a nod. Dick didn’t push.

“Happens to me, too,” he said, going back to his cereal. “Used to get them every night after…”

He gestured vaguely, encompassing the world. Damian squirmed. He wanted to say it wasn’t the same, that Dick didn’t know what it was like, that nobody did, but the words wouldn’t line up right. Breakfast went on, quiet except for the scrape of forks and the intermittent clink of Dick’s spoon against the chipped ceramic. Damian poked at the porridge, unwilling to eat but not wanting to draw more attention to himself.

“Do you require anything else?” Alfred asked, returning with a small pitcher of honey.

He poured a thin spiral over the top of Damian’s bowl, then waited. Damian shook his head, but then, angry at the attention, shoved the bowl away with too much force. Milk slopped over the rim, pooling on the table and dripping down onto his lap. He was overwhelmed with himself, feeling too much.

Alfred’s only reaction was a minuscule tightening of the jaw. Dick stood up, grabbed a dish towel, and started to mop up the spill.

“No big deal,” he said. “Happens to everyone.”

Damian’s face burned.

“Not to you.”

Dick leaned in, lowering his voice so only Damian could hear.

“You think I never broke a dish in this house? Ask Alfred how many plates I shattered my first year here.”

Alfred’s mouth twitched.

“Eighty-four, if memory serves. The year was not yet finished. Mostly by doing cartwheels on the table, I think.”

Dick winked at Damian.

“See?”

Damian kept his arms folded. He didn’t trust his own voice. When the mess was cleaned, Dick sat back down and tapped his fingers on the table.

“Tell you what,” he said, “how about we take a break from everything for a bit? Skip the lessons. Go down to the cave and try out some new gear. Maybe run the obstacle course. Alfred, you cool with that?”

Alfred gave a small, knowing bow.

“I will see to the cleanup.”

Dick stood, motioned for Damian to follow. It was a relief to leave the kitchen behind, with its bright lights and too many shadows.

The walk down to the Batcave was silent. Damian kept two steps behind, measuring his own pace against Dick’s, matching stride for stride but never closing the gap. The steps were cold on his bare feet; the air in the cave, when they entered, was even colder. It smelled of metal and old sweat and the chemical tang of whatever cleaner Alfred used on the workbenches. The cave was mostly dark, but a bank of LEDs illuminated a wide swath of the training area. There, in the middle of the mats, was something new: a course of foam blocks and padded rails, assembled in loops and tunnels and low walls. It looked, at first, like a child’s playpen. Damian scowled.

“What is this?”

Dick grinned.

“Special training. For special days.” He walked to the edge of the mats and dropped to a crouch, patting the floor. “C’mere.”

Damian approached, arms still folded.

“It’s for babies,” he said.

“It’s for ninjas who want to keep their brains sharp,” Dick said. “Or for kids who need to burn off bad dreams.”

Damian bristled.

“I don’t need—”

“You do,” Dick cut in, voice soft but immovable. “We both do. C’mon. Let’s just see who’s faster.”

Dick held out some socks, and a hoodie. Damian hadn't really thought about how cold it would get here.

Damian hesitated, then stepped onto the mat. He got dressed. The foam squished under his feet, and he had to fight the urge to tiptoe. Dick pointed to the start line, a strip of yellow tape, then to the first obstacle: a low bar to jump, followed by a zig-zag of cones, then a wall to climb and a tunnel to crawl through.

“You go first,” Dick said. “I’ll time you.”

Damian glared, but when Dick started counting down—“Three, two, one, go”—his body took over. He jumped the bar (clumsy, but he cleared it), zigged through the cones (knocked two over), scrambled up the wall (slipped, caught himself), then dove into the tunnel and out the other side.

He stood at the finish, panting, cheeks hot. Dick clapped, loud and sincere.

“Not bad, not bad! Thirty-seven seconds.”

Damian wiped his nose on his arm.

“That’s slow.”

“You’ll get better,” Dick said. “And it’s fast for a four year old. Which you are, even if you’re mature for your age. So don’t judge yourself to harshly. Now, watch.”

He crouched at the line, then, on his own count, moved through the course with ridiculous grace—every jump, every pivot, every slide perfectly controlled. He made it look like flying. He finished in seventeen seconds flat, but didn’t gloat.

“Your turn again,” he said, resetting the cones.

They did the course five more times, then Dick started adding tricks: hop the wall backwards, crawl the tunnel with eyes closed, do a somersault at the end. Damian’s body remembered faster than his mind did, and by the sixth run, he was almost keeping up.

They took a break. Dick handed Damian a water bottle and sat cross-legged on the mat.

“You’re good at this,” Dick said, tone matter-of-fact.

Damian looked down.

“I used to be better.”

Dick shrugged.

“You will be again. Better, maybe. More fluid, with me as your trainer. You know why I set up this course?”

Damian shook his head. Dick leaned in, elbows on his knees.

“When I first moved here, after… after everything, with my own parents, I couldn’t sleep. I had nightmares all the time. So Bruce made me run, every morning. He said if I could be tired enough, maybe the dreams would stop. They didn’t, but it helped to have something to do.” Damian sipped his water, considering this. “You don’t have to be okay all the time,” Dick said. “You can be mad. Or scared. Or tired. We just keep trying, every day, and sometimes it gets a little easier.”

Damian felt something loosen in his chest. He didn’t want to admit it, but the running did help. It made his thoughts go quiet, for a minute at least.

“Can we do it again?” he asked, careful not to sound too eager.

Dick smiled, bright and open.

“Anytime, Dames. Whenever you want.”

They ran the course until Damian’s legs shook and his hands ached from grabbing at the walls. He beat his own time, twice, and at the end, when he flopped down next to Dick on the mat, he was breathing so hard he thought his lungs might crack.

“Good job, kiddo,” Dick said, ruffling his hair.

Damian rolled his eyes, but didn’t pull away.

After a minute, Dick said, “You want to tell me about the dreams? If it was the same one, or different? You don’t have to, but if you want…”

Damian shook his head.

“Maybe later.”

“That’s fair,” Dick said. “I’ll be here, when you do.”

They sat together, sweat cooling on their skin, the cave echoing with the ghosts of old nightmares and the promise of new ones, but for now, at least, the world felt light enough to hold.

The library at dusk was the warmest room in the house. The radiators clanked and sighed, and the walls—two stories of shelves braced by dark wood—held the day’s heat in a slow, forgiving grip. The overheads buzzed, but softly, their filaments diffused by the old frosted globes Alfred insisted were “authentic to the manor’s period.” It made the place feel out of time, and maybe that was the point. Damian climbed the rolling ladder, not to reach anything in particular but for the sensation of being higher than everyone else. Dick watched from the leather sofa, legs sprawled across the battered coffee table, and thumbed through the stack of picture books that had been left out for “reading practice.” Most were babyish—talking animals, adventures at the zoo—but he’d picked out one with a dragon on the cover, hoping it would pass muster.

“Do you want to pick the story?” Dick asked.

“I already know all of them,” Damian said, hanging upside-down from the ladder by his knees.

“Bet you don’t know this one.” Dick held up the dragon book, waggling it as bait.

Damian dropped down, landed on the thick rug with a soft whuff, and eyed the book as if it might bite. He crawled up onto the sofa, keeping a cushion between himself and Dick.

“I can read,” he said, grabbing the book and flipping it open.

“Go for it,” Dick said.

Damian stared at the first page. The words were simple, but the letters seemed to dance and shift, their order flickering just out of reach. He squinted, mouthing the first word—once, then twice, then pretending he was only checking the illustrations. He turned the page, skipped the block of text, and pointed at the dragon.

“That’s a terrible drawing,” he said. “No one would believe that’s a real dragon.”

Dick snorted.

“You’re right. The scales are all wrong. But let’s see what it says anyway.” He slid a finger under the line, tracing the words as he read aloud: “‘The dragon lived in a cave under the hill, and every night, he dreamed of flying above the town, his wings shining in the moonlight.’” He glanced at Damian. “Sound familiar?”

Damian grunted, but he watched as Dick continued to read, the cadence gentle and unhurried. Every few lines, Dick would pause and point to a word, inviting Damian to try it. Sometimes Damian got it right, sometimes not. When he stumbled, Dick would repeat the word softly, then move on, never making it a big deal. After a few pages, Damian’s stubbornness flared. He slammed the book closed, scowling.

“This is for babies. I can read real things.”

“Like what?” Dick asked, fighting a smile.

Damian thought, then said, “The Batcomputer. I read all the case files.”

Dick nodded.

“In Russian, right? Or Arabic?”

Damian glared.

“And Chinese. And sometimes Latin.”

Dick leaned in, voice low.

“But not English?”

Damian’s jaw clenched.

“It’s stupid. The words don’t make sense. The letters all sound wrong.”

“It took me forever to learn,” Dick said. “I grew up speaking Romani. English was like chewing on gravel.”

Damian looked up, surprised.

“Can you teach me something of that?”

“Of course, inima mae”, Dick said, smiling. “That means ‘my heart’, so it's a pet name for someone you love.”

Damian nodded, slowly.

“I love you, Baba. So Baba is your pet name.”

Dick swallowed, and pulled the kid closer to his side.

“Love you too, kiddo.”

Damian looked back at the book.

“How did you learn?”

“Bruce taught me,” Dick said. “Every night after patrol, we’d read out loud. First comic books, then the classics. I hated it. But after a while, I got better.”

Damian fiddled with the corner of the book, not quite looking at Dick.

“Did he get mad when you messed up?”

Dick shook his head.

“Never. He just made me try again.”

A long silence. Damian slid the book closer, opening it to the dragon page. He ran his finger along the line, and in a voice barely above a whisper, read:

“The…dragon…lived in a cave…” He trailed off, frustrated.

Dick didn’t correct him.

“That’s it. You got it.”

Damian tried again. The words came slow, but they came. Each time he got stuck, Dick waited. When Damian finally reached the end of the page, he slumped back against the cushions, exhausted.

“Not so hard,” Dick said.

Damian’s eyes narrowed, but there was a glow in them.

“It’s dumb,” he said, but he didn’t mean it.

They read together, page by page, until the dragon was flying above the town, wings catching the light of the moon. Damian’s voice got softer with each line, the tension leaving his shoulders. At some point, he slid sideways, head settling against Dick’s arm. Dick kept reading, even after he realised the boy was asleep.

He read the last line—“and in the morning, the dragon remembered how good it felt to soar”—then closed the book and sat in the hush, Damian’s breath even and soft against his side.

He lifted the kid, careful not to wake him, and carried him through the manor’s halls to the bedroom. He took note of the pyjamas, slowly getting too short. Of Damian growing. The sheets were cool, so Dick laid him down gently, then tucked the comforter tight around him. He set a nightlight on the dresser, the kind that threw stars on the ceiling, then lingered at the door.

Just before he left, he whispered, “I’ll be here, every time you wake up.”

He watched as the light painted the walls with drifting constellations, and listened to the slow, certain rhythm of Damian’s sleep. Outside, the snow kept falling, blanketing the world in silence. In here, at least, the darkness was held at bay.

Chapter Text

The Batcave had two settings: monastic hush or war-room panic. Tonight it was the former, with the only sound the click and slide of touchpads, and Steph’s shoes—electric blue Crocs, unironically chosen—thumping against the support beam as she scrolled on the secondary monitor.

Dick hunched at the main console, hair still wet from a shower, one arm balancing a mug of espresso on his knee, the other toggling between feeds.

“Tell me again why you’re monitoring the east side’s garbage routes,” Steph said, popping the croc heel against the beam so it echoed like a metronome.

He didn’t look up.

“Pattern of after-hours truck hijacks, moving pharmaceuticals and street chem. If it’s the Red Hoods again, they’re switching up suppliers.”

Steph swiveled, her chair creaking.

“Isn’t the east side, like, entirely Riddler now? How do you even keep up?”

He grinned.

“We’re efficient.”

Three monitors to the left, a split-screen ran: kids in cheap hoodies tagging a wall, a grocery clerk fending off a shoplifter, a pair of masked teens cornering a dealer in an alley. The city was never quiet, but this week was bad even by Gotham standards. The incidents were small but, as Dick kept pointing out, “organized, not random.” Every five minutes, a new blip pulsed in the lower corner: carjacking, B&E, drug run. A wet winter storm had blown through and now the city’s sewers overflowed with both runoff and ambition. Dick scanned the grid, fingers drumming.

“Whoever’s recruiting is doing it fast. Last week, these gangs were trading paintballs and TikToks. Now they’re running military drills and shoplifting surgical masks.”

“Maybe it’s a contest,” Steph said, blowing a bubble with her gum. “Winner gets a Red Hood internship. Or—” she snapped her fingers, “maybe Joker’s starting a street team. ‘Apply now, evil clowns wanted, must be under five-eight and able to lift fifty pounds of ammonium nitrate’.”

Dick choked on his coffee, coughing once before stifling it. He didn’t look away from the monitor.

“Funny. But it’s not him. These kids are too disciplined.”

Steph shrugged.

“Still boring compared to my day. Last year, we had zombie bees.”

“Gotham’s back on a classic crime arc. Old school.”

She swung her croc in a lazy circle.

“Speaking of old school. How’s Baby Bat?”

Dick’s lips quirked, but he didn’t answer. The answer came instead from the corridor behind them—a rapidfire series of thuds, then the telltale snick of the sliding doors. Damian burst in, in what Dick had to admit was an improved version of a tactical entry: two steps forward, scan the room, stop dead at the sight of the adults. He was in training clothes—black joggers, high-top trainers, a Wayne Foundation T-shirt three sizes too big and cinched at the waist with a belt Dick had reluctantly donated. Not because he didn't have clothes that fit, but because he felt the movement was better. His hair was still damp, spiked and chaotic, and his left forearm had a band of purple marker where Steph had written “WASH ME” during last night’s movie.

“Why are you both in the cave?” Damian asked, arms folded, voice already in the register of someone delivering a keynote. “It’s a school night.”

“Debrief,” Dick said. “Steph’s teaching me about meme warfare.”

Steph waved.

“Hiya, shrimp.”

Damian ignored her.

“Are we going out tonight?”

He said “we” in the way a child would say “candy,” but the “are” was hard and sharp, and it forced Dick’s hand.

“I haven’t decided,” he said, softening the edge. “You’ve got a spelling test in the morning. Priorities.”

Damian glared.

“You promised I could start field runs once I passed the code test. I passed. Even you said so.”

Steph made a dramatic gasp.

“He has a point.”

Dick gave her a look.

She mouthed, “Sorry, not sorry.”

Damian pressed.

“The city is under assault. You need the extra pair of eyes. I’m not a baby anymore, Baba. I’m six. You’ve been training me since I was four years old now.”

He said it with the gravity of a man twice his size and three times his trauma. Dick rubbed his temple.

“You’re not a baby, but you are my kid. And my kid doesn’t do field work on a school night.”

Damian glared, but didn’t argue. Not out loud. Instead, he climbed into the rolling chair opposite Dick, pulled his knees up, and pretended to lose interest. It was an old trick; he’d used it at age four, and age ten, and apparently still at six. He clicked open a new screen and began typing, probably rerouting the traffic cam feeds to his own mini-monitor. Steph leaned in, stage-whispering:

“It’s not actually dangerous, right? You’d take him somewhere boring and easy?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Dick said, but it was clear even to him that he was weighing the option.

Damian had passed the code test. He’d aced the dummy runs on the crash course. He’d even managed to stealth his way past Alfred to “liberate” the last of the Halloween candy, a feat previously thought impossible.

“I can be backup,” Damian said, as if reading his mind. “No combat. Surveillance only. You said that was the best way to start.”

Steph shrugged.

“He’s got you there.”

Dick closed his eyes.

“Fine. Surveillance only. And you stay in the car unless I say otherwise. Got it?”

Damian’s eyes widened, hope and hunger and vindication all battling for space.

He nodded, solemn, then added, “I will not let you down.”

Steph clapped her hands.

“Family Bat Night. This calls for pizza.”

“After,” Dick said, shooting her a look.

“Sure,” she said, then grinned at Damian. “We’ll get extra cheese for the little monster.”

Damian’s face went pink, and he ducked his head, pretending to check a map. Dick leaned over, lowering his voice. “

We’re a team. That means we watch out for each other. You mess around, you’re benched for a month. You disobey me or Steph, you’re benched for a year. Understood?”

Damian met his eyes, and for once, there was no challenge.

Just a nod, and a quick, hard “Yes, Baba.”

He relaxed, just a fraction, and started packing up the portable kit: two comms, three smoke bombs, and the tiny grapnel launcher Alfred had made as a “birthday” present. As if conjured by mention, Alfred appeared at the top of the steps, immaculate in a dark sweater and pressed slacks. In his hands: a set of micro-binoculars, a custom comm unit (bright blue, sized for Damian’s ear), and a domino mask the size of a large Band-Aid - perfect for Damian's face. Alfred didn’t say “I told you so,” but he might as well have.

“For your evening, Master Damian,” he said, setting the equipment on the counter with the care of a surgeon. “All freshly calibrated and tested. The mask is triple-layered. I expect it to come back in one piece.”

Damian gathered the gear, hands shaking just enough for Dick to see. He fastened the mask, fitted the comm, and gave Alfred a rare, unguarded smile.

“Thank you.”

“Of course, sir,” Alfred said. “Do remember the rule about no blood on the upholstery.”

Steph giggled.

“That one’s for you, Dick.”

Dick rolled his eyes, but the sting was gone. The sight of Damian, standing on tiptoe to reach the gear, was so incongruous—equal parts fierce and delicate, like a kitten in armor—that it short-circuited every argument Dick had prepared. He just wanted the kid to have a good night. A safe one. They suited up. Steph pulled her cowl on, hair poking out the back in a wild streamer. Dick adjusted his own suit, the new version with reinforced knee joints (Alfred’s doing) and a reworked chest plate that didn’t creak every time he twisted. Damian, in his hybrid getup, looked absurdly small—like a mascot, or a sidekick for a sidekick—but he wore it with all the dignity of an emperor. They paused at the exit, Alfred holding the door. The wind outside whistled, and for a second, Dick felt the old familiar twist in his stomach: the fear, the hope, the sense that something irretrievable might be lost tonight, or gained.

“Ready?” he asked.

Damian squared his shoulders.

“Always.”

And just like that, the new Bat-family rolled out, three generations deep, into the Gotham night.

The roof edge was wet, the concrete gritty with broken glass and something that probably wasn’t bird shit. Gotham’s east side pulsed below—three blocks of flickering streetlight, the open glare of a gas station, and, beneath it all, a trembling, predatory quiet. Dick perched at the parapet, Spoiler to his left, Damian to his right. The kid’s breath fogged in the cold, but he kept his chin up, scanning the alley below with a focus that bordered on pathological. Steph had triple-checked the harness: a carbon-fiber rig that looped around Damian’s chest and clipped to Dick’s belt with enough slack for a three-foot radius, just in case. Damian hated it, but he’d accepted the compromise—barely.

“Five targets,” Damian whispered, not taking his eyes off the alley. “Three on perimeter, two in the car. Number four is the contact. See the way he signals before he moves?”

Steph nodded, chewing her gum loud enough to make a statement.

“Already flagged him. Looks like a handoff for hard goods, not cash.”

Dick tapped the comm, confirming. The Batcave’s AI logged the footage, overlaying it with tags and timestamps. On the street, the kids made their play: one acting as lookout, the others playing distraction with a backpack of what looked like novelty hats. Damian’s voice was steady, measured.

“They’re using kid lookouts now. That’s new.”

“Less suspicious,” Steph said. “Nobody expects a kid to be muscle.”

Damian scowled.

“It’s a waste.”

“Disagree,” Dick murmured. “They’re baiting us. Watch the alley entrance.”

Sure enough, a sixth shape appeared, older, slower, with the distinct walk of someone carrying weight in both pockets. He made no effort to blend, just strolled straight to the car and leaned in the driver’s window.

“Go time,” Steph said, shifting her weight. “You want me to drop down and cut him off?”

Dick shook his head.

“Not yet. Let’s see what they’re dealing.”

He put a hand on Damian’s harness, subtle, just enough to remind the kid of the boundary.

“You see the target?”

Damian nodded.

“Red jacket. Scar on left cheek. He’s nervous.”

“Good. You know what to do?”

Damian didn’t answer, just reached into his belt pouch and thumbed the cap off a fat, neon green marker. It was a chemical tag, non-lethal but impossible to wash out, and Dick had spent an hour last week drilling the kid on how to get it on a target without being seen. Dick squeezed his shoulder.

“Go. You know the drill.”

Damian nodded, then moved—a shadow within a shadow, small and deliberate, using the broken air vents and rotten ductwork to zigzag his way down the service ladder. Steph watched, arms folded, letting out a low whistle.

“He’s better than me at that age,” she said.

“He’s better than me at that age,” Dick replied, and it was true. Partly because when he was six, he was still a Flying Grayson. He watched the harness coil out, saw the slack tension as Damian reached the second-level balcony. The leash made it awkward, but not impossible. Dick kept one hand on the reel, thumb resting on the emergency recall. Steph’s comm crackled:

“Contact is opening the case. Pills, not powder.”

Dick tracked the handoff through the infrared.

“Looks like oxy, maybe morphine. You see how much?”

“About two hundred tabs, if they’re forty-milligram,” Damian said over the line. “Street value is—”

“Less math, more movement,” Dick cut in.

But he grinned, just a little. On the ground, the lookout kid turned, spotting something—or someone. Damian stilled, body pressed to the wall. He waited, not even breathing, then, as the lookout’s focus shifted, darted forward and pressed the marker to the hem of the red jacket. Quick, precise, a perfect touch. Then he vanished back behind the dumpster, the only evidence a faint green stain that would glow under UV for three days. Steph nodded, impressed.

“You want him to tag the others?”

Dick eyed the car.

“We’ll follow Red Jacket, see if he leads us to the next level. Steph, circle the block. If they split, you stay with the car.”

“Copy that,” she said, then dropped off the ledge in a three-point landing.

Smooth as ever. Dick leaned over the edge.

“You ready for exfil?”

Damian climbed back up, huffing through his teeth.

“Too easy,” he whispered. “They’re not even trying to hide.”

Dick reeled him in, pulling the harness hand over hand. When Damian reached the top, he sat cross-legged, scanning for the next mark.

“Complacency is a trap,” Dick said, unclipping the harness. “Next time, they’ll know we’re watching.”

“They always know,” Damian said, not quite sulking.

“They always forget,” Dick countered. “That’s how we win.”

Two blocks away, Red Jacket moved fast, ducking down a side street. Dick tapped his comm.

“Steph, you got a visual?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “and two new tails. Unmarked van, blacked out. You want me to intercept or observe?”

Dick paused, thinking.

“Observe. If it gets hairy, call it.”

Damian straightened.

“Can I go with you now? I did the tag, just like you asked.”

Dick considered. The run had gone well—too well. And the kid’s focus was so tight he vibrated.

“Stay close,” he said, relenting. “But if I say ‘run,’ you run. No arguments.”

“Understood,” Damian said, voice solemn.

They ghosted across the rooftops, Dick adjusting his stride to match the kid’s. He was small, but relentless, and Dick had to admit: if it weren’t for the harness, he’d have lost track of Damian a dozen times in the last hour.

On the next roof, they crouched low and watched as Red Jacket ducked into the back of the van. The door slid shut. No lights, no movement. A minute passed. Then two.

“Stakeout,” Dick whispered.

Damian’s jaw worked.

“What if they’re moving the product to another site?”

“They might be. But the van’s too clean. It’s a decoy or a mobile office. We wait.”

Steph’s voice buzzed in their ears.

“Got a positive on the driver. Ex-military, honorable discharge, now moonlighting as a security consultant. Looks like a Red Hood hire.”

Dick grunted.

“Makes sense. They’re building infrastructure.”

Damian bounced his knee, impatient.

“If we wait too long, they’ll be gone.”

“Patience is the most underrated weapon,” Dick said, echoing Bruce.

“But so is surprise,” Damian whispered, not even aware he’d said it.

A shadow moved in the alley. Third party—smaller than the others, hands in the pockets, hoodie pulled low. Dick zoomed in: a girl, maybe fourteen, moving with a nervous, coiled energy.

“She’s a runner,” Dick said. “See how she checks the sightlines?”

Damian nodded, eyes locked.

“She’s scared. She’s never done this before.”

“Probably not,” Dick agreed. “Which means she’s important. Steph, can you get closer without being made?”

“I’m on it,” Steph said, and Dick saw her silhouette flicker across the distant fire escape.

The van door opened. The girl stepped inside. Five seconds later, she emerged, clutching a paper bag to her chest. She looked up—just once, at the stars, at the skyline—then ran.

“Steph, follow the girl,” Dick said. “We’ll stick with the van.”

Damian watched the runner vanish down a side street.

“I could have tagged her.”

“You’ll get your chance,” Dick promised.

The van fired up, taillights glowing in the dark. Dick motioned, and the two of them moved. Across the roof, down a ladder, over a crumbling stone wall, landing soft in the alley behind the van as it idled at the curb. Dick went first, eyes and ears on high alert. The side panel had a rusted seam—just enough gap to wedge a tracker, if you had the hands for it. Damian crept up behind, so silent Dick didn’t even hear him at first. He watched as Damian palmed a second marker, pressed it under the wheel well, then darted back to the cover of a drainpipe.

He was good.

The van rumbled, then drove off. Dick let out a slow breath.

“You did great, baby. That was textbook.”

Damian straightened, pride warring with fatigue.

“I can do more than just tag people, Baba.”

“I know you can,” Dick said, ruffling his hair. “But tonight, that’s enough.”

They walked back to the rendezvous, Steph already waiting by the fire escape with a grin.

“She went home,” Steph reported. “Looked both ways, then ran straight into a brownstone. I bet she’s a drop-off, not a user.”

“Probably a mule,” Dick agreed. “We’ll follow up tomorrow.”

He looked at Damian, who was blinking back exhaustion, but still upright.

“You’re off the leash next time,” Dick said, quietly. “But only if you promise to listen.”

Damian nodded, solemn.

“I promise.”

They crossed the city in silence, the only sound the occasional bark of a police siren or the sizzle of a faulty neon sign. At the edge of the rooftops, Dick scooped Damian up, one arm around the kid’s waist, and leapt the final gap to the manor. In the hush of the Batcave, as they peeled off harnesses and gear, Damian hesitated.

“Are you proud of me?” he asked, so small the words almost vanished.

Dick knelt, pulling him in.

“Always, Dames. Even when you’re a pain in the ass.”

Steph cackled from the other side of the room.

“That’s how you know you’re a real Robin. Or, will be."

Dick let Damian go, but not all the way. He held him just long enough to make sure the answer stuck.And as they climbed the stairs, hand in hand, Dick realized the world would never be safe—not for Damian, not for anyone—but it was enough to know he could keep him close, at least for one more night.

The next morning, Dick woke to the sound of Wally West whistling in the kitchen and the smell of French toast so sweet it could’ve been classified as hazardous. The invitation had gone out late—an impulsive text, equal parts bravado and panic:

“Come see the kid in action. You’ll never believe it.”

Wally was the first to answer, obviously. He arrived with a duffel bag, two different kinds of running shoes, and enough kinetic energy to break several minor appliances in the first hour. Donna Troy arrived a half-beat later, her presence always managing to make Dick stand up straighter, even if she showed up in battered jeans and a flannel. They met in the old training room, where the padded mats ran wall to wall and the air buzzed with remembered victories and broken noses. Wally bounced on the balls of his feet, surveying the layout with a mock seriousness.

“No live explosives? I was promised excitement.”

“You’re thinking of the old Robin,” Dick said, kneeling to double-check a series of foam obstacles. “This is a family event. PG-13 at most.”

Donna raised an eyebrow.

“Alfred said you had a surprise for us. Is it breakfast or are we doing an intervention?”

Dick snorted.

“Both, probably.”

They started with coffee, standing in the half-light of the east windows. Damian was late, which was itself a tactical decision. He didn’t like entering a room if he wasn’t sure of the exits, or the company. When he finally did appear, he was wearing his best “civilian” outfit—a gray hoodie, cargo pants, sneakers so new they still squeaked. His hair was pulled back in a stubby ponytail, and his eyes had that analytic gleam that made Dick’s own palms sweat. Wally was the first to react.

“Oh my god, is that mini-you?”

Dick nodded, then:

“Damian, this is Wally. And Donna. You’ve met them both before, but you probably don’t remember.”

Damian eyed Wally, then Donna.

“You were taller,” he said to her.

She burst out laughing, warm and genuine.

“You were smaller.”

“I was dead,” Damian replied, with a bluntness that could have only been inherited from both sides of his family tree.

Wally whistled, low.

“You weren’t kidding. He’s all business.”

Damian shrugged.

“That’s what you get with this lineage.”

Dick smothered a smile.

“Let’s get started.”

The course wasn’t much: a series of balance beams, a rope swing, a wall of foam blocks with a net at the top. It was designed for rehab and first-timers, not seasoned vigilantes. But Dick wanted to make a point—two, actually: that this was a learning space, and that failure was not just tolerated but expected. He walked the team through the stations.

“Goal is simple: make it to the end. No powers, no shortcuts, and every time you fall, you start over.”

Wally cocked a brow.

“You’re kidding, right? I could run this in—”

“Try it,” Dick said, stepping aside.

Wally shrugged, jogged to the line, and promptly wiped out on the first balance beam. He landed on the mat with a soft whump, blinking up at the ceiling.

“That’s a regulation beam,” Dick said, deadpan.

Donna grinned.

“You always did have the best sense of timing, Grayson.”

She went next, arms out, slow and steady, but even she wobbled on the final beam and had to hop down.

“It’s harder than it looks,” she admitted.

Damian watched, absorbing every mistake. He said nothing, but Dick could see the micro-adjustments: the way he analyzed Donna’s posture, catalogued Wally’s stumble.

“Your turn, kiddo,” Dick said.

Damian squared up, taking a single breath before stepping onto the first beam. He made it halfway, then slipped—caught himself with his fingertips, and swung one leg up, salvaging the move. Wally let out a low whistle.

“That was—”

“Illegal in gymnastics,” Donna finished, “but clever.”

Damian dropped down at the end, landing on both feet.

“Next station,” Dick said.

The rope swing was simple: clear a six-foot gap, land on the mat. Donna went first, showing the technique, but on her second try, Dick triggered a remote that released a small puff of foam darts halfway through her arc. She laughed, missed the landing, and wiped out with both grace and momentum. Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“That wasn’t there before.”

Dick shrugged.

“It’s Gotham. Nothing stays the same.”

Wally tried, missed, tried again, and made a show of tumbling at the end just to get a laugh. Then it was Damian’s turn. He eyed the rope, calculated the angle, and waited a beat before grabbing on. Sure enough, when the darts fired, he curled tight, ducking behind his knees, and made the landing without a hitch. He looked up at Dick, a challenge in his eyes.

“Not bad,” Dick said, keeping it cool.

The final wall was higher than it looked—seven feet, with a slick surface and a net at the top. Wally leapt, missed, and landed on his back, groaning.

“How did I ever survive my twenties?"

"We're not sure you will, you still are in them", Dick deadpanned.

Donna used her height, but even she slipped on the second try. Damian approached the wall, eyed it, then ran at an angle, using the momentum to get a grip on the side. He hung for a second, then scampered up the net, flipping over at the top with the showmanship of someone who definitely did not want to be outdone. The room was quiet for a beat.

Then Wally said, “Okay, I take it back. He’s better than mini-you.”

Damian brushed dust off his hands.

“I learned from the best.”

Donna crossed her arms.

“But did you learn why we have the rules? Why Dick made you watch us mess up first?”

Damian hesitated.

“Because even the best can fail. Even when you think you won’t.”

Dick nodded.

“And because sometimes, you can’t fix it if you get it wrong the first time." He crouched to Damian’s level, keeping it low-key. “I know you want to do more. But I need you to understand why we practice, why we check, why we stop and think before we act.”

Damian’s jaw set, stubborn.

But after a moment, he said, “I see why you’re careful with me, Baba. I don’t like it, but I see.”

Dick ruffled his hair, this time letting the gesture linger.

“You did well today. We’ll keep building on this.”

Wally gave Damian a fist bump, then turned to Dick.

“You did good, man. He’s lucky to have you.”

Donna smiled, looking between the two of them.

“You’re both lucky. Don’t screw it up.”

Alfred appeared in the doorway, holding a tray of hot chocolate and a plate of thick, homemade cookies. The effect was almost comical—like the finale to a play where everyone gets to go home happy. He set the tray on the edge of the mats.

“If I may,” Alfred said, “I believe you have all earned a rest.”

Damian beelined for the cookies, grabbing two and offering one to Steph, who had appeared at some point and was now leaning against the door frame, arms crossed and grinning. They sat in a circle, Damian sandwiched between Dick and Steph, feet dangling off the edge of the mat. Wally and Donna traded stories about old missions, and Damian, for the first time in the room, looked less like a prodigy and more like a kid.

When the hot chocolate was gone and the sun started to set, Dick watched his family—the new, imperfect, battered family—and felt something close to peace. He didn’t know if it would last. But tonight, at least, it was enough.

After the last round of hot chocolate and a ceremonial handshake from Wally—who insisted on teaching Damian the “secret” Teen Titans handshake, which was neither secret nor practical—Dick saw his friends to the door, promising to call soon and check in when patrol slowed down. The manor felt hollow for a moment, the echo of laughter and old rivalries clinging to the stone. Dick lingered in the vestibule, tracing a finger over the edge of the table where Donna had drawn a smiley face in the dust. He smiled, wiped it away, and headed back toward the living room, where Damian had staked out a spot by the window and was building a precarious tower of cookies and chess pieces. He stood by the door for a beat, watching the boy work.

“They’re good people,” he said, mostly to himself.

Damian, not looking up:

“They’re your family.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “So are you.”

He sat on the arm of the chair, waiting for the right opening. Damian, as usual, cut straight to the heart.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, placing a bishop on top of the stack with surgical precision.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dick said. “But there’s something we have to talk about.”

Damian’s mouth pressed into a hard line.

“Is it about the next patrol?”

“Nope. It’s about school.”

He let the word hang there, and sure enough, Damian recoiled, as if the word itself had teeth.

“I already did the tests,” Damian said. “You said I could skip.”

“You are skipping,” Dick said. “You’re starting in the second grade. Next week.”

Damian blinked, confused.

“That’s…not enough skipping.”

Dick laughed, the sound low and tired.

“I know you could pass every class in the building if you wanted. But being the youngest in the room all the time—always having to prove you’re not a baby—it’s hard. I finished high school a year early, did my last year as a senior, and it sucked. I got called names, made fun of for being smaller, younger. You don’t need to go through that if you don’t want to.”

Damian considered, eyes narrowing.

“You want me to be normal.”

“I want you to have a shot at being a kid,” Dick said, and the honesty landed between them like a pebble in a pond. “We’ll still learn at home. Alfred and I built a curriculum just for you. All the languages, the science, the history. But in public, I want you to try and blend. Make friends who don’t know how to pick locks.”

Damian folded his arms, thinking it over.

“What about gym?”

“You do the drills, but you don’t show off. No parkour on the jungle gym, no breaking the mile record on day one.”

Damian almost smiled.

“What if someone attacks me?”

“You defend yourself, but you don’t escalate. No weapons, no fights unless you have to, and you report to the teacher like everyone else.”

Damian rolled his eyes.

“That’s inefficient.”

“It’s also how most people get through life,” Dick said. “Trust me. If you ever need to fight, you’ll know. But let’s try to keep it below DEFCON five for a semester.”

There was a silence, and for a moment, Dick thought the argument would start up again. Instead, Damian slouched in the chair, picking at the hem of his sleeve.

“I don’t want to make you look bad,” he said, so quietly it almost slipped past.

Dick reached out, ruffling his hair.

“You couldn’t, even if you tried.”

Damian let it happen, a little less stiff than usual.

“Why do I have to go to the Wayne gala?”

Dick grinned, shifting the mood.

“Because now that you’re in the records, you’re officially the Wayne heir. Tim’s still off somewhere, and Steph is applying to colleges. So if anything happens to me, you’re in charge.”

Damian looked up, startled.

“That’s stupid. I’m six.”

“You’re six and a genius,” Dick countered. “But yeah, it’s kind of stupid. That’s why I’ll be there with you. And Alfred. And Steph. Team effort, remember?”

Damian nodded, more solemn than before.

“I can do it. I’ll be good.”

Dick pulled him in, hugging him tight and not letting go until the boy made a squawk of protest.

“Gross,” Damian said, but didn’t move away.

“Love you too,” Dick said.

They stayed like that, just breathing in the hush of the old house, the weight of the future less daunting than it had been before. When the streetlights flickered on outside, casting faint shadows across the floor, Damian broke the silence.

“If I get in trouble at school, do I tell you or Alfred first?”

Dick pretended to think.

“Alfred for the minor stuff, me for the major.”

“And if it’s life or death?”

“Team effort,” Dick said, grinning.

Damian grinned back, just for a second.

“Okay. I can do that.”

They went to the kitchen for leftover cookies, and as Dick watched his son—his actual, infuriating, wonderful son—he realized that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad to have the next generation of Wayne troublemakers starting over again.

After all, he had the best team a father could hope for.

Chapter Text

The Watchtower’s main conference chamber was technically named after a Greek muse, but most of the League called it the fishbowl: a ring of transparent viewports suspended over half the Earth’s hemisphere, with a twelve-meter slab of crystal for a table and the kind of holographic firepower that could conjure a global crisis in five seconds flat. The blue-white arc of daylight rolled slowly beneath them. It cast everyone’s face in a clinical, almost surgical light. Batman always sat at the head, backlit by the planet. For years now, the cowl belonged to Dick Grayson, and the shadow he cast was his own.
He’d worn the cape enough to know the routine. Come in silent, take in the room, do a full sweep. Even with Diana, Clark, Barry, and a rotating medley of second-stringers, the habit was hardwired. In the old days, Bruce would have done a silent walkaround, a check for even the smallest out-of-place chair. Dick tried not to overdo it. If the others noticed that he scanned the badge access panels and the fire suppression manifold before sitting, they were nice enough not to say. They did not expect the old mannerisms, not anymore, they all knew he was Nightwing underneath, and they all had realised by now while he took up the mantle, some mannerisms were purely the original Batman.
Superman greeted him first, aleady in the end seat, bright as an open window.

“Morning, Bats.”

Wonder Woman smiled at him. Flash vibrated with the polite desperation of someone five minutes late for his real job, and a Green Lantern—one of the newer ones, Dick couldn’t keep them straight and he did feel bad for it—was hovering above her chair, boots never touching the floor.
He sat down, cape sweeping under the chair, and let the cowl do most of the talking. 
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Gotham’s morning commute is more war zone than usual.”
Flash snorted, then caught himself.

“That was a joke, right?”
Dick didn’t dignify it, just called up the Gotham feed on the table. The holos rose with a twist of his wrist: a spike graph of petty crime, the overlay of recent Joker gang activity, two red-flagged icons for missing kids. He didn’t say a word, but Superman made a sympathetic noise. Diana cut straight to business.

“Metropolis has been quiet,” she said. “But I’m hearing whispers of supply chain hits in the southern hemisphere. Firestorm’s been tracking a ring out of the Andes.”
“Copy that,” Dick said. “WayneTech’s been getting hit, too. Mostly pharmaceuticals and microcontrollers. You think it’s related?” 
“I’d bet a week’s pay,” Barry said, and the Lantern flashed a thumbs-up.
The meeting rolled forward, seamless and brisk. Dick ran the table like he’d been born in this chair, which in a way he had. He didn’t have Bruce’s grim gravity, but he did have a knack for keeping people talking, drawing out what mattered. He played the feeds, summarized, asked for action items. All the while, the shadow of his old mentor hovered over him, but lighter than it used to. This Batman let people finish their sentences. This Batman didn’t glare.
The rhythm broke when, mid-sentence, Dick’s comm vibrated in a pulse pattern he’d programmed himself: two shorts, one long. Not the League frequency, not even a field alert. Personal. He froze, fingers splayed over the console, every inch of him locked to the quiet chirp. The others noticed. Of course they did. But nobody said a word. Clark looked away, deliberately, and Diana’s eyes softened just a fraction. Barry went still, which in itself was a red flag.
“Excuse me,” Dick said.

He tapped a key, blanking his display, and stepped back from the table. Not far—just enough for the others to know it was a real call, not League business, and he’d be back in a second. Far enough not to be overheard. He crossed to the antechamber, let the auto-glass close behind him, then thumbed the comm open. The mic was shaped like a tooth, which was only funny if you knew why.
“Baba! Guess what?” The voice was high and rough, the kind of seven-year-old shout that made Dick’s ears ring even through the comm. “I lost my first tooth! It came out in the cereal and Alfred says now I get money and maybe a silver coin but only if I don’t lose it again before you get home.”
Dick didn’t remember to exhale until the second sentence. He leaned against the panel, let the Watchtower’s recycled air wash over him, and for a second let himself smile—real and involuntary.
“That’s amazing, bud,” he said. “Which tooth?”
“The big one in front,” Damian said. “Now there’s a hole. Aunt Steph says I look like a vampire but not the cool kind. Also we are going to the zoo after lessons and she says we can eat ice cream for lunch if you say it’s okay.”
Dick glanced back through the window, saw the conference table frozen in time: Lantern upending a coffee packet, Barry with his phone half out of his pocket, Diana tracing a pattern in the air. Clark, alone, was looking right at him. Dick waved, sheepish, and Clark smiled back, wide and blinding.
“Baba,” the voice repeated, more urgent. “Are you there?”
He’d gotten distracted. Amateur move.
“Yeah, Dames. Sorry. You want me to bring anything from up here?”
A tiny beat of silence, then:

“Can you see me from the sky?”
Dick laughed. He could feel it, even in the cowl.

“Yeah. The satellite’s got you. I can see the whole city.”
A pause. “Can I see you? If I look up?”
“Not today. It’s too bright out. But maybe tonight, when it’s dark, I’ll tell whoever is on shift to flash the light.”
The other end went silent. He heard the muffled sound of a door, some voices in the background, the faint pop of a can opening.
“Alfred says I have to do lessons now. Please come home soon. I want to show you the tooth.”
Dick nodded, even though no one could see.

“Be good for Alfred and Steph. And keep the tooth safe. I’ll be back tonight.”

The call ended with a burst of static and a chirp. Dick stood there, letting the blue-white haze of the planet fill his eyes, and tried to remember how to slot himself back into the League’s war room. He didn’t want to lose the smile, but it was stubborn, clinging to the edges of his mouth.

He turned back, opened the door. Clark was the first to speak, but softly, like they were in a library.

“All okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Dick said, and sat.

Diana’s lips twitched. 

“Do you have to leave?” Barry asked, genuinely concerned.

Dick shook his head. “We’re good. I just promised to be home for dinner.”

The Lantern hovered, a little less intimidating than before. “It’s cool if you need to go,” she said.

Dick looked around the table, saw not suspicion, not challenge, but—if he was being honest—affection. They all knew it was him, under the cowl. None of them cared. If anything, they seemed glad.

He cleared his throat, pulled the Gotham feed back up. “So. Let’s catch some bad guys.”

The meeting rolled on. But for the rest of the hour, every time the light caught the blue-white rim of the Earth through the window, Dick felt a little lighter in the chair.


Dick had the route from the conference chamber to the Watchtower’s secondary deck down to a science: exit left, pass two shielded bulkheads, avoid the fire-suppression drones, then duck the low rail by the holo-terrarium before anyone could corner him with follow-up questions. The station’s corridors were engineered to make even gods feel small, but Dick could walk them blindfolded, his muscle memory never quite shaking the circus. He’d almost made it to the elevators when Clark’s voice, unmodulated and warm, called after him.

“Got a minute, Bats?”

He turned. Clark was already there, hands in pockets, moving with the soft-footed grace that never matched his size. He smiled, broad and easy, and tapped his ear. “Super-hearing, remember? I caught the whole conversation. Congratulations on the tooth. First one?”

Dick exhaled, cowl still up. “Yeah. Came out in the cereal. He’s making a trophy case for it.”

Clark’s smile went from bright to nearly blinding. “He sounds amazing. That’s a big deal.”

Dick shrugged, but the gesture had no edge. “He’s a good kid. Smarter than me by about a mile, too.”

Clark didn’t rush it. He just stood there, letting Dick find the beat. “You know, when Jon lost his first tooth, Lois threw a party. He wanted to bite steel afterward, to prove he was grown up. I had to talk him down from biting the tractor.”

Dick almost laughed. Almost. “If I let Damian try that, he’d end up biting the engine block off the Batmobile.”

Clark looked delighted. “Classic. You’re doing great with him. I mean that.”

Dick was unprepared for the warmth in Clark’s voice. He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure at first. Still not sure, most days. I just… didn’t want him to be alone.”

Clark nodded, and for a moment the blue of his eyes was all sky, no shadow. “You’ve given him more than B would have ever given himself.”

Dick shifted, uncomfortable with the compliment. “You knew. About the kid. Before I took up the cowl.”

Clark looked out the viewport, as if searching the Earth for words. “We all knew. Diana, me, a few others. He made us promise to keep it quiet. For his safety, but I think—” he hesitated, then shrugged. “B didn’t want anyone to know he had a heart, let alone a son. Diana and me were the only ones who actually knew him without the cowl though.”

Dick chewed on that. “He did. Have a heart, I mean. Just not much practice showing it.”

“Some of us are slow learners,” Clark said. “But you—” He stopped, searching Dick’s face. “You’re not him. You’re better at this than you know.”

A hand rested, just for a second, on Dick’s shoulder. The gesture was gentle, full of respect.

Diana appeared at the far end of the corridor, moving like she belonged in every space. She wore the suit, but it somehow looked less like a costume and more like a second skin. “Is this a private moment?” she asked, and the smile in her voice softened the line.

Clark invited her in with a nod. “We were just talking about lost teeth.”

Diana’s smile brightened, instantly understanding. “A major milestone. How is the young prince?”

Dick felt himself relax, fraction by fraction. “He’s…good. Adjusting. He’s reading at college level, but hates fairy tales. He’s started real school. I’m worried it’ll eat him alive.”

Diana looked thoughtful. “If he is anything like you, he will devour it instead. With style.”

The compliment hit somewhere under the armour. Dick wanted to deflect, but Diana pressed on.

“We wondered,” she said, eyes meeting his, “if we might visit? Clark and I. We were the only ones B ever allowed to see the Manor, in the old days. And,” she added, voice dipping low, “we were the only ones who knew about the kid’s actual identity. Before all this.”

Dick blinked, caught off-guard by the offer. “He’d like that,” he said, honest and a little raw. “He’s curious about…all of you. I think it would help.”

Clark’s smile said everything. “Tonight?”

Dick’s mind spun through logistics: security protocols, dinner, whether there were enough cookies. He nodded. “Tonight’s good. I’ll tell A to break out the best tea.”

Diana’s expression turned mischievous. “And perhaps some baklava, if he still keeps a stash?”

Clark laughed, the sound softening the cold echo of the Watchtower. “He does.”

Dick found himself grinning, real and wide, and the sensation was almost unfamiliar.

“Thank you,” he said, voice unsteady. “For this. For—everything.”

Diana laid a hand over his, her fingers warm and strong. “You’re family, Bats. You always have been.”

For a moment, the silence felt like a hug. Then Clark broke it, stepping back into the bright corridor.

“We’ll see you tonight,” he said.

Diana squeezed his hand once, then followed.
Dick lingered for a beat, watching the blue-white curve of the world slip by. He messaged Alfred: two guests, casual but not too casual, brace for impossible questions.

He let himself hope—for the first time in a long while—that maybe, this time, the story could have a happy ending.

Alfred had once told Dick that a true butler did not open doors, he orchestrated arrivals. The lesson was in the stance, the measured pace, the way his hands found equilibrium between invitation and command. When the bell rang at precisely 5:59—one minute before the agreed time, but not so early as to be impertinent—Alfred drew the Manor’s oak doors open as if unveiling an exhibit. The guests stood framed in gold light from the drive: Clark in his off-duty best (a blue oxford, chinos, shoes too new for Gotham’s mud), Diana in a sleeveless navy dress, her hair falling in a rippling black wave. They both carried small gifts. Clark, a foil-wrapped box of Midwestern fudge. Diana, a cut-glass jar of honey, lid sealed with what looked suspiciously like a Lasso of Truth ribbon.

“Master Kent. Ms. Prince. Welcome.” Alfred said it with the inflection of a man announcing dignitaries at the U.N. He took their gifts, then their coats—Clark’s windbreaker, Diana’s cream cashmere—and vanished them with the sleight of hand only old money or old magic could teach.

The foyer was at full polish, every sconce and chandelier a beacon of hospitality. The portraits on the walls seemed to have been dusted not just for shine but for psychological impact: the ones of Bruce as a child were moved forward, the darkest ones of Thomas Wayne left deeper in the hall. The warmth from the kitchen carried a citrus note, faint but grounding.

At the foot of the stairs, Damian stood at parade rest, hair slicked back and shirt buttoned to the throat. He wore navy slacks and patent shoes that squeaked when he shifted his weight. In his right hand was a small, black velvet box. He did not smile, but his posture was less “ready for battle” and more “hoping for orders.”

Dick waited with him, one step above. He’d traded the cowl for a tailored blue shirt, sleeves rolled, collar open just enough to communicate ‘not tonight, I’m off-duty.’ He watched his son, tracking the flicker of nerves behind the careful stillness. As the guests approached, Dick knelt to Damian’s level.

“Remember what we talked about?” he whispered.

Damian nodded, jaw clenched.

“Shake hands. Eye contact. Speak in full sentences. No Latin unless asked. No criticism unless wanted.”

Dick squeezed his shoulder, and rose.

“Clark, Diana, welcome to Wayne Manor.” He tried to sound like a host and not a kid giving a tour. “You remember Damian?”

Clark went first, all warmth and slow movements. He bent to Damian’s eye level, smiled, and said, “I heard only good things. It’s good to see you, Damian.”

Damian looked him up and down, registering everything—the cut of the shirt, the calluses on the hand, the flash of red-and-blue at the sock line. He extended a palm, crisp. “Nice to meet you, sir. Baba says you can bench-press the sun.”

Clark laughed, surprised. “Maybe a small sun. Mostly I just lift tractors.”

Diana crouched, skirt pooling. “It is an honour, Prince Damian,” she said, her accent wrapping the words in warmth. “Your reputation precedes you.”

He hesitated, then offered the box. “This is for you. It’s a chess piece. I made it in shop class.”

She took it, careful as if it were a relic. Inside, a carved rook: polished, painted silver, the base engraved with the Wayne crest. Diana looked up, eyes shining. “It is beautiful. Thank you.”

He beamed—small, but real—and stepped back behind Dick, mission accomplished.

Clark looked at Dick, then at Damian, then back again. “He seems older than he is,” he said.

Dick grinned. “We can not all be farm boys.”

They moved to the parlor, where Alfred had staged a low fire and set out a tray of sandwiches cut with military precision. The room felt smaller, more intimate, with the four of them. Damian perched on the settee beside Dick, shoes dangling. Clark and Diana took the armchairs, both leaning forward in mirror-image attentiveness.

Damian eyed the fudge, but did not touch it. “Did you fly here?” he asked Clark.

Clark smiled, pouring tea for himself and Diana. “Not this time. Trains are easier for blending in. Plus, I get to see more people that way.”

Damian mulled this. “Baba said you once caught a train going off a bridge.”

Clark shrugged, modest. “Only because Batman told me which bridge.”

Diana sipped her tea, then fixed Damian with a gaze both gentle and unyielding. “And what do you wish to be, when you grow?”

Damian didn’t hesitate. “I wish to be the world’s best detective. And maybe a writer, if there’s time.”

Diana laughed, the sound rich and clean. “That is a most excellent plan.”

Dick listened, letting the moment draw itself out. He could see the old ghosts in the room—his own, Bruce’s, the ones no chandelier could ever banish—but they were quiet tonight, content to observe.

After a round of sandwiches and a careful dissection of the fudge, the conversation drifted. Damian’s wariness faded by degrees; soon he was sitting sideways on the settee, one foot tucked under him, quizzing Clark about which animals he’d seen flying over different continents (“Bats do not count, that’s cheating”), and listening to Diana tell stories of Greek heroes who’d gotten into trouble far younger than he.

At one point, Alfred entered to refresh the tea. He set a hand on Dick’s shoulder as he passed—no words, just a squeeze, then gone again.

When Damian excused himself for “urgent business” (the phrase was code for using the secret bathroom behind the grandfather clock), Clark leaned in.

“You’re a good dad, Dick,” he said, voice low. “I hope you know that.”

Dick stared at the fire for a second, not sure what to do with the compliment. “I used to worry I was just…upstaging Bruce. That maybe I was just here as a place-holder, until he came back and did it better.”

Clark frowned. “Do you still worry?”

Dick took a long breath. “No. I mean, I’d love to see him again. But if he showed up tonight, I don’t think I’d give the kid back.”

Clark nodded, understanding. “Do you think that’s wrong?”

Dick shook his head. “I think it’s…right. For us.”

Diana, who’d been watching the fire, joined the conversation without looking away. “Bruce would be proud,” she said. “He was many things, but not always brave about his own heart.”

Dick almost laughed. “Not a day goes by I don’t wish he’d just said it. Once.”

Clark rested a hand on his arm. “You say it. That’s what matters.”

Damian returned, this time with one of the Manor’s enormous cats trailing behind. He climbed into Dick’s lap, casual, and glared at Clark and Diana as if daring them to say something about it.

Diana’s eyes twinkled. “You are safe, little one. We would never tell.”

The conversation slowed. The room’s warmth settled into their bones. Damian, never one for bedtime, started to yawn.

Clark said, “Do you want to hear a story? I know a good one.”

Damian eyed him, suspicious but interested. “Is it true?”

Clark nodded. “On my world, there are legends, too. Would you like to hear the story of Nightwing and Flamebird?”

Damian nodded, curling into Dick’s chest, more interested than he let on.

Clark began, voice soft as the falling dusk. He told of the gods of Krypton, how Rao made two avatars—one a bird of fire, one a creature of shadow. They were opposites, but always found each other, and always made each other better, even if they sometimes destroyed the world to do it. He described how, in every age, Nightwing and Flamebird were reborn to find each other again, and in every age, they saved the world a little bit more than they broke it.

When he finished, Diana added: “The legend says that if you find your Nightwing or your Flamebird, you are never alone.”

Damian blinked, processing. “So Nightwing was the hero before Superman?”

Clark smiled. “He was the first. On Krypton, Nightwing stood for hope. And sometimes for mischief.”

Damian looked up at Dick. “Is that why you called yourself Nightwing?”

Dick smiled, brushing the hair from Damian’s brow. “It’s exactly why.”

Damian nodded, thinking. “If you are Nightwing, can I be Flamebird?”

Dick felt his throat tighten, but managed to say, “If you want.”

“I do,” Damian said. “Because then we’re always a team. Even when it’s hard.”

Diana watched, eyes bright.

Clark said, “That’s how the story is supposed to end. Together.”

The fire crackled. Outside, the night deepened, stars barely visible through Gotham’s haze.

Damian yawned again, eyelids drooping. Dick held him, light and easy, and watched the other two heroes—his friends, his family—smile in the warmth.

When Damian finally nodded off, clutching Dick’s shirt in his sleep, Clark and Diana rose to leave. They thanked Alfred, who appeared to see them out, and slipped into the night with the same quiet grace as they’d arrived.

Dick sat in the hush of the parlor, the only sound the low pop of the fire and the small, even breaths of the boy in his lap.

He thought of Bruce, and of all the stories left untold. Then he looked at Damian, the next legend in the making, and knew that sometimes, the best endings were the ones you wrote yourself.

He kissed Damian’s hair, gentle.

“Goodnight, Flamebird,” he whispered.

Outside, the world spun on.

Chapter Text

The study at Wayne Manor was colder than the rest of the house. In winter, the old radiator gave up by nine and the books lining the walls served mostly to soak up the draft. At the moment, the surface of the partners’ desk was covered edge-to-edge in paperwork, each stack subdivided by colored flags and bookmarks, the uppermost sheet in every pile annotated in Alfred’s handwriting: a system of slanted blue script and pinprick-precise notations. Wayne Enterprises had way too much paperwork, really.

Dick sat with both elbows on the blotter, head bowed over a black-leather folio, his thumb marking a page he hadn’t read in ten minutes. His hair was growing out, not by choice but by neglect; it fell over his eyes every time he leaned in, and instead of brushing it back, he let it fall, hiding the subtle tic at the corner of his mouth. On the carpet, a mug of coffee cooled without being touched, the aroma drowned out by the gluey, sour tang of paper and ink.

Alfred stood at the far end of the desk, hands folded behind his back. He was immaculate, of course, but even his cuffs looked subdued in this light, the white dulled to a shade between fog and bone. He waited, not as a servant but as an advocate, his patience measured by the sweep of the grandfather clock in the corner.

“It’s all locked?” Dick asked, finally, without lifting his gaze.

“Yes, sir. The primary accounts are accessible, but the trusts and lines of credit remain locked. They require a death certificate for full dispensation. Until then, we are limited to the personal estate and those funds earmarked by Mr. Wayne for operating expenses. And they are, almost, depleted, I’m afraid.”

Alfred’s voice was precise, the words placed like surgical instruments, but the pause before ‘death certificate’ was just long enough for Dick to notice. He sat back, the folio flopping closed.

“The city already thinks he’s dead. What does a piece of paper matter?”

Alfred offered a measured shrug.

“To the courts, sir, a very great deal. It has been four years. The presumption of death is all but automatic, but the matter of a public declaration falls to the next of kin.”

Dick squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“That’s me, right? No need for Damian to…”

“Indeed, sir.” Alfred allowed himself a glance toward the window, where the hedgerow cut the dusk into angular shadows across the glass. “If I may: Master Bruce was thorough in his succession planning. Should the need arise, the documentation is prepared. There is only the matter of formal announcement.”

He slid a single, cream-colored envelope across the desk. It was sealed with the Wayne crest in wax, the script on the front addressed not to a lawyer or a board, but to ‘Richard John Grayson, Executor’. Dick stared at it, then at Alfred, then at his own hands, which were shaking just enough to catch the edge of the paper as he picked it up.

He didn’t open it. Not right away.

“What about the foundation?” he asked. “Isn’t there a clause for emergencies? He used to talk about a war chest, rainy day fund, all that.”

Alfred smiled, just a quirk of the lips.

“Master Bruce was fond of redundancies. The foundation can sustain itself for the time being. But the household staff has not been paid since February, and several city projects are awaiting approval from the board of trustees. Even the Cave’s maintenance budget is... under strain.”

Dick huffed.

“So I tell the world he’s dead, and suddenly the checks clear, the city gets its new rec centre, and you don’t have to jury-rig the Batmobile’s rear axle with duct tape?”

Alfred inclined his head.

“In a manner of speaking, yes, sir.”

Dick set the envelope down, pressing his palm over the crest. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say: He’s not gone, he’s just out there, he’ll walk through the door and scowl at us for giving up on him. But the words wouldn’t line up right. He looked up at Alfred. The man’s expression was unreadable, but his eyes were glassy, rimmed in red. He hadn’t slept, either.

“Do we have to make it a thing?” Dick said. “Like, a press conference? Or can we just mail the paperwork to the courthouse and be done with it?”

Alfred hesitated.

“As a matter of public record, sir, it is preferable for the family to announce such matters personally. It prevents speculation. It gives closure to the city, as well as to those who cared for Mr. Wayne.”

Dick snorted.

“Closure. Right.” He tapped the envelope, running his finger over the crest until the wax crumbled under the pressure. “Okay,” he said, voice hoarse. “We’ll do it. But we keep it simple. None of the big hall, no black bunting, no... choir.”

“As you wish, sir.”

The clock in the hall chimed the half hour. Dick pushed back from the desk, rolling his neck until it cracked, then bent to pick up the cold coffee. He drank it in one go, made a face, and dropped into the armchair by the fireplace. Alfred gathered the papers, smoothing each into place before stacking them with the care of a man laying bricks on his own grave.

After a minute, Dick said, “He’s really not coming back, is he? If we do this, Tim will kill me if he ever comes back.”

Alfred stood behind the desk, posture unbroken. But his hands clenched, just once, into fists before he released them.

“In all probability, sir, no. But you honuor him by continuing. As he would have wished. I am certain Master Timothy would agree with the necessity. If I may…” Dick nodded, not trusting himself to speak. “Please remember that you will be in the spotlight again. Perhaps it is time to manifest a persona of the unwilling heir, the one way to similar to his father. It would not do for people to take you too… seriously.”

Dick swallowed, the words clear.

Bruce had been a private man. In public, nobody could even think he and Batman shared a connection. In public, he was careless, dumb, playboy Brucie Wayne. And it would be time for Dick to actually go to the contingency he’d made for Nightwing. Way to similar to Brucie, indeed. He sighed. Alfred crossed the carpet, stopping at the chair. He reached out, set a hand on Dick’s shoulder. The grip was steady, neither comforting nor urgent, just a reminder of the world outside the bubble of grief.

“If you require anything, sir, I am always here.”

Dick swallowed.

“I know.”

He sat there, staring into the empty hearth, feeling the pressure of Alfred’s hand long after the butler had gone.

The wax seal flaked off the envelope, scattering onto the floor. Dick didn’t move to pick it up. He just watched it, letting the pieces fall where they wanted, knowing the next time he stood in front of a camera, the world would be different. He closed his eyes and waited for the cold to recede.

The Wayne Enterprises auditorium seated seven hundred, but this morning, every square inch of standing room in the back was claimed by a reporter, a camera operator, or someone in a hastily-printed “Wayne4ever” T-shirt. The windows were blacked out for media optics; the only light came from the overhead LEDs and the camera flashes, which stuttered through the crowd in an arrhythmic, nerve-destroying pattern. Dick stood behind the podium at center stage. The lectern was acrylic, slim and hypermodern, chosen by the comms team for “approachability.” A bottle of water—still sealed, label out—sat next to the sheaf of notes. He hadn’t looked at the notes. He wasn’t going to. He could have done the whole script in his sleep. In fact, he had: the words replayed every night since the first PR draft landed in his inbox. It was the next part that kept him up.

From his vantage, Dick could see the entire first row: board members, lawyers, a couple of city councilors with the dazed, panicked look of people waiting for a shoe to drop. Second and third rows were all press, most with their phones out, and he clocked at least three TikTokers doing whisper-commentary for their followers. To his left, offstage, Alfred waited with arms folded, as unmovable as a secret service agent. He adjusted the mic. Leaned onto the podium with acted loftiness. The feedback spike got him more than the crowd. He waited for the hush, for the hundred tiny red lights to wink at him, then began.

“Good morning,” he said. “I want to thank you all for coming on short notice. I'm sure you, too, would prefer to get back to bed. But... There’s no easy way to say what I’m about to say, so I’ll get straight to it.”

He paused, smirked at the inappropriate joke like Richie Grayson would, letting the murmur run the length of the room and die. He saw eye rolls. Good.

“My name is Richard Grayson. I’m sure you all know that though.” He winked at one of the reporters in the front, a pretty blonde woman. She giggled. “As of today, I am the acting CEO of Wayne Enterprises and the legal guardian of all Wayne family interests, including oversight of the Wayne Foundation, Gotham Renewal, and several other subsidiaries you know and love—or hate, depending on your side of the aisle.”

A nervous ripple, a few forced laughs.

“As many of you know, my father Bruce Wayne has been missing for almost four years. For the first year, we held out hope. For the second, we kept his office ready and his parking space open. In the third year, we began to worry that hope itself was doing more harm than good—to the city, to the company, to his family.”

He looked down, just long enough for the cameras to catch the tremor.

“I’ve consulted with our legal team, the board, and Bruce’s closest friends and family. It is with great reluctance and sadness that I have to declare Bruce Wayne, my father, presumed dead.”

The words landed with a solidity that no rehearsal could have prepared for. Even knowing he’d have to say it, Dick felt the edges of the world give a little, the room tilting just off centre. He scanned the crowd, fixing on a point halfway back, somewhere above the heads.

“We’re going to continue his work. I am, I suppose. The foundation projects aren’t stopping. The company will stay in the family. The only thing that changes is the paperwork.” He smiled, the way Bruce used to: a quick flick of the mouth, all business, but with a hint of please don’t look any closer. “I’ll take a few questions.”

The hands shot up. Dick pointed to a woman in a red blazer, front row.

“Are you planning to sell any subsidiaries, or will Wayne Enterprises remain as it is?”

Dick leaned in, channelling the heir’s charm.

“We’re not selling anything. In fact, we’re planning to double down on community initiatives. Bruce always said the real fortune is what you build for other people. I intend to keep it that way.”

Next, a man in glasses.

“Is there any update on the investigation into his disappearance?”

Dick shook his head.

“GCPD and private investigators have kept us updated, but there’s no new evidence. The last verified sighting was in Istanbul, almost four years ago.” He took a breath, felt his shoulders drop as he shifted into the persona the tabloids loved. “If anyone in this room sees him at a juice bar in SoHo, please let us know. There’s a sizable reward for any credible Bruce Wayne sighting, and I hear he owes money to at least three baristas.”

A smatter of laughter, and some of the tension melted.

“Are you going to keep living at the Manor?” another reporter shouted.

Dick nodded.

“It’s home. Someone has to keep the plants fed, and I’m the only one on payroll who isn’t afraid of Alfred.”

Alfred’s eyebrow rose half a centimeter in the wings at the giggles that sent through the crowd. Dick picked another question:

“How are you holding up, personally?”

He hesitated, just for a beat.

“I have a great support system. My siblings, my friends, and the best butler in the world. It’s hard, but we’re family. We get through it.”

He fielded a few more—about the future of the company, the status of the car collection (they would be displayed for charity auctions), and the rumours about a possible merger (flatly denied, with a wink). As the presser wound down, Dick could feel the persona congeal around him like a new layer of skin. He cracked jokes. He flirted, very lightly, with a woman in the second row who asked about his dating life (“Why, you applying?”). He played the part so well that by the end, some people were already calling him “Bruce 2.0,” as if grief were software you could patch.

He closed the conference with a simple, “Thank you for your support, and for giving my family some privacy as we move forward. We appreciate it more than you know.”

He stepped down from the podium, the smile fixed in place, and made for the side exit. The lights followed him, and he kept the smile on, even as the corridor closed in around him and the air went quiet.

He found Alfred waiting in the hallway, a paper cup of tea in his hands. Dick took it, burned his tongue, and let out a shaky exhale.

“How did I do?” he asked.

Alfred considered, then said, “Your father would be proud. The media shall not think twice of your capabilities now.”

Dick set the tea down and scrubbed a hand through his hair, the weight of the day finally folding his shoulders. For a second, the mask slipped, and the world was silent.

The office they’d given Dick at Wayne Enterprises was triple-paned and soundproof, a box of glass and walnut twelve floors above Gotham’s river. He had a view of the park and, beyond that, the skyline—gray and fractal, shrouded in permanent haze. The only sound inside was the tick of the digital clock on the credenza and the thin clatter of keys as he worked through post-conference emails. Every few minutes, he’d flip to a news feed and check for the words “Bruce Wayne,” counting how many cycles it took for the world to pivot away from grief and back to profit margins. Alfred was stationed in the visitor’s chair, scrolling through the schedule for the rest of the day.

“At two o’clock, you have the board audit. Then interviews for the Wayne Scholars program, and a security review at the Gotham South branch.”

Dick groaned.

“Can’t they just clone me already? Or is that still illegal in New Jersey?”

“I believe it is only discouraged, sir, not forbidden.”

A chime from the phone: the school’s number, flagged urgent. Dick’s chest tightened.

“Hang on,” he said, answering on speaker.

A secretary’s voice, over-polished and shrill.

“Mr. Grayson? We need you to come to Gotham Prep immediately. There’s been an incident with your son.”

Dick was on his feet before the woman finished spelling the word ‘incident.’ Alfred was right behind, coat in hand. He handed it over.

“I shall delay the meetings, sir.”

Dick just nodded gratefully.

The hallway outside the principal’s office smelled like disinfectant and fear. The benches were lined with children in various states of trouble, but only one sat perfectly still, arms folded, back straight, as if daring the universe to blink first. Damian’s shoes didn’t quite reach the floor. His hair was slicked back, but a cowlick had rebelled, and there was a reddish bruise blooming over one cheekbone. His knuckles were raw, two fingers taped together with blue plastic. Dick dropped to a crouch in front of him.

“You okay?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

Damian shrugged, eyes fixed on the far wall.

“I am not the one who needed an ambulance.”

Dick winced.

“Let’s hear what they have to say, okay? Just answer their questions.”

A click as the principal’s door opened. Ms. French, a woman whose entire personality seemed to be made of laminated wood, beckoned them inside. She gestured for Dick to take the seat across from her desk, and for Damian to stand just behind.  Ms. French started with the script.

“Mr. Grayson, thank you for coming on such short notice. There was a fight during recess. Damian struck another student, resulting in a broken nose and loss of several baby teeth. It’s our policy to involve parents immediately in such—”

“What did the other kid do?” Dick interrupted, folding his hands.

The principal shifted in her chair, uncomfortable.

“There were some… words exchanged. About Damian’s background.”

Dick waited. She sighed, relenting.

“The other student, Gregory Mason, called Damian a ‘bastard from a terrorist family.’ He also implied that Mr. Wayne, Damian’s grandfather, abandoned the city because of Damian’s presence in the household.”

Dick felt the blood drain from his face. Ms. French eyed Damian.

“We do not condone violence, but it’s clear that Gregory’s comments were egregious. And I understand that, with the news coverage and the hard decisions, this… Curiosity of the other students was piqued. However, the school cannot overlook physical retaliation. I’m afraid Damian will be suspended for three days, per our code of conduct.”

Damian’s jaw worked. He hadn’t looked at anyone since entering the room. Ms. French’s tone softened, just a hair.

“I understand this is a difficult time. If Damian would like to speak with a counselor, we—”

“He said I had no father,” Damian blurted, voice sharp as glass. “He said you are just a ‘stand-in’ until the real one comes back, but that’s a lie. I have a father. I have you.” He was looking at Dick, eyes furious and wet. “I have you. I don’t care what he says.”

The room went silent. The principal looked startled, and for a moment Dick thought she might start crying herself. He stood, moving behind the chair to put a hand on Damian’s shoulder.

“He’s right,” Dick said quietly. “He’s got me. And that’s not changing, ever.”

Ms. French composed herself, hands smoothing her skirt.

“I’m sorry, Damian. That’s no excuse for what Gregory said. We’ll be speaking with his family, as well. For now, you’ll need to stay home the rest of the week. But we’ll make sure you don’t fall behind.”

Damian nodded, then finally met her eyes.

“Alright.”

They left the office, paperwork in hand. As they stepped outside, Damian clung to Dick’s sleeve, just for a second, before pulling away and schooling his face back into its usual mask. The car was waiting, parked in the drop off line. Damian climbed in first, silent. Dick watched him through the rearview mirror the entire way home, searching for the right words.

He wasn’t sure there were any.

The ride home was silent, but not the good kind. Dick drove with both hands on the wheel, knuckles white, every now and then stealing a look at Damian in the rearview. The kid stared out the window, jaw set, arms crossed so tight across his chest they pressed his shirt into furrows. Even when the car hit a pothole, Damian didn’t flinch. Alfred, whom they had picked up from W.E. just minutes ago, in the front passenger seat, tried twice to break the tension—once with an offer of a snack from the glove box (“There’s banana bread, if you’re peckish, Master Damian”), once with a story about Dick’s own run-ins with authority (“If memory serves, Master Richard once attempted to unionize the third grade in protest of milk substitutes…”). Both landed like hail on concrete.

They pulled up the drive, the house looming in late-winter gloom. Damian got out without a word, backpack dangling from one hand, and made for the door with his head down. Dick watched him go, then looked at Alfred.

“Did I screw this up?” he said, low.

Alfred shook his head.

“It is not you, sir. There are wounds only time can reach.”

Dick nodded, then followed Damian inside.

The kitchen was warm, at least, the oven radiating residual heat from whatever Alfred had baked that morning. Damian stood by the counter, methodically lining up apples from the fruit bowl in size order. He seemed to be daring them to defy his system. Dick grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and wrapped it in a dish towel. He set it on the counter.

“For your hand,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.

Damian ignored it. He stared at the apples. Dick picked up the towel, pressed the ice gently to the kid’s knuckles.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break any fingers,” he said. “Next time, aim for the solar plexus. Less paperwork.”

Damian’s eyes flicked to him, then away. Dick set the ice down, but kept his hand over Damian’s.

“I’m not mad at you,” he said. “Not for defending yourself.”

“You said not to fight at school.”

“I did. But sometimes rules get broken when people cross the line.”

Silence. Then, very quietly, “He called me a terrorist.”

“I know.”

Another pause.

“I didn’t want to punch him. I just—”

Damian stopped, as if the words themselves hurt.

Dick waited, then said, “You never have to be ashamed of who you are. Not for your skin, your family, or anything else.”

Damian stared at the apples.

“But I’m not like them.”

“Good,” Dick said, squeezing his hand. “Because you’re better.”

The silence stretched. Then, out of nowhere, “Baba, can I—” Dick waited. “Can I go out with you? For real? As Robin? Or will you not allow that, now?”

The question hit like a stray bullet. For a second, Dick was eight again, standing in the Cave with his hands shaking, begging Bruce to take him seriously, to let him fight back against the world that had just destroyed everything he loved. He saw the same desperate hope in Damian’s eyes now. He knelt down, so they were eye to eye.

“If we do this, you follow my lead. No solo acts. No unnecessary risks.”

Damian’s face didn’t change, but Dick could see the hope bloom.

“I promise,” he said. “I’ll listen. I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Also,” Dick said, “if you ever give Steph grief about the color of her suit again, you’re on laundry duty for a month.”

A tiny smile cracked Damian’s facade.

“I like the purple. It’s stealthy.”

Dick laughed.

“Tell her that. She’ll put it on a t-shirt.” Dick then glanced at the kid’s hand. “Does it hurt?”

“A little,” Dick said. “But it’ll heal.”

Dick nodded, and for the first time since leaving the school, Damian looked at Dick. Really looked.

“Are you sure you’re not mad?”

Dick pulled him in, arms wrapping around his small, tense body.

“There’s nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. Ever. Even if you burned down the Manor.”

“Even if I crashed the Batmobile?” Damian’s voice was muffled by Dick’s shirt.

“Even then.”

He held Damian for a long time, until the kid finally relaxed, just a little, against him. When they separated, Dick stood, ruffling Damian’s hair.

“Let’s get you patched up. Then you can help me set up tonight’s patrol. Sound good?”

Damian nodded, and it was almost—almost—a real smile. As they left the kitchen, Dick felt the shape of the day rearrange itself. The grief was still there, sharp at the edges, but for the first time since the call from school, it wasn’t all-consuming. Maybe this was what progress looked like. Not a miracle, not a clean slate, but one good hour after another. He could live with that. More importantly, so could Damian.

Chapter Text

The dining room at Wayne Manor still carried the weight of a hundred old holidays. It had been repainted three times since Dick moved in—first by Alfred (soft cream, to offset the wood panelling), then by Steph (neon sticky notes and a brief, disastrous phase of chartreuse runners), and finally by Damian himself, who insisted on “no-nonsense” navy walls and a ban on centrepieces that involved “flowers or other corpses.” The banner, too wide for the door frame, drooped in a festive parabola: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAMIAN.” The ‘Y’ hung loose, threatening to peel off entirely by dessert. The table was set with a precision only Alfred could muster. Every plate lined to the edge of its charger, every glass clean enough to shame a mirror. In the centre, flanked by two pillar candles, a chocolate cake sat in full regalia: ten candles, uneven heights, one already melting at a rakish angle. A lone helium balloon, Batman-blue, bobbed from the end chair. 

Damian sat at the head of the table, legs crossed at the ankle, hands folded with military neatness. His hair, still jet-black but now cut close at the sides, gleamed under the chandelier. There was a new sharpness in his jaw—puberty just starting to test its blueprints on the rest of him—but he carried himself with the same small, controlled gravity he’d always had.

Dick took the seat beside him, back straight, chin up, eyes darting occasionally to the cake as if calculating blast radius. Across from them, Steph reclined in a dinner chair, arms folded, purple lipstick already smudged from where she’d licked the frosting off a test cupcake. Wally and Donna, impossibly paired as ever, had staked out the seats further down—Wally already halfway through the bread basket, Donna pouring herself water with an elegance that somehow made the rest of the room look like a school cafeteria. Diana and Clark arrived just before the appetisers, Diana in a slim navy suit, Clark in a checked shirt that somehow managed to look both farmhand and GQ at once. Diana claimed the spot beside her sister.

There were other seats. Three at the far end, set with care, cutlery aligned. No one mentioned them, but every so often, the conversation would tilt in their direction, and then quickly correct itself. Alfred entered, bearing the first round—pea soup, crusty bread, cucumber slices lined up like dominoes. He did the sweep, nodded to Dick, and then paused by Damian.

“Sir, would you like to announce the wine this evening?”

Damian nodded, rising from his chair.

“This is a Château d’Yquem, 1998. If you break the glass or spill on the tablecloth, you’re cleaning it yourself.”

Wally held up both hands.

“I’m pacing myself after last time. I learned my lesson.”

“You learned nothing,” Steph said, already elbow-deep in her soup. “Also, isn’t that supposed to be for dessert?”

“We’re not bound by convention,” Damian said, sitting. “It’s my birthday.”

Dick ruffled his hair.

“You get one day a year to make the rules. Use it wisely.”

The soup vanished at a speed that would have embarrassed Bruce. Wally ran clean-up on the remaining bread, and Steph was already eyeing the cake. Conversation snaked through the room, skipping topics at random: Diana’s latest museum opening (a study in Greco-Roman myth), Steph’s slow-motion campaign for mayor (“I’d run on a platform of shorter school days and legalising paintball as a conflict resolution tool”), Wally’s new job as an elementary school gym teacher (“Every day I get asked if I can vibrate through a wall. Spoiler: No, because I don’t want to lose my teaching credential. And also because they don’t know, but maybe they do?”). Damian, for his part, played host with a skill that surprised even him. He checked refills, steered the banter, and occasionally shot Alfred a look that said, “You can bring in the next course now.” Only once did he glance at the empty chairs, and when he did, he caught Dick watching him. It wasn’t a new occurrence. He had not seen Jason, Cass or Tim since he fell into that coma. 

The main course—roast chicken, rosemary potatoes, more vegetables than any one table could handle—lasted less than twenty minutes. Clark took seconds, then thirds, each time apologising as if he was personally responsible for global food scarcity. Diana picked at her salad, but every so often, she’d slip Damian a smile across the table, and he’d nod back, eyes bright, proud.

When the plates were cleared, Alfred dimmed the lights just enough that the candles on the cake seemed to burn blue. He wheeled it out with all the ceremony of a coronation, and the table went quiet. Dick started the song, slightly off-key. Wally and Steph joined, then Donna and Diana, and then Clark—soft at first, then louder, building to a finish that, in any other house, would have set the neighbours’ dogs barking. Damian stared at the candles. He inhaled. For a second, Dick thought he might say something, but instead, he closed his eyes, made a wish, and exhaled—sharp, surgical, all candles out at once.

The applause was genuine. Alfred produced a serrated knife, silver and worn at the handle.

“First slice, sir?”

Damian nodded, but then, with a glance to Dick:

“Baba gets the first piece. Then everyone else.”

Dick smiled, trying to keep his own hands from shaking as he took the plate.

“Thanks, baby.”

After that, the gifts. No pile, no wrapping paper explosion—just a tidy stack, each placed at Damian’s seat with quiet care. Steph went first. She handed over a box, wrapped in purple and taped to within an inch of its life.

“Don’t judge the paper. I ran out of time.”

Damian unwrapped it. Inside: a hand-bound sketchbook, the cover leather, the first three pages already filled with cartoon bats and chibis of the entire Justice League, most of them dressed as various fast food mascots. The fourth page was a pencilled portrait of Dick and Damian—Dick in the cowl, Damian in his Robin domino mask, both with enormous, dumb smiles. Damian blinked, thumb running over the edge.

“This is…really good,” he said, voice quiet.

“Don’t cry,” Steph warned, grinning. “I’ll tell everyone.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You totally were.”

Next, Wally and Donna presented a book, bound in blue.

“For future plotting,” Wally said, giving Dick a sideways look. 

Donna added, “And for remembering who you are, even when you think you’ve changed.”

Damian opened it: a first edition of Sherlock Holmes, annotated in Donna’s handwriting, with post-its marking the cases that were “most relevant to our shared dysfunction.” Damian hid his smile behind the cover.

Alfred, true to form, handed over a single envelope. Inside: a hand-written letter, classic Alfred, outlining the privileges and responsibilities of “another step closer to adulthood as recognised by the Manor.” There was a list of tasks (wake-up time now optional; cake at breakfast now legal), a brief history of Wayne birthday traditions, and—at the end—a small, folded scrap of blue cloth.

“My first pocket square,” Damian said, holding it up.

“From your... grandfather’s own collection, sir. He wore it on his own tenth birthday.”

Damian folded it carefully, tucking it into the breast pocket of his shirt. None of them mentioned anymore how, in the last years especially, they had stopped calling Bruce his father. Damian had asked them to, because not only did it get confusing, but the man wasn't.

Last was Dick. He slid over a small, flat box. Damian opened it with the same caution he applied to all unknowns, but there was no trap—just a pair of cuff-links, shaped like tiny grapnel hooks.

“For whenever you need to look sharp,” Dick said, quiet. “But also be ready to leave in a hurry.”

Damian picked one up, testing the weight.

“They’re functional, right?”

“Only in emergencies,” Dick said, deadpan.

Damian set the cuff-links down, then, unexpectedly, pushed over a package of his own. It was wrapped in brown butcher paper, tied with twine. Dick looked at him, a confused frown flying over his features for a moment.

“You didn’t have to get me anything. It’s your birthday, Dames.”

“I wanted to,” Damian said, not looking up. Inside: a paperweight, cast from melted-down pennies and shaped to look like a miniature Batarang. On the bottom, a single word stamped into the metal: “BABA.” Dick turned it in his hand. He blinked, slow. “I thought you could use it,” Damian said, almost shy.

“It’s perfect,” Dick managed.

The table settled into a hush, the only sound the soft clink of glasses and the far-off echo of the Manor’s grandfather clock. Wally raised his glass.

“To double digits.”

Donna added, “And to the people who get us there.”

Steph, not to be outdone, said, “And to the fact that you’re not allowed to beat my high score until you’re at least sixteen.”

Damian looked around, eyes sweeping the table, lingering just a moment too long on the empty chairs. For a second, Dick saw the old sadness there, the one that always threatened to eat everything in its path. But then Damian looked back at the people around him, at Steph’s crooked smile, Wally’s dumb thumbs-up, Diana’s warmth, and Dick’s own watery grin. He lifted his glass.

“To the ones who stayed,” he said. “And to the ones who never will.”

No one spoke for a long minute. Then, softly, Alfred said:

“Very good, sir.”

They finished the cake, and Damian—officially ten, officially, somehow, almost happy—let himself laugh at Steph’s jokes and even told one of his own.

After dinner, the dining room emptied in fits and starts. Wally and Donna vanished to the library (Wally “needed” a rematch at chess), Diana and Clark stepped out for a walk in the gardens, and Steph disappeared to “take a call” that everyone knew was a rendezvous with a certain redheaded former Batgirl on the east lawn. Barbara had come around after a few years, her break up with Dick preventing her from most of the drama. Unfortunately, she still refused to be in a room with him. So, only Dick and Damian lingered, the remains of the evening stacked up in plates and napkins and the last burning wick of a birthday candle. Dick cleared his throat, ready to say something about the future or the past, but Damian spoke first.

“I know they’re not coming,” he said, gaze fixed on the dark window where his reflection hovered. “Cass, Tim, Jason. They probably never will. But I think that’s okay. I don’t even remember them, not really…”

Dick nodded.

“We’re still here.”

“We are,” Damian said.

He smiled, and it wasn’t a small one.

The next day, the banner would still be up, the ‘Y’ would finally have detached and be dangling from a single strand of tape. Damian would leave it that way, just to see how long it would last. He liked it, imperfect and unfinished.

He liked it a lot.

The kitchen had returned to order by the time the last guests left. Alfred set the cake plates to soak, wiped the counters with slow, even passes, and lined up the leftover silverware with the kind of geometry that made Dick want to salute. Damian handled trash duty with a methodical thoroughness that suggested he actually enjoyed it. He stacked napkins, scraped plates, and even caught Steph sneaking an extra forkful of cake before she could vanish into the library. Dick leaned on the counter, arms folded.

“So, ten years. How does it feel to be in double digits?”

Damian shrugged, but there was a lightness to it.

“Statistically, I am now more likely to survive a Gotham public school. Or be abducted by a villain. The odds are similar.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow.

“You will not be abducted, young sir. Not on my watch.”

Damian shot him a sideways grin, and Dick caught the flicker of pride in Alfred’s face before it smoothed back to neutral. The old man had never said it aloud, but he took a certain grim pleasure in how little the world could surprise them anymore. 

"And I hope I never have to set foot in the public school system either. The private one is insufficient enough."

Steph appeared with three mugs of cocoa, dumping one in front of Damian and slurping hers with a flourish.

“Hilarious", she deadpanned. "So, what’s the plan, boss?” she asked Dick, eyes darting to the old clock on the stove. “Birthday kid gets first pick. It’s tradition.”

Dick glanced at Damian, who was already squinting at the schedule tacked to the fridge.

“Usual sweep?” he asked. “Or something fun, since it’s your day?”

Damian didn’t hesitate.

“Patrol. Full route. Hit every district and see if the new sensors are working. Then back for pancakes.”

Steph nodded, satisfied.

“Good answer.”

Donna and Wally poked their heads in, Donna holding a box of leftovers “for the road.” Wally ruffled Damian’s hair, earning a squawk and a warning look.

“Careful,” Damian said. “Some of us have standards.”

“Some of us have cake in our hair,” Wally shot back, before dashing out with a laugh.

The group drifted, one by one, until only Dick, Damian, and Steph remained. Alfred lingered, ostensibly to dry dishes, but really just to watch them. Dick caught the look, and for a second, he wanted to freeze the moment—lock it in amber, perfect and whole. Instead, he clapped his hands.

“Alright. Gear up. Meet me in the Cave in ten.”

Damian finished his cocoa in three gulps and bolted for the stairs, Steph hot on his heels. Dick followed at a slower pace, lingering at the threshold just long enough to see Alfred watching him.

“You did well, sir,” Alfred said quietly. “He is happy. You both are. And, comparing him to how he’s been before… He is far happier. Better adjusted. Confident.”

Dick wanted to say thanks, or I hope so, or anything that would bridge the six years since the last time Bruce had stood in this kitchen and called it a family. The kid still had mayor issues, his PTSD from the time with the League and the nightmares ever present. No touches he didn't expect from most people, a sword to your throat if you were a guest and said the wrong thing. Also, Damian didn't really have many friends in school, since he mistrusted everyone. But it was better than before. Alfred was right. But he only nodded, and that was enough. It was choking him up, to think about it. That he did something right. 

In the Cave, the lights hummed with familiar purpose. The computers cycled through their diagnostics, casting long shadows across the floor. The air still smelled of oil and solder and the faintest trace of bats. Damian stood by his locker, already half-suited. The new Robin uniform—sleeker, darker, more functional—fit him like a second skin. He fastened his gloves, checked the utility belt, and reached for the domino mask with a practised, reverent motion. Steph was in her Spoiler suit, feet up on the workbench, running a comms check with the kind of bored efficiency that meant she’d done this a thousand times.

“All set, Bonus Dad?” she asked.

Dick ignored the nickname she had taken to after she was told about the adoption and his legal guardianship of her (she was a month away from eighteen and yet she took to it marvellously, by being a menace about it. Dick was thankful she reacted like that, actually), stripping down to the compression shirt and pulling on the new cowl. The suit was heavier than he liked, but it made him look the part. After all these years, he’d finally gotten used to the way it fit, the way it made people see him. He pulled the gloves tight, laced the boots, and snapped the cape into place. Damian watched, but didn’t say anything. They’d done this dance so many times that it barely needed words.

Dick knelt, checked the fit of Damian’s chest armour, tugged at the cape to straighten it.

“Ready, Robin?”

“Always,” Damian said.

The word was a little less fierce than it used to be, but it still carried all the weight. Spoiler hit the elevator first, bouncing on her heels.

“Last one to the Batmobile’s a rotten egg,” she called.

“Immature,” Damian muttered, but he sprinted after her anyway.

Dick shook his head, allowed himself a real smile, and followed. In the car, they took their seats—Damian up front, Steph sprawled in the back, already hacking the police scanner. Dick checked the GPS, set the route, and let his hand linger on the ignition a second longer than necessary.

“Alright, team,” he said. “Let’s see what the city has for us tonight.”

The engine fired. The Cave doors opened, and the Batmobile slipped into the darkness, the world behind them shrinking to a line of blue lights and the last echo of laughter from the kitchen. They were the last of their line, and for tonight at least, that was enough.

The city was different at night, but only if you let yourself see it. Most people walked with their heads down, eyes on their own shadows, never looking up long enough to notice the way the skyline shifted or the river caught the moon in its teeth. But from the inside of the car, with the city mapped out in overlays and colour-coded threat grids, it was impossible to see anything but the patterns. 

Damian called out points of interest as they drove—“Drug corner at 5th and Mercer, no movement,” “Sensor ping at Arkham perimeter, likely false alarm,” “Carjacking at Union, squad car already en route”—and Steph filled the dead space with jokes about the cold, the radio, or how Dick drove like an old man.

Dick let them talk. He focused on the road, the hum of the engine, the way the city bent around every turn. At the edge of the Narrows, Damian broke the silence.

“There’s a break-in at the library annex. Motion sensors triggered, three minutes ago.”

Dick glanced at the screen.

“You want to take it?”

Damian’s eyes lit up.

“Yeah. Robin and Spoiler, entry. Batman holds perimeter.”

Steph fist-bumped him.

“Just don’t let them escape out the back this time.”

“They won’t.”

The car pulled up silent, the street empty except for a garbage truck and a stray cat. They slipped out—Dick taking the north entrance, Steph and Damian circling to the loading dock. Inside, it was all glass and shadow. The would-be thief—a teenager, barely older than Damian—was already cornered. Steph had him zip-tied in under a minute, then handed the evidence to Damian for processing.

“Why’d you do it?” Steph asked.

The kid shrugged.

“Needed the money. Someone said there’d be cash in the drop box.”

“There’s never cash in the drop box,” Damian said.

“But there’s always cameras,” Dick added, stepping into the light.

The kid went pale.

“Shit, you are—”

“Yeah,” Damian said, voice cold. “He is.”

Dick nodded to Steph.

“Take him to the curb. Cops will be here in two minutes. Let’s go.”

They left the scene clean, the only sign of their presence the open door and the faint, lingering smell of ozone from the car’s exhaust.

Back in the Batmobile, Damian crossed his arms, satisfied.

“You did good,” Dick said.

“You did great,” Steph added, reaching over the seat.

She held out for a second, and he stayed calm. She mussed his hair. Damian rolled his eyes, but he smiled. They drove on, the city opening up in front of them. 

The city was at its best from three stories up. The wind, sharp and full of river, scraped clean the sounds below—horns, sirens, even the electric hum of the old tram lines. Gotham’s roofs were all gravel and tar patches, with just enough glass to reflect the moon in slices, never whole. Tonight, Batman perched on a knee at the edge of an apartment block, Spoiler crouched to his left, and Robin standing back, arms folded, surveying the block with a sergeant’s calm. They’d run four patrols since sundown, but the city was off-kilter tonight: too quiet in the low neighbourhoods, too many lights on in the towers, and not a single siren since 1 AM. Batman didn’t say it, but it was the kind of silence that meant something was about to break. Robin pointed across the avenue to a corner store, its lights still on but the iron gate halfway down.

“Movement at the east end,” he said, voice clear through the comms. “Two figures in dark hoodies. One’s limping.”

Spoiler scanned the cross street, flicking her visor to thermal.

“No other foot traffic. Weird for this block.”

Batman let the quiet stretch. In the old days, he’d have already mapped out the entry points, assigned routes, counted seconds. But tonight was a test. He glanced at Robin, chin up.

“Assessment?”

Robin blinked, surprised at being asked first. He leaned over the parapet, tracking the figures’ slow approach.

“They’re not locals. The corner boys wear yellow. These two are in blue and orange. Out-of-borough. Could be a snatch and grab, or maybe a test for someone higher up.”

Batman nodded.

“Plan?”

Robin’s mouth twitched in a small, careful smile.

“I drop down behind the alley, cut off the escape. Spoiler circles right, disables their car if they have one. Batman approaches from the front, low profile.”

Spoiler grinned.

“Nice. You get the alley. I’ll handle the wheels.”

“Let’s try it your way,” Batman said, and meant it.

They split. Spoiler vanished in a flicker of purple, Robin took the fire escape in three silent bounds, and Batman watched the two men reach the store’s back door. One fiddled with a crowbar, the other pulled a phone and checked for messages, nervous fingers tapping at the screen. On cue, Spoiler’s voice pinged in Batman’s ear:

“Silver Honda, two blocks north, plates cold, glass already busted. I’m letting out the air. Give me thirty.”

Robin’s update was a faint rustle:

“Behind them. Ready.”

Batman dropped down, keeping to the shadows. The men got the door open, slipped inside. Batman waited, counted to five. Then he moved, not in a rush, just steady, inevitable. He heard them rummaging inside—one nervous, the other frantic. He let them come to him. When the door creaked open, Batman was already there, looming. The first guy tried to backpedal, but Robin was behind him, cutting off the retreat. Batman grabbed the second by the collar, pinning him to the wall.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said, low enough that only the thief could hear.

The man’s mouth opened and closed. He fumbled for something in his waistband—a knife, a gun, maybe just a bravado prop. Robin didn’t wait to find out. He swept the man’s legs, dropped him to the concrete, and zip-tied his wrists with a smooth, one-handed motion.

“Police are en route,” Spoiler called, popping up at the alley entrance. “Your car’s toast, and the shop owner is hiding in the freezer, so we’re good on witnesses.”

Batman called in the coordinates. The city dispatch responded instantly—Gotham PD would be there in minutes. Robin looked up at Batman, waiting for critique. Instead, Batman clapped him on the shoulder.

“Nice work, partner.”

Robin grinned, all teeth.

“Thanks, Ba—Batman.”

Spoiler ruffled his hair as she passed, after giving him a second to duck away.

“He means it. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Robin ducked away after letting her hand touch his head for a second, but the smile didn’t fade. They regrouped on the roof, watching the red-and-blue flashers spiral up the block. Batman listened for the old doubts—the ones that used to say too slow, too soft, you missed the third guy—but there was only the steady hum of the city, and the certainty that, this time, they’d gotten it exactly right.

“Next call?” Spoiler asked, tugging her gloves back into place.

Robin checked his comms. “Disturbance at the new community centre. Sounds like vandalism. Probably just a tagger.”

Spoiler shrugged.

“Let’s go.”

They moved as one, crossing the rooftops with the unthinking coordination of a team that had earned every bruise together. Batman let Robin take point, watched how he scanned the streets, how he doubled back to cover Spoiler’s blind spot. It was good. It was better than good. At the community center, the “vandal” turned out to be a girl in a red jacket, maybe twelve, spray-painting a mural on the cinder-block side. She froze when she saw them, can dropping to her feet. Robin approached first, hands open.

“Hey. Nice work on the shading. Just… maybe next time, get a permit?”

The girl squinted.

“Are you for real?”

Spoiler laughed, then pointed to the far wall.

“There’s a blank spot under the window. If you hurry, I’ll pretend I didn’t see you.”

The girl didn’t hesitate. She scooped up the can and went back to work, eyes flicking between Robin and the wall, half-waiting for the punchline. Batman watched, hidden in the shadows, arms folded, the corners of his mouth almost smiling. When the mural was done—a jagged yellow bat signal, pulsing with red and blue lines—Robin took a picture with his phone.

“I’ll send it to the city. You might get a commission.”

The girl beamed, then sprinted off into the night. Spoiler shook her head.

“You’re getting soft, Bats.”

“Letting people do their best work isn’t soft,” Batman said.

They made their way back to the car, city lights in their eyes. Robin replayed the take-down at the store, miming the sweep and the pin, laughing with Spoiler as she showed him how to “really” immobilise a grown man. Batman listened, content to let the noise roll over him. 

In the Batmobile, Robin called shotgun, Spoiler claimed the back, and Batman let the engine idle for a few seconds before starting up. 

“Ready?” Batman asked.

“Always,” Robin replied, echoing the word from the Cave.

Batman put the car in gear, watching as the skyline tilted and the first edge of sunrise caught on the Wayne Tower spire.

“You did great, kiddo,” Batman said, low. 

He laid a hand on his shoulder, before removing it and taking hold of the wheel again. Robin’s smile was quiet, but it didn’t fade the whole way home. Spoiler poked Dick's shoulder.

“Next time, I’m driving.”

Batman shook his head.

“Not until you’re done with college.”

Spoiler laughed, and Robin rolled his eyes, but they were both grinning when the car pulled into the cave's hidden wall. They went inside together, three silhouettes against the slow blue of morning, the city already waking behind them.

And for a while, at least, the world was exactly as it should be.

Chapter Text

The Batcave, at night, truly looked like a cathedral no one prayed in anymore. The only illumination was the cold flicker of computer monitors and the thin, mineral light that filtered down through a storm grate at the far end. The smell was part ozone, part bat, with an undercurrent of motor oil and old sweat. It was, in other words, perfect.

Dick moved with habitual quiet down the metal staircase, pausing mid-step to watch Damian on the mats. The kid was ten, had been for a few months now, but he moved with the same serious, surgical grace that had always set him apart. Helped, maybe, buy being a bit lighter on his flips.Tonight, Dick had made him drop the mask—literally—and the half-face of green foam now sat abandoned on the bench. It felt less like training and more like a form of family therapy, both of them circling each other in the amber cones cast by the old standing lamps.

“You’re leading with your left again,” Dick said, bouncing on his toes.

“I’m baiting you,” Damian replied, not even winded.

Dick grinned.

“It’s working. But that makes it less impressive.”

Damian smirked—a rare expression on him nowadays, but it landed like a gift. They closed the distance, arms and legs blurring in a dance of controlled aggression. Dick didn’t hold back, not entirely. He’d learned early that Damian would rather bruise than be patronised, and anyway, the kid could take it. He slipped under a roundhouse, snagged Damian’s wrist, and spun him off-balance. The boy rolled, popped up, and went for the sweep. Dick let him have it, landing soft on his back and watching the ceiling’s rib-cage pattern thrum in time with his pulse. Damian towered over him, hair sweat-darkened, eyes glittering. Maybe he even would have won without letting him pull through. He's fought as Batman for years now, and the usual style he had, as Nightwing, took a backburner. He still trained religiously, but the whole style changed. Had to change. 

“You’re out of practice, Baba.”

Dick laughed, but before he could respond, a noise sliced through the cave’s low hum. The elevator whined as it descended from the manor above. Both of them froze, instincts flaring. Steph was at university. Alfred was still busy in the kitchen. Dick was the first to move, grabbing the discarded domino mask and tossing it to Damian.

“Mask up,” he said, already halfway to the weapons rack. 

Damian caught the mask, slipped it on, and stood at parade rest. Dick grabbed a staff—just the aluminum one, nothing lethal—and palmed it, twirling it once for balance. He watched the elevator’s blue numbers flick down: four, three, two, one. The doors hissed. For a second, nothing happened. Then, with the exaggerated calm of someone both exhausted and electric, Tim Drake stepped out.

Dick’s body registered the presence before his brain could process it. Tim. Here. Alive and, by the looks of it, changed.

He wore a costume Dick had never seen before—sleek, armoured, all black and crimson, with a new emblem at the centre: a red eagle head. Maybe some other bird. His hair was shorter, the jawline sharper, but the eyes—steady, analytic, infinitely tired—were unmistakable. His helmet — and when had that happened? — was under his arm.

Damian tensed. Not fear, but something close. A reflex for old rivalries, maybe, or a bone-deep sense that things were about to get harder. Or stranger danger. He didn’t really know Tim, after all. His memories from the nightmares rarely included the others. Dick stepped forward, half in front of Damian, like it would do anything.

“Tim?” he said, voice low. “What are you… Are you okay?”

Tim let the question hang. He scanned the cave—every angle, every shadow, every possible threat—then shrugged, as if the question was rhetorical.

“It’s Red Robin, actually,” he said.

The voice was dry, but it cracked on the last syllable. His voice was deeper. Damian bristled, but Dick cut him off with a look. Tim took a few steps down the ramp.

“I came to see if the Cave still worked,” he said, eyes never leaving Dick’s. “Turns out it does.”

Dick nodded, searching for the right words.

“You didn’t have to break in. Just call. Text, even.”

“I tried,” Tim said. “You changed your number.”

Damian shot Dick a look, and for a second, Dick was embarrassed. He’d changed the number after one of his casual hook ups had somehow found it in his phone, but he hadn’t thought it would ever matter.

“Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit.”

Tim didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his belt, pulled out a slim black flash drive, and tossed it to Dick. Dick caught it, instinctively scanning for traps. None.

“That’s the footage from the Lazarus site,” Tim said. “Everything you need to know is on there.”

Dick’s heart twisted.

“Is it…? Did you…?”

But Tim was already looking past him, to Damian. “You haven’t changed” he said.

Damian didn’t blink.

“I’m ten. I constantly change.”

“Funny,” Tim said, but there was no humour in it. "You still look the same." A silence spread, then Tim looked to the far end of the cave, where the darkness thickened behind the glass cases. “There’s something else,” he said, and the words made the air heavier.

Dick followed his gaze. In the farthest corner, where the old suits gathered dust and the light never fully reached, a figure moved. Slow, deliberate. The shape was broad-shouldered, the cape a ragged shroud. It stepped forward, and for a second Dick thought his mind was playing tricks. But no: the jawline, the eyes, the way he filled the suit. It was Bruce. Not a ghost, not a memory. The real thing, walking out of the darkness like he’d never left. 

Dick couldn’t move. Damian didn’t breathe.

Bruce stopped in front of them. He was older, maybe—lines sharper, hair gone silver at the temples—but everything else was unchanged. The suit fit like a skin, the presence filled the room. He looked at Dick first.

“I hear you’ve been doing my job.”

Dick swallowed, tried to laugh. It came out breathless. He felt Damian tense, still halfway behind him.

“Holding the fort.”

Bruce nodded, just once. Then his eyes landed on Damian, and something strange happened. He frowned, tilting his head.

“You’re still ten?” he said.

Damian, caught off-guard, faltered.

“Yes.”

Bruce turned to Dick.

“How long was I gone?”

Dick’s brain scrambled for the right answer.

“Six years,” he said, then realised how wrong it sounded.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed.

“That can’t be. I remember leaving a ten-year-old. How is he still—”

A second of pure panic, then Dick forced a smile.

“Time displacement,” he said. “You said yourself, the Omega Effect is unpredictable. You could have spent a week in there, and it might have been years for us. Or the opposite. Maybe you remember it wrong. I'm sure that's it.”

Bruce’s gaze hardened, but he didn’t contradict. From above, a clatter: Alfred, descending the main stairs, arms full of towels and a tray of tea. He stopped, registering the tableau, and set everything down.

“Master Bruce,” he said, voice barely a whisper.

Bruce turned, and for the first time in Dick’s life, he saw the old man lose his composure. Alfred’s eyes were wet, his hands trembling, and it was all he could do to bow and retreat a step.

“It’s good to see you, Alfred,” Bruce said.

His voice was softer, but only just. Alfred nodded, and Dick thought he saw the man’s knees buckle, ever so slightly, before he caught himself. A new voice chimed in:

“Hey Dick, I…” Steph, in full Spoiler gear, padded down the steps, waving a manilla envelope. “… Shit.” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Uhm, hi?”

Bruce looked at her, and she wilted under the intensity.

"Somehow you do look older." His eyes flicked back to his eldest. "So do you. So does Tim." 

Steph instantly understood his point.

"I'm sure that Dames does, too. Maybe your brain got wrecked."

There was a hard tilt to her voice. She handed over the envelope to Dick, all the same.

"Finally got it, then?”, he asked, pushing pride into his voice even though the situation was getting too much, too fast. “How’d you do?”

Steph grinned, quickly.

“Full marks. One of the best in the country.” She looked at Tim again, then Bruce. “So…”

Tim, silent for most of this, finally spoke.

“You should know, he’s… happy,” he said, to Bruce. “Damian, I mean. I’ve watched them for a few days. And we weren't here in a long time. Maybe...”

Bruce didn’t answer. Not for a while. Then:

“I’m going to need to catch up.”

Dick forced another smile.

“We all are.”

Bruce looked at him, and for a second, Dick saw not the Bat, but the man—tired, battered, overwhelmed.

“I missed a lot,” Bruce said, voice low.

Dick shook his head.

“Not on purpose.”

They stood there, the six of them, the old and the new, the living and the back-from-the-dead. For the first time in months, the cave felt crowded, like it was holding more history than it could stand. Damian shifted closer to Dick, not quite hiding, but almost. Dick rested a hand on his shoulder. Steph lingered at the foot of the stairs, biting her lip. Alfred poured tea with hands that only shook a little. Tim watched everyone, calculating the angles, then finally relaxed enough to smile. 

The cave was silent, but not cold. Not anymore.

They would figure it out. They always did.

The next morning, the Batcave felt even more crowded, even with half the lights still off and the heating units slow to kick in. The glass gallery ran the length of the main platform—a procession of Batsuits and Red Robin armours and the one Spoiler suit, gleaming purple in the cold light. Dick and Damian arrived first, their footsteps echoing in near-silence. Dick wore jeans and an old Blüdhaven High hoodie, hands jammed in his pockets; Damian had on black cargo pants and a Wayne Foundation tee, the logo mostly hidden under a bomber jacket several sizes too large (Dick's). 

Bruce was already waiting. Not standing behind the console—standing in front of it, arms folded, radiating the same low-grade menace that used to make even Alfred pause in the doorway. 

Tim sat at the comms desk, fingers flying over the keys, screens full of satellite feeds and police chatter. As if he’d never left. Steph, in civilian mode, perched on a step above the platform, phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Alfred was nowhere to be seen, but the faint aroma of cinnamon rolls hung in the air, so he was obviously nearby. Bruce’s voice cut through the cave as soon as Dick and Damian crossed the threshold.

“We have work to do.”

It was so automatic—so perfectly Bruce—that it almost felt nostalgic. Dick grinned.

“Missed you too, B.”

Bruce ignored the jab, laser-focused on the map Tim had pulled up.

“The Black Mask is consolidating control of the East End. He’s already absorbed the remnants of the Roman’s crew, and two more gangs pledged last night. We need to move before he gets a foothold in Chinatown.”

Damian bristled, ready to argue, but Dick squeezed his shoulder, muting him before he could start. 

Tim, not looking up from the keyboard, said, “Already running facial rec on Mask’s lieutenants. I’ve been tracking them for months from afar. Half of them were at the docks two hours ago, but there’s movement toward the Bowery. Could be a setup.”

“Let’s treat it like one,” Bruce said. “Tim, you take point on intel. Contact Jason and Cassandra. I want them on the perimeter by sundown.”

Tim shot a glance at Dick, as if checking to see if this was really happening. Dick just shrugged. Bruce turned to Dick, finally.

"I will reclaim the cowl. You’re going to step back into the Nightwing suit,” he said. “If you’re not ready—”

“Oh, I’m ready,” Dick said, too quickly. He tried to keep it light, but the relief was sharp enough to taste. “You’re back, you’re in charge. I’m happy to delegate. Damian and I can cover secondary patrols, or you can throw me at anything you want.”

Bruce blinked, maybe surprised at how easy Dick made it.

“You’ve done well,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

Dick grinned wider.

“Aw, shucks.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened, but he pressed on.

“Damian, you’ll remain on Robin duties. I expect you to coordinate with Tim.”

Dick shook his head.

“Actually, I think Tim should take the Robin spot. He’s older, he’s got seniority, and Damian’s got school. Unless you want to explain to the principal why a ten-year-old fell asleep after running around the docks at three in the morning.”

Damian looked at Dick, eyes wide, not sure if this was a demotion or a promotion. Tim finally looked up, an eyebrow raised.

“You’re giving up Robin that easy? I'm Red Robin now, anyways.”

“Never said it was easy,” Dick replied. “But if the grown-ups are back in town, I’ll happily play backup.”

Steph snorted.

“You sound like you’ve been waiting to retire since you turned twenty.”

Dick shot her a wink.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Bruce took all this in, slow and silent. He didn’t respond, not directly. Instead, he looked at Damian, eyes searching for something—some old spark of deference, maybe, or a sign that the kid would fight him on this. The old Damian, the one he remembered, would have. Damian just folded his arms, silent as a tomb.

“Good,” Bruce said, finally. “Tim, I want you to take my six for tonight. As Robin.”

Tim scowled, but nodded. Dick clapped his hands together.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Bruce nodded, all business, then turned back to the monitors. “First order of business is to get a full update on the city. Tim, you start with Jason. I’ll handle Cass. Dick, I want to see you in the training area with Damian in fifteen.”

“Got it, B,” Dick said.

He motioned for Damian to follow. They left the platform, footsteps light on the old stone floor. As they climbed the stairs to the upper level, Dick slung an arm over Damian’s shoulders—casual, easy, as if it was something he’d been doing forever. Damian relaxed, letting himself lean into the touch. 

"Don't worry, baby, okay?"

Damian laughed, quietly, in a huff. It trailed down to the cave. Behind them, on the main platform, Bruce watched. Not just watched—studied. The way Dick could reach out and make the kid laugh, the way Damian seemed to actually like being around him. The way the two of them moved in sync, as if they were family. Something he'd wished for with the kid, but never got as far. Not with the League tainting him into a killer.

Bruce’s jaw clenched. He didn’t say a word.

On the steps, Steph and Alfred exchanged a glance. Steph raised an eyebrow, Alfred gave the faintest shrug, and they both went back to their business. It was, in every way, the old Cave. But the shape of the world had changed, and it was clear—if only to the people who knew where to look.

Bruce stood in the centre of it, surrounded by glass ghosts, and realised he was the only one who hadn’t gotten used to the new rules.

The first flight of stairs in the Manor was cold, the kind of cold that never left, even in spring. Dick walked with Damian up the steps, both moving in lockstep out of years of training or maybe just shared exhaustion. They turned at the landing, past the oil portraits and display cases, and ducked into Damian’s room at the end of the hall. It looked exactly as it had for years: navy walls, shelves lined with hand-painted models of birds of prey, a desk littered with half-disassembled electronics and a stack of homework. The window was open a crack, letting in the mineral tang of rain. There was an old poster of Sherlock Holmes above the bed, annotated with post-its: “Not an effective disguise,” “Would be easy to track,” “Overestimates British forensics.” Dick watched as Damian peeled off his jacket and hung it with exaggerated care. The kid’s movements had a nervous energy, a hint of extra tension in the line of his neck.

“You did good in there,” Dick said, voice soft. “You didn’t even flinch. I'm sorry for just pulling Robin and handing it to Tim.”

Damian snorted.

“Of course I didn’t. It’s just… I was hoping, maybe, things would stay like they were.” Even if I get it. I prefer it, actually. I don't want to be his Robin."

Dick sat on the edge of the bed, arms draped over his knees. He didn’t answer right away. 

"You shouldn't say that. Probably." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "He is Batman, and I expected him to take it back the second I saw him yesterday. But you earned Robin. Earned the right to fight by his side."

After a beat, Damian turned, looking at Dick through the mirror.

“Are you happy he’s back?” he asked, and the words had the weight of a loaded trigger.

Dick thought about it. About the endless years of second-guessing, the ghost of Bruce haunting every decision, the way the Cave felt both too big and too small with someone else at the helm.

“I’m happy I can be Nightwing again” Dick said, honestly. “Happy he’s okay. That’s what matters.”

Damian stared at the floor.

"But not that he's back? Because I'm..."

The kid looked at him, guarded. Dick sighed, and nodded. He got it. The, he leaned back, hands behind his head.

“I got a call from Blüdhaven Middle. The principal says they have a great robotics program. You’d like it.”

He waited, watching the boy’s reaction in the glass. Damian froze, and for a second, Dick saw the flicker of real panic.

“Do you want me to go?” Damian said, voice barely audible. “Is that it? You want me to leave?”

Dick blinked, caught off-guard.

“No, kiddo. I’d never—”

“You promised you wouldn’t leave!” Damian’s voice rose, breaking at the edges. He clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms. “You said—I believed—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Dick said, standing up, moving fast. He knelt in front of Damian, both hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’m not leaving you. That’s not what this is.”

Damian shook his head, face screwed up with anger and something worse.

“You’re like everyone else. You say you care, but you’d rather—”

“Shhh, baby.” Dick pulled him in, arms wrapping tight. “I never said I’m leaving you. If he’s back, I would like to move back to Blüdhaven. That's all. I don’t think me and him under one roof will go well for long. But you’re my family, Dames. If you want to stay in Gotham, we stay. If you want to try somewhere new, we go. I don’t care what Bruce thinks, or Tim, or anyone else.” Damian’s face twisted, uncertain. “I want to move if you want to move. If you don’t, we stay here. I don't have to like it, but I will arrange myself. For you. It’s that simple.”

Damian didn’t move for a full minute. Then, slowly, he relaxed, the tension seeping out of him. He made a sound—almost a sob, but not quite—then hid his face in Dick’s shoulder. Dick just held him, running one hand through the tangled black hair, murmuring quiet words until the tremor faded. After a while, Damian spoke, voice small and rough.

“I don’t like my classmates anyway.”

Dick laughed, a low, genuine sound.

“Good. We’ll ditch them. See what Blüdhaven has to offer.”

Damian nodded, not letting go. They sat like that, on the old wood floor, the world outside fading to a dull, safe hush.

Eventually, Dick said, “If you want, we can take a trip. Just the two of us. See the school, check out the city.”

Damian wiped his eyes.

“You promise you won’t leave me behind? Now that you don't... Have to burden yourself with me anymore?”

“You were never a burden, okay?" He looked at him, imploringly, and only kept talking when the kid nodded, slightly. "But, I promise,” Dick said, holding up three fingers. “Scout’s honour.”

“Were you a Scout?”

“Honorary,” Dick replied. “But the promise is real.”

Damian’s grip tightened.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll go together.”

They stayed that way until the light in the window shifted, and the chill from the stairs felt far away. Dick stood first, tugging Damian up with him.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go steal the last cinnamon roll before Alfred gets back to the kitchen.”

Damian tried to glare, but the smile was already breaking through. In the hallway, footsteps echoed—Bruce, making his rounds. The two of them ducked out, moving as one, and for the first time in a long while, Dick felt sure that wherever they ended up, they’d be okay.

He’d make sure of it. He'd even stay in the suffocating Manor under Bruce if he had to.

The house at night was a different world. The old radiators hissed and clanked, the wind rattled the windowpanes, and every floorboard seemed to remember the weight of people who weren’t coming back. Dick lay on his bed, shoes kicked off but the rest of him still in patrol gear, hands folded behind his head. The room was dark except for the spill of moonlight through the curtains and the blue-white glow of his phone. He scrolled through old texts, then opened a new one, thumb hovering over the keyboard. After a moment, he typed.

Clark

Today, 01:05 AM

Dick

Bruce is back. Took the cowl, the cave, everything. But the way he looks at Damian scares me. He’s the same as when he left. Damian isn’t.

I don’t know what to do.

For a long time, nothing. The phone screen faded, leaving him in half-dark, every muscle tight. He tried to picture how this would play out: Bruce retaking control, resetting all the systems, putting everyone back in their boxes. Maybe it would work. Maybe the city needed a Batman who was all bone and discipline and never smiled. But the thought of Damian—softer, better trained, more independent, and so much more alive—being sent back to square one felt like a loss Dick couldn’t bear. 

The phone buzzed, sharp and sudden. He fumbled it, almost dropping it on his face. A reply from Clark.

Today, 01:19 AM

Clark

Remember what I said - I’m here if you need me. We’ll help you both through this.

As far as I—and Diana too—are concerned, he’s a donor. YOU are his father. Don't let him tell you otherwise. It would only upset the kid.

Dick stared at the words, letting them sink in. There was a sweetness to it, a clarity he needed more than he realised. 

Dick

Thanks. Really. I do still feel bad about it.

Damian says hi. He says you owe him a rematch at Mario Kart.

Read 1:24

Clark

Tell him I’m training harder this time. Jon actually taught me some tricks. Talk tomorrow?

Dick smiled, an actual, helpless smile, and for a second, the weight in his chest lightened. He set the phone down on the nightstand and crossed to the window. Outside, the grounds of the Manor stretched blue and silver, shadows from the old trees spilling over the driveway like black ink. Down in the study, a light burned; Bruce’s silhouette moved behind the glass, head bent over files and screens, as if he’d never left. Dick touched his own reflection in the mirror in the hall. It was older than he remembered, sharper around the eyes, but still the same. He thought of all the things he’d learned since Bruce vanished: how to make a family from scratch, how to hold a kid together when nothing else did, how to be the person you needed even when it hurt. How to keep up the company, too, but he mostly learned a lot about himself when it came to caring for Damian.

He watched the study for a long time, then turned away. He was done trying to measure up. The world could have a Batman—hell, it could have two, or none, or a hundred—but as long as Damian needed him, he wasn’t going anywhere. He shut the curtains, lay down again, and listened to the steady, haunted pulse of the house.

Tomorrow, he would take Damian to Blüdhaven. Tomorrow, he’d show him the school, the city, maybe even the stupid pizza place with the animatronic owls. If it still existed. The future was as uncertain as ever. But tonight, at least, Dick knew exactly who he was. And that would have to be enough.

Chapter Text

The drawing room was staged for an inquisition. Bruce stood at the hearth, his back set so straight he seemed carved from the same oak as the mantel. No suit, no cape—just the armor of pressed shirt, black pants, shoes shined until they could flash signals to low-flying satellites. He commanded the room with posture alone, the old gravity reasserted in full. Even the air stiffened, cold and citric as disinfectant.

Damian perched on a piano bench, feet not quite flat to the floor, hands balled into tight, pale fists. He was so obviously coiled for flight or impact that it almost hurt to look at him. He kept looking towards the door, waiting for Dick to show.

Steph lingered near the sideboard, mug of tea clutched in both hands, hair loose and wild above her hoodie. She had angled herself for the best view, but her gaze skittered anywhere but Bruce.

Tim was a rumor at the doorway. He had one shoulder pressed to the frame, head tipped, eyes already calculating the vectors of the conversation. He said nothing, but he saw everything.

Cass appeared at the far end of the rug, silent as a draft. She wore black on black, pants and a ribbed sweater, nothing to suggest allegiance but the way she watched Bruce with the kind of steady, unblinking attention usually reserved for apex predators. She was new here—well, new again. Her time away had sanded the edges down to something smooth, even serene. The only hint of how she felt was in the slow curl of her hands at her sides, the way she never quite turned her back to Bruce.

Alfred was the only one moving: clearing a glass, straightening a lamp shade, making gentle, nonverbal pleas for civility through minor acts of restoration.

“Thank you for coming,” Bruce said, voice pitched to fill the whole house, never mind the room. He didn’t wait for acknowledgement. He didn’t wait for Dick, either. Damian huffed, quietly. “There is no easy way to begin, so I’ll be direct. Gotham needs its Batman back. I will resume my role immediately. Nightwing can return to Blüdhaven or, if he prefers, remain in Gotham as auxiliary.

He stopped. Silence spread, thick as honey.

He turned to Damian. “I will require my Robin. Effective immediately.”

A beat. Damian’s fists squeezed tighter, his jaw set. He did not look at Bruce. He stared at the black lacquer of the piano, as if the answer might be written in the ghostly half-reflection of his own eyes.

“No,” he said, at last. It was higher-pitched than Bruce remembered, but the force of it landed. “Dick is my Batman. You can’t just come back and expect me to follow you.”

The silence popped like a blister.

Bruce blinked. For a half second, confusion traced his features—like a mathematician confronting a wrong answer in his own handwriting.

“Damian—”

Cass, without looking up, added:

“And don’t ask me either.”

Her voice was quiet, but the words landed with the weight of an oath. She held Bruce’s gaze, not with challenge but with the calm finality of someone who’d spent years learning what she could and could not forgive.

Bruce’s mouth closed and opened. He scanned the room, recalculating.

“I am not here to force anyone,” he said, though the words sounded so alien coming from him that Damian almost laughed.

He uncurled his fists, one finger at a time. He stood, small and furious and trembling.

“You are not my dad, and you are not my Batman. You never were. Tim should be Robin, he was when you left. He actually tried to get you back, even if I do not understand why. But I will not be your Robin.”

He turned, each step a declaration. He walked out, brushing past Dick in the doorway, who looked at his thunderous expression and his heart ached.

“Dames?” Dick called, soft.

Damian didn’t look up.

“Can we start early on the plan for today?”

Dick nodded.

“Yeah. Give me two minutes.”

They left the room, the click of Damian’s shoes on the floorboards the only proof he’d been there at all.

Cass followed, pausing at the threshold. She didn’t look back at Bruce, but said:

“It’s not about you. Not anymore.”

She was gone before he could answer.

Steph and Tim remained, anchored to opposite ends of the room. Steph fiddled with her mug, voice gone small.

“Well, that was the worst breakfast ever.”

Tim almost smiled, but didn’t.

Bruce turned towards the hallway, and stepped out.

The corridor outside the drawing room was lined with old portraits, each face locked in a contest of disappointment or dread. The high windows let in a stripe of February sun that did nothing for the chill. Dick and Damian were halfway to the stairs when Bruce’s shadow covered both of them. He moved fast, or maybe Dick just didn’t expect him to follow.

“You’ve turned my son against me,” Bruce said, loud enough to rattle the glass.

Dick stopped cold, caught between a protest and a laugh.

“He’s not a car you can repo, Bruce.”

Bruce ignored him, eyes hard on Damian. The kid shrank half an inch but didn’t look away.

“You need to leave,” Bruce said, voice hammering each syllable. “I want you out of the Manor. Blüdhaven, New York, I don’t care. Go back to your old flat—don’t pretend you didn’t keep it. You’re not part of this family anymore.”

The words landed, hard enough that even Alfred, from the end of the hall, stiffened. He hovered there, one hand on the back of an antique chair, face an unreadable mask. Steph ducked in behind him, clutching her phone, but made no move to interrupt.

Dick, at first, didn’t answer. He studied the grain of the wood floor, the scuff marks from decades of boots, and when he finally spoke it was low, all the heat compressed.

“We can leave, if that’s what you want. But I’m taking my son with me to Blüdhaven.” He raised his eyes, steady. “You’re delusional if you think I’d walk out without him.”

Bruce set his jaw.

“He’s my biological son,” he said, and the way he drew out the word “my” was like a curse.

Dick moved, just a step, blocking Damian from Bruce’s sightline.

“And I’m the one who’s raised him for the last six years,” he said, voice icy. “I’m the one he calls Baba. I’m the one who gets up at three a.m. when he has a nightmare. I’m the one who showed up. Every. Single. Day.”

The echo of that hung in the air, bouncing off stone and plaster, ricocheting into the open wounds of the house. Bruce’s hands curled into fists at his sides, but he kept them down.

“You’re filling his head with garbage. You want to be a father so badly, you’re willing to poison him against his own family?”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Dick shot back. “You’re the guy who wrote up a will before teaching him to ride a bike. If you want to play Dad of the Year, you better start catching up.”

From behind, Damian made a strangled sound. He hadn’t moved, but his face was a wreck—tear tracks down one side, rage and shame battling for first place on the other.

“Stop it!” he yelled, so loud and sudden that both men recoiled. “I don’t care who’s my real dad. I care who’s here. Right now. I care who was there. Always. Who never let me down.”

That silenced everything.

Bruce stared at the boy, as if seeing him for the first time. Dick softened, crouched, and placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder.

“You okay, Dames?”

Damian shook his head, then nodded, then glared at Bruce.

“I want to leave,” he said. “Today. Can we do that?”

Dick nodded, and stood, squaring himself one last time to Bruce.

“You heard the man.”

Bruce’s eyes flicked from Dick to Damian and back. For a second, there was something almost vulnerable in the set of his mouth. Then it was gone, replaced by the old, familiar mask.

“If you walk out that door,” he said, “don’t bother coming back.”

Dick didn’t answer, because there was nothing left to say. At the end of the hall, Steph hit send on her phone.

B is back. He staked his claim on Damian and tried to throw Dick out. Inform the rest, whatever happens. We are not letting him split them up.

She stared at the message, thumb hovering, then added:

This is family, not an asset. 

She put the phone away, and followed the only family that mattered.

Damian spun around in the middle of the hall, planted himself, and turned to face the old man behind them. He was shaking, but he didn’t look away. His eyes—always older than his face—locked with Bruce’s, and it was like seeing the same argument played out in two different centuries. 

“I owe you respect as my blood,” Damian said. The words landed with the formality of a confession, a thing rehearsed and dreaded. “But I feel no affection for you. Not really.” His jaw shook, and for a second he blinked so hard Dick thought he’d have to catch him. But Damian recovered. He always did. He looked up at Dick, and there was a question in it, a plea. Dick nodded, and Damian squared himself again. “Richard is my father,” he said, louder. “In all ways that matter. He has been there for me every day, every nightmare, every triumph.” He glanced at Bruce, then away, voice lowering to something almost gentle. “You were never there. You could have been. Or maybe you couldn’t. But you weren’t.”

For a second, nobody spoke. Even the grandfather clock on the landing seemed to hush itself. Damian pressed on, voice cracking just at the edge.

“Stop fighting. Please. Just—let it be over.” He turned to Dick, stepping closer so their sides brushed. “Let’s go to Blüdhaven now, Baba,” he said. “Earlier than we planned. I want to leave this house. If you still have the flat, we can stay there.” 

The request was so small, so final, it felt like a knife in the chest.

Dick nodded, hand coming to rest on Damian’s head, a benediction or a promise. He looked up at Bruce, who stood frozen, mouth half-open, like someone halfway through swallowing poison. Dick’s words were quiet, but they carried.

“We’ll head to the city. Stick with the day trip we planned. If I do not hear an apology from you by tonight, we are staying in Blüd. Both of us.” 

Damian turned first. Dick saw the look in Bruce’s eyes: not rage, not even loss, but a kind of stunned grief that was almost unfamiliar on him.

They walked down the hall, past the old family portrait, faces lost in shadow. At the door, Alfred was waiting, coat and keys already in hand. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

Outside, the wind hit them sharp and clean. Damian pulled his hood up, face set.

“You okay?” Dick asked, not expecting an answer.

Damian nodded, silent for a long time.

At the gate, he finally spoke.

“He’s never going to say sorry, is he?”

Dick ruffled his hair.

“He might. People change.”

Damian shook his head.

“Not him.”

They got in the car, and Dick turned the key. The engine purred to life, a promise of motion, of something forward. As they drove off, Dick checked the rearview mirror. Bruce stood in the doorway, small against the vastness of the house.

Damian watched, too, but he didn’t look back. Not once.

Chapter Text

The morning in Blüdhaven was wet and mean, the sort of rain that didn’t fall but seeped through your collar and under your socks. Dick and Damian walked from the garage to the middle school, wind stinging their faces raw. The city had never been much for curb appeal, but out here in the flats, the streets looked less like an invitation and more like a dare.

Blüdhaven Middle was a boxy slab of poured concrete, surrounded by a chain link fence still wearing the rust scars of a half-dozen failed paint jobs. In the main office, the headmaster greeted them with a handshake damp with sanitizer and a smile that stopped three centimeters short of the eyes.

He ushered them into a conference room with windows that faced the staff parking lot. The table was bare but for a half-filled legal pad and a pitcher of lemon water that looked like it hadn’t moved since the Carter administration. The headmaster read Damian’s file as if expecting to find bomb threats or felonies tucked in the margins. Instead, his frown deepened with each page, turning from suspicion to incredulity.

“These are… remarkable scores,” he said at last, glancing over the reading glasses. “And the writing sample—this is your own work, Damian?”

Damian nodded, posture perfect. 

“It’s about the Komodo dragon. I can provide a bibliography if you require.”

The man coughed, smoothing his tie. 

“No, no, that won’t be necessary. I see you’ve been attending Gotham’s best, and—ah, here—the Wayne Scholarship application? It’s already filled and submitted?”

Dick smiled. 

“We don’t like to waste time.”

The headmaster made a show of checking his watch, as if reminded of a call from the governor or maybe a bomb squad. 

“I see you’re listed for sixth, but your records suggest you could enter eighth. There’s even a note here from your Gotham principal recommending advanced placement.”

Damian hesitated, then, voice pitched to deadpan: 

“I’d prefer sixth. Eighth graders have poor impulse control and the hygiene habits of wild dogs.”

Dick choked back a laugh, earning a quick glare from the headmaster. The man collected himself, then offered a hand to Damian. 

“Welcome to Blüdhaven. I trust you’ll find it… less chaotic than Gotham.”

Damian shook his hand with surgical precision, then followed Dick out, eyes already scanning the halls for exits, threats, and likely sources of contraband.

Back in the car, they sat for a moment, watching the rain bead on the windshield.

Dick waited until the engine had warmed, then said, “You know, you didn’t have to go so hard on the hygiene line.”

Damian shrugged. 

“Why pretend it’s not true?”

“Because sometimes you want people to like you.”

Damian considered this.

 “I’d rather have their respect.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“In my experience,” Damian said, “they are.”

They hit the old highway north, which ran parallel to the river before spilling into the cracked neighborhoods of the old port district. The city had changed in the years since Dick last lived here, but not much. There were more vape shops and fewer pawn stores, but the bones of the place were the same: row houses, laundromats, the low neon throb of all-night donut stands. It was a city for people who couldn’t stand Gotham but couldn’t afford to leave the state.

Dick pulled into the parking lot of the Silver Spoon, a diner with bulletproof glass in the vestibule and a sign that, even new, would have looked fifty years out of date. Inside, the place was warm and full of the low drone of retirees, cops, and the odd graveyard-shift cabbie. The waitress brought menus but didn’t wait for them to order—she still knew Dick, and brought a coffee for him, a hot chocolate for Damian, and two sets of utensils rolled in napkins.

“Peri-peri fries?” she asked.

Dick nodded. 

“Thank you, Amanda. Two baskets. And a cheeseburger, medium rare. Damian?”

He scanned the menu with the kind of intensity most kids reserved for weapons catalogues. 

“Chicken strips,” he said. “No sauce.”

She left with a wink. Dick leaned back in the booth, watching his son try and fail to sit still.

“So,” Dick said, “what’d you think of the school?”

Damian slumped, a gesture that would have made Alfred faint. 

“It’s fine. The building is ugly. The headmaster is afraid of children. But the science lab has a 3-D printer and there’s a fencing club. It could be worse.”

Dick smiled. 

“That’s almost a compliment.”

“I also noticed the lunchroom has no nut-free table. Gotham had four.”

“Blüdhaven isn’t as lawsuit-happy,” Dick said. “Or maybe they’re just better at hiding the bodies.”

Damian snorted.

“Are you trying to make me feel better about this city?”

“I could try,” Dick said, “but Blüdhaven’s not really a feel-better kind of place. It’s just more honest about being a mess.”

The food arrived, fries dusted with crimson chili powder, burger leaking cheese, and the strips precisely four to a basket. Damian started in on the fries, eyes widening after the first bite.

“This is good,” he said, almost amazed. “Better than Alfred’s.”

Dick held up a hand.

“That’s treason, kiddo.”

“He’d agree if he tried them.”

Dick grinned. He watched the clock on the wall, the way the minute hand jerked from one notch to the next, and felt the tension in his chest ease for the first time in days.

“I used to come here after patrol,” he said. “Back when I was with Blüdhaven PD. They didn’t have the fries back then, but the pie was top-notch. I solved my first case in this booth.”

Damian’s interest spiked.

“Was it a homicide?”

Dick sipped his coffee, drawing out the moment. “Nope. Insurance fraud. Guy said his car got stolen. Turned out he drove it into the river for the payout, but he was too cheap to bribe the dock workers, so they all remembered him. Solved it over a slice of cherry pie.”

Damian frowned.

“That’s anti-climactic.”

“Not every case is Arkham-level drama. Sometimes it’s just people being dumb, or greedy, or both…” Dick sighed. “I kind of miss that, to be honest.”

Damian mulled this, then poked at his fries.

“If you had stayed here, would you have been happy?”

Dick blinked, caught off-guard.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Blüdhaven felt like home for a while. I liked the work. But I kept thinking about Gotham, about everyone back at the Manor. Eventually, I couldn’t not go back.” He tore off a chunk of burger, chewed, and went on: “But I don’t regret coming here, either. It taught me that you can choose your family, and your city. You don’t have to just take what you’re handed.”

Damian nodded, quietly.

“If we stayed here, would that be okay? Even if Bruce wants you to come back?”

Dick looked at the kid, saw the hope and fear braided together in his eyes.

“It’s more than okay,” he said. “It’s our choice. We do what we want, not what he wants. Got it?”

Damian grinned, and the relief in his face was like sunrise breaking through the diner windows.

They ate in companionable silence for a while. Dick told stories—some real, some exaggerated for effect—about his time as a rookie, about the narco squad with the van held together by duct tape, about the time he had to chase a runaway pig through City Hall. Damian listened, face split between skepticism and admiration.

After the third round of fries, Dick said, “Blüdhaven’s different from Gotham. It’s still a dump, but the corruption’s easier to track. The villains here aren’t as flashy. It’s more gangs, less killer clowns.”

“That’s not necessarily better,” Damian pointed out.

“True. But the upside is, we’re on the mainland. Easier to visit New York, or the Titans if you want to see Donna or Wally. No bridges to blow up if someone gets mad.”

“Are the bridges really a problem?”

Dick winced.

“You don’t know the half of it. First thing anyone does in a crisis? Blow the bridges.”

Damian stared out the window, thoughtful.

“If we ever move again, let’s not live near water.”

“Deal.”

The waitress brought milkshakes—one vanilla, one chocolate, both topped with the kind of whipped cream that set off diabetic alarms three tables away. Dick showed Damian how to dip a fry in the shake, and after a few tries, Damian was a convert.

“You’re a genius,” he said, deadpan.

“I’ll add it to my resume.”

They finished their meal. Dick paid, left a tip heavy enough to cover the next guy’s coffee, and stood. The air outside was sharper, the rain tapered to a mist. Damian walked a little closer as they made their way back to the car, hood up, hands buried in his jacket pockets. He looked like any other kid, if you didn’t know to look for the tightness around his mouth, the quick dart of his eyes at every corner.

When they reached the car, Dick’s phone buzzed in his pocket. The screen showed four missed messages—two from Steph, one from an unknown number with an out-of-state area code.

He thumbed open Steph’s texts first.

S: I told him off. Like, REALLY told him off. He tried to call you (not to apologise, but to shout at you more) but I hung up for him. He’s in the study, sulking. 

S: Also I stole the files from your safe. I owe you a new one. But better safe than sorry. No pun intended.

S: Clark and Diana are coming to help with moving. Don’t freak out. Also, you should clean the fridge in your flat. See you soon.

Dick snorted. He read the messages again, this time slower, and felt the pulse of anticipation in his chest—not the bad kind, just the adrenaline that came with a sudden, necessary change.

The other one was, apparently, Diana.

D: I hope it is alright that we will be accompanying Stephanie. Clark is very worried though, and so am I. We shall see you around three. Diana

He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Damian, picking up on the mood, asked:

“Was it Bruce?”

There was something different in his voice—not curiosity, but a careful neutrality. The use of “Bruce,” not “grandfather,” as he'd taken to calling him a while ago, was new. Dick shook his head, smiling.

“No. Just Steph.”

Damian nodded, satisfied, and buckled in. They pulled out of the lot, the diner shrinking in the mirror, and for the first time all day Dick felt almost good about where they were headed.


Dick had always loved his Blüdhaven flat for the same reasons other people hated it: no doorman, no carpet, no pretense. The building was red brick and cheap insulation, the stairwell forever smelling of dust and last year’s cigarette smoke. Their keys stuck in the lock, and it took a full minute of jiggling before the deadbolt finally gave. The door opened on stale, closed-up air and the faint, ferrous note of the radiator. Inside, the living room was almost exactly as he’d left it: mismatched couch, battered armchair, a coffee table scarred with old ring stains and knife gouges from when he’d gone through a “home improvement” phase. Someone—probably Steph, the last time she’d crashed here—had thrown sheets over the furniture to keep off dust, but it hadn’t worked. The place was thick with it, motes dancing in the sun that cut through the cracked windowpane.

“Wow,” Damian said, surveying the space. “Did you ever own a vacuum cleaner?”

“It’s in the closet,” Dick said. “Unless it died of loneliness.”

They set to work in silence. Dick stripped the sheets, flapping them out the window, while Damian waged war on the glass and radiator with a box of wipes he found under the sink. There was something calming about the work, the rhythm of dust and spray and the sharp, bright smell of cleaning fluid. When they finished the living room, Dick assigned himself the kitchen. Damian tackled the bedrooms. Every so often, Dick glanced down the hall and caught a glimpse of Damian’s shadow flickering across the floor—small, quick, never quite still. It reminded him of the first few months at the Manor, when everything had felt temporary and he’d measured progress in the distance between bedrooms.

He pulled the fridge open and nearly gagged at the sight of a carton of eggs so old they looked fossilized. He bagged them, along with a pack of expired yogurt, and dumped the lot in the outside garbage chute. Steph had been here two months ago! When he came back in, Damian was standing in the middle of the spare bedroom, arms folded, surveying the bookshelf.

“Do you want me to keep these?” he asked.

Dick peered in. The shelf was a mess of paperback mysteries, police procedure manuals, and a few battered copies of Robin Hood from his own middle school years.

“Some of those are collector’s items,” Dick said.

Damian raised an eyebrow.

“You can’t possibly mean this.” He held up an ancient volume of “Knots and Nooses: Forensics for Beginners.”

“First edition,” Dick said. “Signed by the author.”

Damian shook his head, but placed the book carefully back in its slot.

“Sentimentality is a weakness,” he said, but Dick could tell he didn’t mean it.

They made good time, and by noon, the place was almost livable. Dick opened the windows wide, letting the city in: car horns, the beep of construction vehicles, someone yelling about a lost dog. He inhaled, exhaled, and for a moment felt something close to peace. Damian joined him in the kitchen, hands still faintly blue from window cleaner.

“Are we expecting guests?” he asked.

Dick checked the time.

“Steph said she was coming. Probably bringing backup. And probably groceries, if I know her.”

Damian nodded.

“We should clean the bathroom.”

Dick grinned.

“You volunteering?”

Damian shrugged.

“You said this was a team effort.”

They worked together, Dick scrubbing out the sink while Damian tackled the shower. It felt almost normal, like something other families did on weekends. When they finished, Dick found two chipped mugs and filled them with water. He handed one to Damian, who accepted it with mock solemnity.

A few minutes later, a key rattled in the door. Steph burst in, carrying a brown paper bag in each hand and balancing a third on her hip. Her hair was frizzy from the humidity, her face flushed from the walk.

“Delivery!” she called, dropping the bags on the table.

Behind her came Clark—jeans, flannel, sleeves rolled, arms loaded with enough groceries to survive a snowstorm. Diana appeared last, carrying only a single reusable bag and moving with the unhurried grace of someone who could flatten a city block but would rather not. Dick grinned, the sight of them a jolt of pure relief. He hugged Steph first, then shook Clark’s hand and let Diana kiss him lightly on both cheeks.

“I see you got the cleaning started,” Diana said, nodding at the wet footprints on the floor.

Dick shrugged.

“Old habits.”

Clark unloaded the groceries onto the counter, eyeing Damian.

“You must be starving,” he said. “I brought pie. And also, bread. Because pie isn’t a food group in every state.”

Damian went straight for the pie, but paused at the fridge, opening it and wrinkling his nose.

“I think the old one was alive.”

Steph peeked in.

“Oh, God. Dick, what did I forget?”

“I got rid of the worst of it,” Dick protested. “You should have seen the eggs.”

Steph shuddered.

“I’ll take your word for it. Sorry about that.”

They distributed the food—bagels, sliced turkey, a block of cheese that Clark cut into perfect squares with a Superman-level lack of effort. Diana arranged cups for water and set out a paper tablecloth. Steph found forks and knives, sorted by size and sharpness, and lined them up like a display at a tactical expo. Dick watched it all unfold, the warmth in the room rising with each laugh and every small act of care. He found himself smiling for no reason, just because it was good to have people around who understood without needing it spelled out.

He caught Steph’s eye as she passed him the milk. She mouthed: No word from Bruce? He shook his head, barely. She nodded, expression soft.

When they’d all taken seats—Dick in the battered armchair, Damian on the window ledge, Steph cross-legged on the floor, Clark and Diana on the couch—they looked like a real family, if you squinted. The only thing missing was Alfred’s voice, scolding them to use coasters. Dick broke the silence.

“Thanks for coming. Really.”

Clark shrugged.

“You’d do the same for me.”

Diana smiled.

“And we will help with anything you need. That is what family is.”

Dick looked at Damian, who was pretending to be interested in a magazine but was clearly listening to every word.

“We’re going to stay here for a while,” Dick said, more to himself than anyone else. “Get settled. Maybe make this a home base.”

Steph raised her glass.

“To new beginnings,” she said.

“New beginnings,” the others echoed.

Damian looked up then, and Dick met his eyes. The boy gave a nod—barely there, but real. Dick smiled back, and it felt genuine, not just for show.

After a while, the apartment didn’t feel quite so dusty. Or maybe it was just that, for the first time in years, Dick wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. He looked around the room—at his friends, his kid, the mess and the pie and the sunlight bouncing off half-cleaned windows—and realized he was exactly where he needed to be.

For now, at least, that was enough. And anyways, the best part about a crowded kitchen table was the sense of purpose it gave even the most ramshackle apartment. Five people, four mismatched chairs, one folding stepstool from the building’s maintenance closet—somehow it all worked. There were pies and bagels, a Tupperware of Clark’s homemade mac and cheese (he swore by his mother’s recipe, which involved an entire stick of butter), and enough bottled seltzer to float the city. Diana kicked things off, placing her phone face-down on the table.

“We need a plan,” she said. “If Bruce escalates, we must be ready. There are legal options, but we should prepare for the worst.”

Clark added, “He may not, but… it’s Bruce. He’ll play it his way.”

Dick nodded.

“The good news is, I have primary custody. The adoption is bulletproof. Wayne Enterprises would eat itself before they let him challenge it in court, and even if he tried, it’d go nowhere.”

Diana smiled, just barely.

“Still, it is best to have backup. Icon knows a lawyer. Family, not corporate. He will help, no questions asked.”

Damian looked up from his pie, skeptical.

“Who is Icon?”

Dick grinned.

“Real name Augustus Freeman IV. He’s… an alien, but his civilian identity is top-tier lawyer. Also a superhero, obviously.”

Damian’s face lit up.

“That’s kind of awesome.”

Diana nodded.

“His partner, Raquel, is very persuasive. She will fight for you.”

Steph raised her glass in a toast.

“To new family. And really good legal counsel.”

Clark leaned back in his chair, arms folded.

“But if Bruce tries something underhanded…?”

“We have a counter,” Dick said. “But I’d rather keep it friendly.” He paused, then, with a wicked gleam: “Or we could rattle him and call in his old friend. My sort-of uncle. He’d never see it coming.”

Steph snorted.

“Are you talking about Harvey?”

Dick shrugged, feigning innocence. Clark blinked.

“Who’s Harvey?”

Damian chimed in, barely containing the smirk:

“Harvey Dent. Two-Face. Baba once told me about him. He used to run strategy games with him, made him practice chess openings and police interviews, and—” he dropped his voice, imitation perfect—“always reminded him to plan for both sides of the coin.”

Diana’s lips twitched.

“He is in Arkham now, yes?”

“On and off,” Dick admitted. “He gets weekend passes sometimes. And, despite the… everything, he still sends me birthday cards. Weirdly, he and Bruce are on better terms than Bruce is with most people who didn’t try to murder him.”

Clark shook his head, still not quite believing it.

“Would he help?”

Dick shrugged.

“He’d probably try. He still thinks of me as his ‘nephew,’ which means either he’d fight to the death for me or try to shoot me through a window. It’s a coin toss.”

Steph cackled.

“No way. He’d definitely help. He hates Bruce for leaving him to sulk alone, and he loves drama.”

Diana leaned in.

“Let’s hope it isn’t necessary. Icon’s lawyer will be discreet, and if the court needs a character witness—”

Clark raised a hand.

“I’ll testify. And so will Lois, if you want. She’s got a lot of opinions about Bruce’s parenting style.”

Dick let the laughter settle.

“We’ll take it one day at a time. Worst case, we get creative. We’re the Bat Family, right? Weird is our baseline.”

They transitioned to practicalities: getting Damian’s school records transferred, finding a pediatrician (Clark offered a rec, Diana promised to check her contacts), and how to restock the apartment in case of siege. Damian made a list of groceries he actually liked, and Steph added “more pie” in capital letters.

Later, Steph insisted they cook something real for dinner.

“This is a family,” she said, “and families eat spaghetti together.”

They improvised with a box of penne, jarred sauce, and Clark’s not-so-secret ingredient (a sprinkle of nutmeg). Steph handled the salad, which was mostly greens and croutons. Damian set the table with more formality than the table deserved. Diana poured water like it was a state dinner. By the time they sat, it felt like something solid had formed—a real home, or at least the beginnings of one.


After dinner, they put on a movie. Dick let Damian choose; he picked “The Great Mouse Detective,” claiming it was research for a future career. They all squeezed onto the couch, with Clark and Diana taking up most of it. Steph sprawled on the rug. Dick let Damian lean against him, and for a while, the world outside was just another story someone else would tell.

At ten, the movie ended. No word from Bruce. No angry phone calls, no ultimatums, not even a text. In the old days, Dick would have obsessed over the silence. Now, he just pulled Damian in closer and let the moment last as long as possible. Clark helped clean up, using a fraction of his speed to do the dishes in record time. Diana straightened the books on the shelf and left a small blue flower on the windowsill. Steph gathered her things and ruffled Damian’s hair on her way out, after giving him a little to decide and him smiling slightly at her.

“I’m sleeping at Donna’s,” she said to Dick. “But if you need backup, call.”

He laughed, real and unguarded.

“Thanks, Steph.”

She winked.

“Try not to blow up the apartment before I’m back.”

Clark and Diana said their goodbyes, too—Clark with a bear hug that nearly cracked Dick’s ribs, Diana with a quiet promise that she’d check in the next day. The apartment was suddenly, shockingly quiet. Dick turned off the lights, locking up.  They got ready for bed together—teeth brushed with the last squeeze of a travel tube, pajamas found in one of the duffel bags, all the small chores of unwinding at the end of a day that felt longer than the week before it. The spare bedroom was barely wider than the mattress, with a single lamp on the nightstand and a window that framed the sodium-orange glow of Blüdhaven’s streetlights. Damian crawled under the covers, blinking sleepily at the patch of light on the ceiling where car headlights swept past every so often.

Dick tucked the comforter around him, then sat on the edge of the bed. For a minute, they just sat in the quiet, the only sound the gentle rumble of the pipes and, below it all, the bassline of the city at night.

“Baba?” Damian asked, his voice a soft question in the dark.

“Yeah, kiddo?”

Damian rolled over, squinting up at him.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

Dick smiled. He reached down and ruffled Damian’s hair, then leaned in close enough to press a quick, careful kiss to his forehead.

“I’ll always be here,” he said. “As long as you want me to.”

Damian’s lips twitched into a smile, more open than Dick had ever seen.

“Good,” he said. “I want you to.”

Dick straightened the comforter one last time, then turned off the lamp. The room went silver-blue, lit only by the streetlight and the faint glow of the city beyond the glass. He watched Damian’s face for a long moment, the lines of worry and tension smoothed out by sleep, replaced by something so peaceful it almost hurt to look at.

Then Dick slipped out of his clothes, pulled on a t-shirt, and slid onto the other side of the bed. He lay on his back, hands folded behind his head, eyes open to the dark. The ceiling was water-stained and low. The city outside was loud and a little ugly. But in here, with the boy breathing even and steady beside him, Dick felt something settle in his chest. He listened to the quiet for a while, the rise and fall of Damian’s breath, the distant shush of tires on wet pavement, and let himself believe that they would be okay.

He closed his eyes, and for the first time in what felt like years, he slept dreamless.

Chapter Text

On the eigth morning after their exodus, the phone rang at 5:19. Not the cell—a number Dick had changed twice since the move a week ago—but the dusty landline, a relic leftover from when Bruce still paid for security in copper wire and human switchboards.

Dick lay on the bed, halfway through a dream about tracking a jewel thief through the meatpacking district, but woke with all the old readiness. He’d slept maybe three hours, legs still in last night’s jeans, socks on, one foot pressed to the floor as if to stop the building from spinning off into space. For a second, he thought he’d imagined it. Then the phone rang again. A third time, and the tone shifted—now it was a summons, not a request. He padded into the living room, careful not to wake Damian. The boy slept with the discipline of a soldier—arms at sides, face turned away, sheets tucked so tight he looked shrink-wrapped to the mattress—but lately even he had been rolling in his sleep, muttering to ghosts. 

Dick lifted the phone and grunted a greeting.

He recognised the breath first: not ragged or panicked, just deep, deliberate, as if the caller had practiced for hours before dialling. Then came the voice—gravel and steel, touched by something almost ancient.

“Richard.”

The silence that followed was as loaded as a pistol.

“I’m here,” Dick said. 

He braced himself against the fridge, wishing he’d put on a shirt.

“Is he safe?”

Dick heard it: the old calculation, a tone that measured love against liability. He kept his answer short. 

“He’s sleeping.”

“He should be in Gotham.”

Dick laughed, short and bitter. 

“He’s ten. He should be anywhere he feels safe. Right now, it’s not the Manor.”

Another long silence. On the other end, Bruce was probably standing in the cave, surrounded by dead screens, fists curled at his side. Dick could picture the exact angle of the jaw, the way he’d stare at the floor to let the words echo around his skull before letting them out.

“I was out of line,” Bruce said finally. “And I do apologise for that. But he is still my son. I… would like you both to come home.”

“Your son,” Dick repeated, just to feel it in his own mouth. “Biological, maybe.”

“It’s his home.”

Dick closed his eyes, counting the pulse in his temples. He felt the apology, such as it was, hanging in the air—wounded, incomplete, but real. He also felt the threat that lurked inside it. If Dick said no, if he ran, Bruce would hunt him to the edge of the earth, not out of malice but out of the same hunger that drove every mission, every long night in the cave: the need to fix what was broken, even if he had to break it further.

“We can come by,” Dick said, keeping his voice even. “But only if you promise to back off. He chooses. No more threats.”

“Agreed.” 

The word snapped shut like a trap.

Dick didn’t say goodbye. He put the phone down and pressed his palm to the cheap Formica, counting slow until the shakes left his hands. He found Damian in the kitchen a half hour later, already up, hair sticking out like a black starburst. He made his own breakfast now—toast and tea, two sugars, nothing fancy. Dick watched him from the doorway, feeling the old ache of wanting to protect him from a world that never stopped getting sharper.

“Morning,” Dick said.

Damian looked up, measuring. 

“He called?”

“Yeah. Wants us back at the Manor. Says he’ll try to be civil.”

Damian nodded, but his shoulders didn’t relax. 

“I like it here.”

“I do too.”

For a while, neither spoke. The kitchen clock ticked loud, marking time the way only a cheap clock could—unapologetically, with every click another inch toward entropy.

“Do we have to go?” Damian asked.

“Only for a while. Holidays don’t start for two months. We can hang there, let things cool off. You still have classes to attend, too.”

Damian shrugged. 

“Whatever you want, Baba.”

Dick wanted to say: Whatever you want. He wanted to tell him that, for once, they could just do what made sense, not what the city or its shadows required. But he knew the game too well. He knew what Bruce was like when wounded. Sometimes, to keep the peace, you had to let him think he’d won. 

They packed in silence. Refilled the duffles. The documents stayed in the flat, under a loose floorboard Dick had found years ago, under the bed. 

The city was already awake by the time they hit the highway. When the skyline appeared, all steeple and glass and the soft blue smoke of a city burning through its own future, Dick watched Damian’s reflection in the window. He didn’t look scared. He just looked tired. 

The Manor had been cleaned since their last visit. Dick knew the signs—Alfred’s hand in the way the carpets were vacuumed in perfect parallel lines, the faint trace of lemon oil in the banisters, the absence of even a stray fingerprint on the glass doors. Alfred met them in the foyer, crisp as ever, but his eyes lingered on Damian a second too long, as if he needed to reassure himself that the boy was still real.

“Welcome home, Master Damian. Master Richard.” He nodded, then: “Breakfast is ready.”

Dick smiled, but let Damian go ahead. He hung back in the hall, shedding his jacket and listening to the sound of Damian’s footsteps receding down the tile. 

“He’s glad to be back,” Alfred said softly. “Even if he cannot say it.”

“I know. He still should not have been forced to come back, to attend to the whims of an immature man.”

Alfred waited, then reached out and straightened Dick’s collar. 

“Please try to forgive Master Bruce,” he said. “He is not used to losing family. Not like this.”

Dick almost asked, like what? But the answer was obvious: to someone else.

The kitchen was all chrome and sun, every surface wiped to surgical shine. Bruce was already there, seated at the head of the table with a tablet in hand. He wore a T-shirt and running pants, but somehow looked more armoured than ever. Tim was nowhere to be found.

Damian sat opposite, stirring his tea and watching Bruce with the same caution Dick remembered from old stakeouts—study the target, wait for the mistake, strike when they’re off-balance.

Dick slid into the seat beside Damian and let the quiet stretch. He wanted Bruce to go first.

It took exactly sixty-three seconds.

“Patrol schedules,” Bruce said, voice all business. “I’ll be resuming standard coverage. Nightwing can handle Blüdhaven, but if you’d like to stay local, we can rotate Gotham proper.”

Dick didn’t look up. 

“We’re here for a break. Not patrol. You said—”

“I said I wouldn’t force you,” Bruce cut in. “But the city—”

“I’m not the city’s parent,” Dick shot back, more sharply than he meant.

A pause. Then, very quietly: 

“I know,” Bruce said. Dick felt Damian’s eyes flick between them, searching for a safe landing. Bruce set the tablet down and folded his hands. “I’d like to train Damian this afternoon. There are drills he’s fallen behind on.”

Dick stiffened. 

“No.”

Bruce blinked, caught off guard.

“He’s been training with me for years. You drop in now, throw him into the deep end, you’ll destabilise everything. He needs routine. He is well trained, but I know your type of training.”

Bruce’s jaw flexed. 

“He needs challenge.”

Dick could feel Alfred watching from the threshold. He didn’t want a scene, but Bruce was so damn good at drawing one out.

“He needs to feel like someone actually sees him, not just his potential,” Dick said, words coming out low and flat.

“He is Robin,” Bruce said, as if that were explanation enough.

“No. He’s Damian.” Dick’s hand came down hard enough to rattle his mug. “You can’t just plug him back into your life like a missing circuit. It doesn’t work like that.”

The room went still. Even the house seemed to hold its breath. From the doorway, Alfred cleared his throat.

“May I suggest a compromise,” he said, with the tone of a man who’d seen three world wars and at least seven Bat-family feuds. “Perhaps Master Damian could split his time. Train with both of you. With Master Dick in the room, perhaps.”

Dick shot a look at Damian, letting him decide. The boy stared at his plate, shoulders hunched. 

“I don’t mind training with both,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Dick nodded, but didn’t unclench. He looked at Bruce, waiting for him to object. Bruce just stood, sliding his chair in with the precision of a surgeon. 

“I’ll see you in the Cave at four,” he said to Damian, then left without another word.

The sound of his retreat echoed down the hall. Dick watched him go, then turned to Alfred.

“Thanks for the save.”

Alfred smiled, faint and sad. 

“It is what I do.”

He left the room as quietly as he’d entered. Damian finished his tea, then stood. He looked at Dick, and for a second, the mask slipped—there was hurt, and fear, and something else: shame.

“Is it wrong to want things to go back to the way they were?” Damian said.

Dick shook his head. 

“No. It’s just… sometimes, they can’t. I do know what you mean, though.” He ruffled Damian’s hair, light. “Go get ready. I’ll see you at four.”

Damian nodded and slipped out. Dick waited until he was alone, then stared at the tablet Bruce had left behind. He reached for it, flipped it open, and scrolled through the patrol notes. Everything was colour-coded, annotated, optimised for minimum error and maximum coverage. It was the most Bruce thing he’d ever seen. Robin was also partnered up with him, not with Dick. 

He set it aside, then poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, black and burning. He drank it slow, savouring the bitterness. In his chest, the old war started up again: the urge to run, and the heavier urge to stay. He would talk him down from that. 

From the hallway, Alfred watched the kitchen, concern creasing his brow. He saw the lines forming—faults that would break the house, or, with luck, hold it together. He watched Dick drink, alone in the bright kitchen, and made a silent promise to protect what he could. It wasn’t much. But it was what he did.

The Batcave was a concert of static and hum, the air always a few degrees colder than the rest of the house. Dick perched on the hood of the backup car, hands deep in a mess of optic cable and shattered carbon fibre. The evening's patrol lay in pieces across the workbench—a snapped grapnel, a batarang with a kinked edge, the inner workings of a microdrone that had recently lost a fight with a seagull. He liked the work; it was honest, the kind of frustration that ended with a finished product instead of a new bruise. Damian worked the mats at the far end, cycling through an endless sequence of kicks and blocks, each one landing with an audible slap. It was automatic now, but Dick still watched, half-expecting the kid to grow wings and disappear up the elevator shaft. Bruce just observed, for now.

He was so busy threading the new fibre line that he missed Steph's entrance. She dropped in from the upper gallery, boots hitting the metal grate with a clang that reverberated through the whole cave. 

“You know he’s going to notice you cannibalised the backup,” she called out, hopping the last six feet and landing easy.

Dick didn’t look up. 

“He’d do it too, if it meant the difference between ‘here’ and ‘splattered on 32nd Avenue.’”

She grinned, hair wild, purple streak catching the fluorescence. 

“I’m just saying, Bats has a thing for redundant systems.”

“Some of us have a thing for not dying,” Dick replied, but he was smiling.

Steph walked over, plucked a half-destroyed batarang from the bench, and weighed it in her palm. 

“You ever think about mediation?”

That got his attention. 

“Like, couple’s therapy?”

“Like family therapy. You, him, and…” She jerked a thumb toward Damian, who was now perched in crane stance at the top of the rings. “The tension’s killing everyone. Alfred tried to serve me chamomile this morning. Chamomile, Dick. If it gets worse, I think he’ll start spiking the coffee.”

Dick snorted. 

“I’m good. If Bruce wants to talk, he can use his words.”

Steph gave him a look. 

“You know he won’t. I’m just saying, maybe you talk. With a referee. Not Alfred, not Diana, not even me—okay, maybe me. I have a certificate from the Y in ‘active listening.’ But you need to fix this before the whole house turns into a cold war.” 

Dick twisted the wire, jaw working. 

“He doesn’t want to fix it. He wants to win.”

“Then let him think he did. That’s how I got Cass to stop deleting my calendar invites.” Steph picked up the drone, rolled it back and forth. “He’s not mad at you, you know. He’s scared.”

Dick set the wire down, hands splayed on the metal. 

“He’s Bruce Wayne. He doesn’t do scared. Pretty sure he’s pissed.”

Steph lowered her voice. 

“Maybe not, but he does ‘alone.’ And that’s worse.”

Across the cave, Damian lost his balance—just a flicker, a slip on a simple roll that he’d perfected years ago. He landed, but instead of springing up, he sat, hunched, elbows to knees. For a second, he looked smaller than his age. Dick wiped his palms on a shop towel. He nervously glanced at Dick, then at Bruce. Both of them watching him. 

“Fine,” he said. He could see this was negatively affecting the kid. “Set it up. But only if he agrees to ground rules.”

Steph grinned. 

“That’s the spirit.”

The summit happened in the study. Steph insisted on a round table—“so no one can brood at the head”—but they compromised with a battered card table dragged in from the garage. She set up a pitcher of water and a plate of sandwich cookies, then sat in the middle with a notepad and three pens, each a different colour. 

Bruce arrived first, dressed down but somehow more intimidating in a sweater than any batsuit. He refused the seat closest to the window, instead picking one with his back to the far wall. Dick showed up two minutes later, freshly showered, hair still wet, a T-shirt that said “Property of Blüdhaven PD” under his jacket. It was for the sole benefit of making Bruce’s eyebrow twitch in annoyance, and Steph rolled her eyes fondly. The men sized each other up, not like adversaries, but like men who’d once shared a foxhole and now couldn’t remember who had left first. 

Steph started. 

“This is neutral ground. If you can’t say it in front of me, you shouldn’t say it at all. Got it?”

Bruce nodded, stone-faced. Dick shrugged. 

“Fine by me.”

“Great. So, first question. Bruce, what do you want from Dick?”

The directness caught both of them off-guard. Bruce glanced at the notepad, then at Steph. 

“I want him to respect my authority as head of the family. I want him to stop taking my son away from me.”

Dick laughed, not cruel, but with real surprise. 

“You don’t have a family, Bruce. You have a franchise. Soldiers.”

Bruce didn’t flinch. 

“That’s not true. I raised you.”

“And then you disappeared for six years and expected everything to snap back like an old rubber band. It doesn’t work like that.” Dick leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You want my respect? Try treating me like a partner, not a failed project. And I am not, for the record, taking Damian away from you. I never forbid him for talking to you, or anything like that. You just came back and expected him to be someone he’s not. And he feels hurt by that, so he avoids you. That’s on you, though. Not me.”

Steph jotted something down. 

“Dick, what do you want from Bruce?”

He thought about it, the pause stretching until even Bruce started to fidget. 

“I want him to see that I raised Damian. He’s my son too.”

Bruce’s hands curled around the cup in front of him. 

“He is my biological—”

“I know,” Dick cut in. “And I’m not trying to take that away. But I was the one who got him to sleep after his nightmares. I was the one who learned how to make his lunches the way he likes them. I was the one who showed up. That counts for something.”

Steph turned to Bruce. 

“Your move.”

Bruce stared at the tabletop. When he spoke, it was low, almost broken. 

“I missed everything. I know. But I want to be a father to him. I don’t know how.”

Dick softened, just a little. 

“You don’t have to know. Just… try. Show up. Stop pressuring him.”

Bruce looked up, eyes ringed with exhaustion. 

“You won’t let me. You’ll just leave the city again.”

Dick shook his head. 

“I will, if you stop acting like you’re the only one who matters. I refuse to let your entitlement be the reason the kid gets hurt.”

They went silent. Steph doodled a spiral on the notepad, then circled it in all three colours.

“Okay,” she said. “Next: what are you afraid of?”

Dick blinked. 

“That he feels like he has to change to make others happy. That he gets taken away from me, and stops feeling safe. That he loses who he is.”

Bruce’s answer was slower, but no less raw. 

“That I’ll never get it right. That I’m just… a suit. A mask. And nothing more. And that I will never be his father, now.”

They didn’t look at each other. Steph tapped her pen. 

“You two are more alike than you want to admit.”

Dick rolled his eyes. 

“That’s the problem.”

Steph smiled, but didn’t argue. She let the quiet settle, then closed the notepad. 

“That’s enough for tonight. But tomorrow, we try again. One more thing, though.”

Bruce stood, but didn’t leave. He looked at Dick, searching for something—maybe a place to start.

“What is it?”, Dick asked, calmly. 

“Bruce, did you notice how everything Dick is worried about is Damian? And how you are afraid of things to do with yourself?”

The older man’s head snapped around, an angry retort on his lips but Steph just shook her head.

“Seriously. Think on that. Because, as a parent, your priority should be your kid. Not your hurt feelings. Just…” She sighed and got up. “Before you tell Dick how he’s not fit to be Damian’s father, think on how you replied, and how he did. It should give you an idea why the kid refuses to be around you.”

Bruce stared after her. Dick had just raised an eyebrow. He did not expect her to call Bruce out like that. It was true, but still. The older man sighed, then.

“I meant it,” he said. “About trying.”

Dick nodded. 

“Me too.”

Bruce left, not storming, just moving like a man with too much gravity. 

Dick waited until the study was empty before going after Steph.

“You think this did anything?” he asked, when he found her.

She shrugged. 

“Depends. You two can survive a lot. Might as well try surviving each other.”

Dick grinned, and the tension in his shoulders eased.

In the hallway, Damian crouched at the top of the stairs, knees to chest, listening through the crack of the door. He heard every word, and for the first time in days, his chest felt lighter. So even if Bruce wanted to try, this had just shown him even more why he was justified in his instincts. That he could trust his instincts. He needed to think.

The Manor’s rooftop was not built for reflection, but it served. The shingles curved like vertebrae, each one sanded smooth by decades of wind and sun. In summer, the tar softened to a gummy slickness, but tonight it was cool, the sky clear enough that even the distant glow of Gotham couldn’t bleach out the constellations. Damian crouched at the edge, knees drawn up, gaze fixed on the iron gate at the end of the drive. He’d been there an hour. Maybe more. The chill didn’t bother him; what burned was inside. He heard the footsteps before the creak of the ladder. Dick was the only person who approached with enough stealth to make it interesting, and enough kindness to announce himself anyway. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Dick asked, swinging a leg over the parapet and settling beside him.

Damian shrugged. 

“Too much noise.”

They sat for a while, the kind of silence that didn’t press, didn’t ask for anything.

After a bit, Dick said, “You want to talk about it?”

Damian picked at the seam of his pants, then looked out over the old trees. 

“It’s confusing.”

“That’s fine. What is it?”

He hesitated, then: “Having two fathers.”

Dick smiled, a small, sad thing. 

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

Damian drew a slow breath. 

“I know Bruce is my… real one. Biologically. But he doesn’t know me. Not like you do.” He looked over, quick, just to see if it landed. It did; Dick’s eyes softened, the lines at the corner creasing deeper. “You were the one who helped me when I broke my arm,” Damian continued, voice almost too low to carry. “You made my lunches, even though you always forgot the napkin. You sat outside my door when I had nightmares. You are the one who actually cares about me. Me. As a person. You taught me how to… be a person.”

Dick laughed, but quietly. 

“You already were a person, Dames. I just tried to make it easier. To show you it’s okay to be whoever you are.”

Damian pressed on. 

“He doesn’t know about my favourite books. Or the way I like my eggs. Or that I hate waking up before the sun.”

“He will,” Dick said. “If you want him to.”

Damian looked away. 

“I don’t know how to be his son.”

“You don’t have to be. Not right away.”

Damian’s hands curled on his knees, tight. 

“I don’t know if I want to. I already have a father. You.”

The words dropped between them, heavier than any silence. Dick put an arm around Damian’s shoulders, pulling him in just enough to let the world know whose side he was on.

“You don’t have to pick,” Dick said. “But if you do, I’m here. Always. Unless you don’t want me to be anymore.”

Damian nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He let his head rest against Dick’s shoulder, and for the first time in days, let the tension bleed away. They sat, watching the world roll toward morning.

After a while, Damian said, “If it comes to it, I’ll pick you. Every time. Because you knew where I would be. You saw I was upset before I said anything. You never pressure me into anything.”

Dick squeezed his shoulder. 

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. You do not have to choose, and you should not feel the need to, not for me.”

Damian sighed.

“And that’s the point. He wants me to choose. You are okay with me not choosing. That’s why I will always pick you, Baba.”

Dick just pulled him closer, pressed a kiss on top of his hair. Above them, the stars kept their places. On the roof, father and son leaned into each other, sharing the night, certain of at least this much: whatever happened next, they would face it together. 



The Batcave breathed with old secrets. It hummed and clicked and ran silent diagnostics long into the night, even when its owner had nothing left to offer but the low throb of adrenaline and a hunger that didn’t answer to food or sleep. Bruce sat at the main console, half-illuminated by a bank of screens, a row of case files lined up like ghost soldiers awaiting orders. He should have been reviewing logistics, tracking the sequence of late-night muggings in Crime Alley, preparing for the next show of force in the Narrows. Instead, he scrolled through old patrol footage—grainy, blue-tinted, so sharp it made the air taste metallic. In every file, a Robin. Sometimes Tim, sometimes Steph, sometimes a ghost of Jason, hair wild and eyes lit up with the thrill of a chase. Every so often, a Nightwing: Dick, in motion, all grace and barely-contained joy. He played those segments twice, as if they might offer a solution if studied long enough. 

The sound of the elevator broke his focus. He turned, expecting the shuffle of Damian’s small, silent feet, or Dick’s measured approach, always faster than expected. Instead, it was Alfred, descending in slippers, a tray balanced on one palm. 

“I brought coffee, sir. And a biscuit. You’ve not eaten today.”

Bruce wanted to protest, but the smell of the coffee filled the cave in a way that demanded compliance. He took the mug, fingers brushing Alfred’s for a second. 

“Thank you.”

Alfred set the tray aside and surveyed the screens. 

“A trip down memory lane, Master Bruce?”

Bruce grunted. 

“Trying to find a pattern.”

Alfred waited.

After a minute, Bruce pushed the keyboard away. 

“It’s not working. I can’t get a read on him.”

“On Master Damian?”

“On either of them.” Bruce looked up, face harsh in the monitor glow. “They’re a unit. I’m… outside.”

Alfred poured himself a cup, slow and methodical. 

“You have been absent, sir. Some adjustment period is to be expected.”

“I thought it would be enough to come back. To… resume command.” 

The word sounded wrong, even to him. Alfred raised an eyebrow. 

“Families are not battalions, Master Bruce. At least, not ideally.”

Bruce took a long swallow of coffee. 

“He looks at Dick the way I always hoped he would look at me.” The admission stuck in his throat, half acid, half shame. “He listens. He laughs. When he’s scared, he calls for Dick. He never acted that way around me. Not even before I… vanished.”

“Because Master Richard is the one who has been there,” Alfred said. “For six years, sir. Through every night terror, every scraped knee, every lost friend.”

Bruce’s hands closed around the mug, knuckles white. 

“What am I supposed to do? Stand by and watch someone else raise my son?”

Alfred considered, then spoke, gentle but firm. 

“You could try being a father now, sir. The kind who does not demand obedience, but earns trust. Perhaps even friendship, in time. You should not, however, even consider trying to sever their bond. No reason could be worth hurting them both that much.”

Bruce’s jaw tightened. 

“He’s still so angry.”

“Of course he is. So are you.” Alfred smiled, just a little. “It is remarkable how similar you are, once one learns where to look.”

The silence that followed was thick, full of old arguments and apologies never spoken. Finally, Bruce slammed a fist down—not hard enough to break the console, just enough to make the mug jump. 

“He won’t let me in.”

Alfred didn’t flinch. 

“Then start smaller. Stand near. Listen. He may come to you in time, or he may not. That is not your choice to make.”

Bruce stared at the case files, the old missions. They seemed irrelevant now, a game for someone else.

“He loves Dick,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

“He does.” Alfred’s gaze softened. “But he might come to love you too. In his way.”

Bruce nodded, once, the motion heavy with regret. Alfred stood, gathering the empty tray. 

“Perhaps tomorrow, you might ask Master Damian what he would like to do. Not as Batman. As Bruce. If I may suggest: the botanical garden is reopening.” 

Bruce let the words sink in. 

“Thank you, Alfred.”

“Of course, sir.”

Alfred left as quietly as he’d arrived, steps fading into the endless stone. Bruce sat in the darkness for a long time, surrounded by screens that had stopped mattering. Above him, the sound of two voices, faint through a vent—laughter, then a hush, then nothing at all. 

He closed his eyes. He tried to remember how it felt, the first time he called someone family. 

Tomorrow, he would try again.

Chapter Text

Morning in Wayne Manor started with the clatter of utensils and the faint ozone of high-tension nerves. Bruce sat at the far end of the kitchen counter, back as straight as the cutlery lined up in Alfred’s drawer. He wore running clothes—black, logo-less, engineered for movement—but he hadn’t broken a sweat. The tablet in his hand scrolled with the night’s patrol logs, new threat maps, and a red-flagged note from the GCPD about a possible uptick in arson. Alfred circled behind, prepping breakfast with a surgeon’s precision: eggs poured into a bowl, bread in the toaster, grapefruit quartered and dusted with sugar. The routine was the same, but the tempo had changed; every motion was half a beat off, as if the return of Bruce Wayne had thrown even the kitchen’s quantum state into chaos. The house was never quiet—pipes knocking, ancient radiators hissing, the occasional vibration as the elevator cycled through the Cave—but it felt quiet now, the kind of hush that comes before a verdict. Bruce paged through a file, pausing only to tap the counter with his index finger, a habit he’d broken years ago but which resurfaced this week like an old injury. 

Dick entered next, hair still damp from his shower, a bruise forming under his right eye where a drone had clipped him in the night. He wore a sweatshirt that was one laundry away from disintegration, and socks that didn’t match. Damian trailed him, face pinched and pale, hands buried in the sleeves of his own hoodie—one of Dick’s, from the look of it. The boy’s steps were light, soundless, as if he expected the floor to vanish beneath him at any moment. Bruce didn’t look up right away. When he did, the air went brittle. 

“You’re late,” he said, voice flat.

Dick smirked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet. 

“You say that like you expected us to be on time.”

Damian said nothing. He hovered at Dick’s side, eyes flicking from the fridge to the window to the bread knife in Alfred’s hand. When Bruce pushed back from the counter and stood, Damian’s shoulders curled in, almost imperceptibly.

“I want to review your algebra assignments before you leave for school,” Bruce said. “You’re behind by a chapter.”

“I already finished it,” Damian replied, voice clipped. 

He edged behind Dick, using his father’s frame as cover. Bruce frowned. 

“Show me.”

Dick rolled his eyes. 

“Let the kid eat first. It’s not like he’s going to forget algebra in the next twenty minutes.”

Alfred plated the eggs, slid a bowl in front of Damian with a slice of toast balanced on the rim. 

“May I suggest a compromise,” he said, the gentlest iron in his tone. “Perhaps Master Damian could review with Master Dick this morning, and then you can go over the final results together later.”

Bruce looked as if he wanted to protest, but he let it go with a small nod. 

“Fine.”

Damian ducked his head and mumbled, “Thank you, Alfred.”

Before Dick could sit, the kitchen door slammed open hard enough to rattle the pots. Jason strode in, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, boots tracking in a muddy arc from the back patio. 

“Heard the old man’s back,” he announced, dropping his bag with a thud that made Alfred wince.

Dick’s jaw actually dropped. Jason hadn’t been at the Manor in years. And even way before Darkseid. Not even the news of Bruce’s Lazarus-level resurrection had lured him back to the fold. Now he stood at the threshold, hair shorn almost to the scalp, eyes bloodshot from a night with too much liquor or too little sleep. He wore a threadbare leather jacket over a T-shirt with a faded Dead Kennedys logo, and three silver rings on his left hand. He radiated chaos the way other people exuded cologne. Bruce straightened, but he didn’t move forward. There was a rift in the air—like two magnets forced together at the wrong poles. 

“Jason,” he said.

“Bruce,” Jason replied, and managed to sound like he was quoting a line from a bad cop show.

Damian froze, tension crawling up his neck and locking his jaw. He stared at Jason, cataloguing every inch, every rumour Dick had ever told him about the prodigal brother: the violence, the anger, the years in exile, the times he’d come home just to set things on fire. Damian didn’t speak, but his gaze was so direct it might as well have been a challenge. 

Alfred, sensing the collision course, intervened: “Master Jason, would you care for breakfast?”

“Hell yes,” Jason said. “Haven’t had a real meal in days.” 

He stomped to the table, dropped into a chair, and pulled the toast from Damian’s plate before the boy could react. Dick set his own glass down and gave Jason a brotherly smack to the shoulder. 

“Back for good, or just out on parole?”

“Jury’s still out,” Jason said, through a mouthful of egg. “But you know, nothing says ‘home’ like a kitchen full of passive aggression.”

Bruce didn’t answer. He watched Jason with a kind of clinical interest, as if unsure whether to embrace or quarantine him. There was something raw about it—like seeing a stray you used to own, unsure whether it would bite or curl up at your feet. Dick filled the silence. 

“So. Big reunion. What brings you back, really? Ran out of free food?”

Jason smirked. 

“You know me. Can’t stand to miss a good train wreck.” He flicked his eyes toward Bruce. “And I heard you needed a Robin again. Or was that a rumour?”

Alfred set another bowl in front of Jason, gently removing the pilfered toast and replacing it with a fresh slice. Jason grinned at Alfred, but the man’s expression didn’t shift an inch. Damian’s gaze darted from Bruce to Jason to Dick. He hunched closer to Dick’s side, clutching his glass as if it might anchor him in the room. The door opened again, and Tim entered, trailed by Steph who still wore the sweatpants and hoodie she’d slept in. Tim’s hair stuck up at odd angles, and he had the look of someone who had spent the night debugging firmware or possibly plotting a coup. He didn’t react to Jason’s presence, just slid into a chair and started pouring cereal. Steph blinked at Jason, then at Bruce, then at the eggs. 

“Are we having, like, a family meeting?” she asked.

“Something like that,” Dick said.

Bruce, deciding the only way through was forward, cleared his throat. “There are changes to the patrol schedules. Effective tonight, everyone will rotate through Gotham proper. Jason, if you wish to participate, you’ll be assigned with Tim and Steph.”

Jason snorted. 

“What, you don’t trust me solo?”

Bruce’s gaze went knife-sharp. 

“No.”

A silence settled. Tim looked up, meeting Jason’s eyes, and for a moment something like understanding passed between them. 

“Don’t take it personally,” Tim said. “I’ve been ‘on probation’ for, what, ten years now?”

Jason laughed. 

“That’s just because you never broke anything expensive.”

Dick rolled his eyes. 

“Speak for yourself. He torched the Batbike on a dare from Spoiler.”

Steph sipped her orange juice, unrepentant. 

“That’s what it’s for.”

Alfred swept the table, refilling glasses and retrieving empties, moving with the quiet authority of a man who’d survived four generations of Wayne disasters and had the recipe cards to prove it. He paused at Damian’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze before collecting the trash. Bruce stood back, surveying the table like a general counting losses. The scene looked almost normal, if you didn’t know how many times the people in it had tried to kill each other, or run away, or just not come home. There was a shape to it, an awkward balance, but it held together. 

Breakfast stretched, the conversation meandering from patrols to the best lunch spots in Blüdhaven (Dick insisted on the Silver Spoon, Jason called him a traitor) to the ongoing scandal of Gotham’s school lunches (“They serve pizza every Thursday, and it’s always cold,” Damian said, voice small). Steph recounted her disastrous attempt to make a soufflé in the Manor’s kitchen (“It’s not my fault the oven has more buttons than a spaceship”), while Tim ran through a list of recent upgrades to the Batcave’s security protocols. 

No one mentioned why Jason was really here, or how long he might stay. No one asked Bruce if he was okay, or if this was what he’d hoped for when he came back. They just ate, and talked, and filled the kitchen with the noise of a family trying to convince itself it still existed. 

When breakfast ended, Alfred dismissed them with a quiet “Off you go, then.” 

Bruce lingered at the table, watching the others drift out in pairs and trios. He tapped the counter twice, slow, then let his hand fall. Damian was last to leave. He hovered in the doorway, glancing back at Bruce, then at Dick.

Dick motioned him forward. 

“Let’s check your math before we go.”

Damian nodded, relief flickering in his eyes. 

As he turned, Bruce called out, “Good work on the science exam.”

Damian stopped, unsure if it was a trick. 

He muttered, “Thanks,” and hurried away.

Bruce stood in the empty kitchen, the smell of eggs cooling in the air, and realised that the house felt alive again. Not comfortable, not exactly safe, but alive—each friction and fracture evidence that something could still change. 

It wasn’t enough, but it was more than he’d hoped for.



The Batcave felt different though. The old sodium lamps flicked to life in measured sequence, pooling light on the mats and leaving the rest of the cave in layered shadow. The computer hummed in low-power mode, monitors blank except for a slow pulsing of the Wayne crest. In the training area, Dick had set up an obstacle course—a jungle of tripwires, soft walls, and a dizzying array of remote sensors, all anchored by two battered flags stuck to the far ends of the mat. He’d spent the morning configuring the system to trigger alarms at anything over 60 decibels, just for fun. 

He waited for the footsteps to sync up before calling out, “Down here!” and watched as Bruce and Damian rounded the final spiral of the main stairs. 

Damian trailed behind, keeping to the handrail, as if the whole structure might slide sideways and pitch him into the abyss. Bruce looked at the setup with a blank face, but Dick saw the flicker of approval in the way his eyes traced the lines of the course. 

“Capture the flag?” Bruce asked.

Dick spread his hands. 

“With a twist. Team versus team. Strategy, not just brute force. Thought it might be a good way to, you know, coordinate.”

Bruce nodded. He examined the grid, already mapping vulnerabilities. 

“Who’s on which side?”

“Thought I’d take Damian,” Dick said, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Let you run solo, see if you’re as good as the legend says.”

Damian made a face, but didn’t object. Bruce moved to the console, fingers flying over the touchpad. 

“You left the south corridor wide open.”

“On purpose,” Dick said. “Figured you’d notice. There’s a secondary alarm set in the vents—motion only. Want to test it?”

Bruce looked at him, then at Damian. 

“Let’s go then” he said, voice careful.

Damian shrugged. 

“Sure.”

Dick grinned. 

“We’ll take blue. You’re red.”

They took positions. Damian went low, skirting the edge of the mat, while Dick leaped to the upper rail, using the old gymnast’s route that bypassed most of the floor sensors. Bruce moved like a shadow—no wasted motion, no hesitation. He vanished from sight, then reappeared on the far side of the obstacle wall, already within reach of the flag. Dick signalled, and Damian darted forward, silent as a rumour. They intercepted Bruce at the critical point—a choke between two soft walls—and for a moment it looked like an even match. But Bruce, never content to play by anyone else’s rules, doubled back and caught Dick off-guard, pinning him in a dead zone. 

“Still telegraph your left,” he said, almost gentle, and then snatched the flag before Dick could counter.

Damian’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t stop. He tracked Bruce to the return path, intercepting at the old service ladder. He reached out, snatching the flag from Bruce’s grip with a move Dick hadn’t even taught him.

Bruce blinked, then let go. 

“Nice,” he said, and it wasn’t sarcastic.

Dick called time. 

“Point for Damian.”

They reset. Round two. This time, Dick and Damian took different approaches—Dick as decoy, Damian as silent runner. The plan worked until the final ten seconds, when Bruce doubled back again, trapping Damian between two motion sensors. 

“Not bad,” Bruce said, holding out a hand for the flag.

Damian hesitated, then handed it over, fingers brushing Bruce’s palm. The contact was brief, but it lingered.

“Why not switch up the rules?” Bruce said. “Make it full stealth. No teams.”

Dick shrugged. 

“Sure, but let the kid call it.”

Damian looked at both of them, then at the mat. 

“I’d rather stick with teams,” he said, quiet.

Bruce nodded, but Dick saw the disappointment flicker in the corners of his mouth. 

They reset for round three, but before the timer could start, Bruce stepped behind Damian and reached out to position him at the start line, just like he used to with Tim, and Dick. His hand landed on Damian’s shoulder—gentle, nothing rough about it. 

Damian flinched as if he’d been struck. He twisted out of Bruce’s grip, stumbled backwards, eyes wide and wild. 

“Don’t touch me!” he snapped, voice cracking.

Time stopped. Bruce stared at his own hand, as if unsure what it had done. 

“Damian—” he started, but the boy cut him off.

“I can’t breathe when you crowd me like that,” Damian said, voice sharp and brittle as glass. 

He backed away, hands raised, then turned and bolted to the far end of the cave, skidding to a stop by the computer bay.Dick watched him go, then looked back at Bruce. The older man’s face was pale, his hand still half-raised, fingers curled in.

“What did you tell him?” Bruce asked, the old suspicion back, cold and thin-edged.

“Nothing,” Dick said, keeping his tone steady. “He just doesn’t like to be touched. Not unless he knows it’s coming, or unless he asks for it.”

Bruce’s mouth worked, but he didn’t speak. 

After a moment, he said, “He lets you.”

Dick nodded, once. 

“I don’t crowd him. And I ask.”

Bruce dropped his hand, staring at the mat. 

“He’s never done that before.”

“Yeah, he has,” Dick said. “You weren’t here to see it.”

Bruce looked up, accusation flickering in his eyes. 

“So I’m the problem.”

Dick didn’t flinch. 

“You’re not the problem, Bruce. But you’re not the solution, either. Not right now.”

They stood in the silence, the echo of Damian’s shout still vibrating in the steel beams above. 

After a minute, Bruce said, “I just wanted to help.”

“I know,” Dick said. “So does he. But you have to give him space.”

Bruce nodded, slow, and turned toward the stairs. 

“I’ll give him space.”

Dick waited until Bruce was gone before heading to the computer bay. Damian sat at the console, hands knotted in his lap, breathing shallow and fast.

“Hey,” Dick said, crouching beside him.

“I’m sorry,” Damian whispered.

“You don’t have to be.”

Damian didn’t look up. 

“He’s angry.”

“No, he’s confused. He wants to do the right thing, but he’s not sure what that is anymore.”

Damian sniffed, rubbing his nose on his sleeve. 

“I don’t want to hate him.”

“You don’t,” Dick said. “You just want to feel safe. That’s not the same thing.”

Damian nodded, but his eyes stayed glued to the floor.

“Come on,” Dick said, standing and offering a hand. “Let’s go reset the flags. We can finish the game later, if you want.”

Damian took the hand, grip fierce and desperate. 

“Okay.”

They crossed the training floor together, steps in perfect sync, and for the first time all day, Dick felt like maybe things could get better. Not fixed—never fixed—but better. Behind them, the Batcave hummed, alive with old ghosts and new hope.



Damian’s room was the only one in the Manor that felt smaller every time Dick entered. It wasn’t the square footage—by most standards it was the size of a two-bedroom condo—but the way the walls seemed to draw in around the boy, shrinking to match whatever mood he brought home. Today, the door was shut, the light spilling under it a hard, unwavering blue. 

Dick knocked, waited for the soft “yeah,” and slipped inside.

Damian sat cross-legged on his bed, sketchbook open, black pencil in his right hand. He worked with a kind of surgical focus, lines crisp and exact. The shelves behind him were a museum of obsessions: birds of prey in flight, high-end model cars, two meticulously assembled puzzles glued and framed, a scattering of martial arts trophies—all arranged in a strict order that never changed, even when the rest of the world went sideways. Dick sat on the floor next to the bed, back against the footboard. He didn’t speak right away, just watched the pencil scythe across the page. Damian didn’t look up, but Dick saw the way the kid’s left knee started bouncing the instant he entered. 

After a minute, Damian tore out the page, set it on the growing pile, and started another. He was drawing Dick, in full Nightwing regalia—mask and suit, the old “wings” spread as if bracing against the wind. He’d only seen him once in the suit so far, when he had gotten suited up for training with full weapons. The accuracy was unnerving. Even the scar under Dick’s right eye, barely visible unless you knew to look for it, was marked in faint crosshatch.

“You know,” Dick said, voice soft, “it’s okay to take your time getting to know Bruce.”

Damian’s hand stilled. He tapped the pencil against the paper. 

“He doesn’t want to know me,” he muttered. “He wants me to be something I’m not.”

Dick considered this. 

“What do you think he wants you to be?”

“A soldier,” Damian said, with the disgust only a ten-year-old could summon. “A weapon. A… ‘Wayne heir,’ whatever that means. He doesn’t even ask what I want.”

“Do you know what you want?” Dick asked.

Damian shrugged. 

“To be left alone, sometimes. To do my work. To not be told how to do everything.” He paused, then, quieter: “To not be afraid of messing up. To be able to figure myself out.”

Dick climbed onto the bed, settling next to Damian with a practised ease. He slung an arm around the boy’s shoulders, careful not to crowd. 

“You don’t have to worry about messing up with me,” Dick said. “Or with Alfred. Or with Steph. Bruce… he’ll learn. It might take a while, but he’ll get there.”

Damian said nothing. He started shading the edges of the Nightwing sketch, jaw set.

“I mean it,” Dick said. “Your feelings are valid, Dami. You don’t owe him trust just because he wants it. I’ll always be here for you, no matter what. Bruce being back doesn’t change that.”

Damian kept drawing, but his lines slowed, softened.

Dick went on, “If you want to give Bruce a chance, that’s up to you. If you want to ignore him, that’s also fine. And if he ever makes you uncomfortable—if he ever crowds you, or tries to push too hard—I’ll step in. You’re allowed to set boundaries. You did, today. I explained it. No touching unless warned or asked for. I’ll help make sure he respects them.”

Damian put the pencil down. He didn’t say thank you, but he leaned against Dick’s side, just enough to let Dick know the words had landed.

“You promise you won’t leave?” Damian asked, so quiet Dick barely heard him.

Dick smiled, pressing a kiss to the top of Damian’s head. 

“Never. You’re stuck with me, kiddo.”

Damian nodded, and for the first time in hours, the rigid set of his shoulders eased. They stayed like that for a while, the only sound the scratch of graphite on paper and the slow, steady exhale of relief.



The Batcave was at its most honest after hours, when the buzz of the city faded and the computers took over the work of keeping the world from falling apart. The main console cast its glow over the workstations, the light cycling between blue and white as diagnostics ran. Tim and Steph sat at the master terminal, both hunched forward, eyes red-rimmed from a marathon coding session or maybe just from the fatigue of keeping the family’s internal combustion running. Bruce stood behind them, arms crossed so tight it looked like he was holding his own ribs in place. He watched the monitors flicker, watched Steph pull up a video file and drag it into the queue. He was still stuck on how the kid had flinched.

“What’s this about?” Bruce asked, the suspicion a hard edge in his voice.

Steph hit play, then turned her chair so she faced Bruce, not the screen. 

“You need to see this,” she said.

The video started with a shaky pan across the second floor landing, then steadied on a bedroom door left just slightly ajar. Dick’s voice was audible from the hallway, soft but clear. 

“Hey. Mind if I come in?”

A pause, then Damian: “Sure.”

The camera view changed—probably a webcam, hacked for the occasion—to catch the two of them in profile. Damian sat cross-legged on the bed, sketchbook open, pencil held like a scalpel. Dick lounged against the wall, arms draped over his knees, the same blue hoodie from that morning bunched at the elbows. But it was not from this morning. Might be a few days old. Bruce stiffened. 

“You were recording them?” he demanded.

Tim didn’t flinch. 

“We wanted you to see it. The way they are together. You needed to see it.”

On the video, Dick didn’t start with a joke. He just sat, letting Damian sketch in silence. After a while, Damian tore a page from the book, set it aside, and said, “He’s never going to stop, is he?”

“Who?” Dick asked.

“Bruce,” Damian said, not even looking up. “He’s always going to want me to be something else.”

Dick considered, then: “He might. But you don’t have to let him decide who you are.”

Damian kept drawing, but his voice was raw around the edges. 

“He never asks what I want. Not even once.”

“Your grandfather didn’t, either,” Dick said. “Neither did your mother. I’m sorry.”

Damian shrugged, but the motion was brittle. 

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t care about them. Only you.”

The screen zoomed in slightly, tracking Damian’s eyes. He was blinking hard, the pencil now trembling just a little. Dick let the silence stretch. 

“He’s your father, you know. He probably thinks he’s doing his best. I’m sure if he wasn’t so confused by it all, if it was like before, he’d care.”

Damian’s lips pressed tight. 

“You are my father. The only one who matters. And he didn’t, by the way.”

“Didn’t what?” Dick asked, but he said it so gently it didn’t even sound like a question.

“Didn’t do his best. Not even close.” Damian’s voice was flat. “He left. He always left. And when he came back, he just—expected me to fit into whatever he wanted. I don’t want that.”

Dick nodded, eyes steady on Damian. 

“You don’t have to.”

On screen, Damian’s hands curled on his knees, fists tight. 

“You let me figure out who I am. You let me be myself.”

Dick smiled, small. 

“Sometimes I wish I could be more like you.”

Damian looked up, sharp. 

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not,” Dick said, and the sincerity punched through the resolution, even from a distance. “You’re brave enough to tell people when they hurt you. I could never do that, not with Bruce. I always wanted him to be proud, even if it meant pretending.”

Damian’s voice cracked: “Are you proud of me?”

Dick’s answer was immediate. 

“Always. No matter what.”

On the screen, Damian tried to hide his face, but Dick just scooted closer and bumped their shoulders together. 

“You don’t have to earn it,” he said. “You’re enough, just like this.”

The video froze on that frame: Damian half-smiling, head tipped into Dick’s arm, the pencil fallen beside him.

Tim looked up at Bruce, who hadn’t moved. Steph spoke first. 

“You see the problem, right?” she said.

Bruce’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t answer. Tim filled the silence. 

“He doesn’t hate you. He just can’t trust you. Not yet. Every time you come near, he expects to be judged, or ordered around, or left behind.”

Steph leaned back in her chair, legs propped on the desk. 

“You’re trying to overwrite six years of trust in a week. That’s not going to happen, no matter how many drills you run. He’s spent his entire life waiting for the next disappointment, and now that he finally found someone who doesn’t let him down, you want to rip him away from it.”

Bruce flinched. Just once, but it was enough. Steph softened, just a little. 

“He doesn’t want to hate you. He just needs you to try. Like, actually try. Not as Batman. As Bruce.”

Tim added, “Ask him what he wants. Listen, even if you don’t like the answer. That’s all you have to do.”

The screen went black. The cave hummed, static echoing in the hollow air. Bruce sat down, heavily, in the chair nearest the terminal. He didn’t speak for a long time. Tim and Steph waited, neither of them fidgeting, both locked on him.

Finally, Bruce said, “I didn’t know.”

Steph grinned, almost sad. 

“Now you do.”

“How do I fix it?” Bruce asked, voice stripped down to the bone.

Tim shrugged. 

“Start by apologising. For real, not the way you did on the phone. Then maybe ask him if he wants to go to a movie, or a museum, or just stay in his room. But don’t tell him what to do.”

Steph said, “The kid’s pretty clear about boundaries. Just… follow his lead. And for fucks sake, respect the boundaries. It’s not complicated.”

Bruce nodded, hands folded so tight they trembled. 

“I’ll try.”

Tim closed the laptop, stood, and stretched. 

“Good. Because if you don’t, Dick’s going to take him and move back to Blüdhaven. Permanently.”

Steph nodded, rolling her shoulders. “And I’d go with. Or at least visit on weekends.”

Tim grinned at that. 

“Don’t think she’s joking.”

Bruce let out a slow breath. 

“I know.”

They left him there, in the dark, the old batsuit displays watching in silent judgement. On the monitor, the paused frame of Dick and Damian sat like a dare: Try again. And mean it.

Bruce didn’t move for a long time. He watched the afterimage burn itself into his vision, and when it finally faded, he wondered if this was what hope looked like—small, stubborn, impossible to kill. 

He stood, cracked his knuckles, and started up the stairs. He had work to do.

Chapter Text

The Batcave had always been cold, but the temperature tonight was the kind that crept inside your bones and started living there. The main terminal threw pale light across the cavernous space, dusting the worktables, the ragged trophy cases, even the stalactites that had outlived every owner of the house above. It made every shadow seem both older and hungrier. Bruce stood at the master console, arms behind his back, posture unyielding. He wore the suit—always the suit now, the new black-on-grey with reinforced gorget and a cape that seemed to generate its own gravity—but the cowl was on the table, a glowering totem at his right hand. He was mid-sentence, voice pitched to fill the cave even without the comms turned on.

“I’ve recalculated the sector rotations. East End gets double coverage through the weekend. Crime Alley and the Waterfront are split between primary and auxiliary, alternating at the half-shift. You’ll find the new protocols uploaded to the cloud, and hard copies are in your folders.” He didn’t turn to see if anyone was listening. “These routes are non-negotiable. Deviations go through me.”

Dick stood at a workbench halfway across the deck, arms crossed, chin lowered so his hair curtained half his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a day, and the way he shifted his weight said he’d rather be anywhere else. He was fully suited up as Nightwing.

Tim sat at a second console, hands moving on the keys but eyes flicking constantly to Bruce, then to Dick, then back. He wore a faded hoodie and had a foam coffee cup balanced on the terminal, every inch of him telegraphing “not my fight,” but his fingers hovered above the keyboard, waiting for what would break first.

Damian stood in the wedge of light between the two men, arms at his sides, cape bunched in his fists. He wore the Robin suit, all black and high-vis yellow, and the mask was already sweat-stuck to his face. The effect made him seem both smaller and sharper, a knife with a child’s hand on the hilt. He watched Bruce with perfect stillness, except for the twitch at the corner of his mouth each time Bruce said “non-negotiable.”

“First order of business,” Bruce continued. “Robin will return to standard protocols. He shadows Batman on all city ops, no exceptions. Field decisions will be made in real time by senior operative—me—unless circumstances require autonomy.”

He said the last word like it was a curse. Dick pushed off the bench. The sound echoed—a sharp, deliberate punctuation mark.

“That’s not how we’ve been running things. Now what he’s trained in.”

Bruce turned, cape swirling as if attached to a second, invisible body.

“It’s how we ran them before.”

Dick’s jaw tightened.

“A lot changed in six years, Bruce. The city, the crew, the whole goddamn world. Maybe you should try adapting.”

A current ran through the room, made the overheads seem to flicker. Tim’s gaze snapped to Damian, then to the floor. Damian didn’t move. He just stared at the stripe of concrete between his boots. Bruce drew himself taller.

“I don’t adapt to chaos. I fix it.”

Dick laughed—a single, brittle note.

“That’s why you lost the city in the first place, right?”

The silence after that was so wide you could park a Batmobile in it.

Bruce came down the steps toward the workbench, every stride measured to project both threat and inevitability.

“You think this is about control? It’s about order. Chain of command. Robin follows Batman’s lead, without question. That’s how it’s always been.”

“Except it isn’t,” Dick said, low but cutting. “You trained us to think, not just obey. And you know Damian can’t be handled like a rookie.”

Bruce’s hands flexed at his sides.

“He’s ten.”

“He’s Robin. Been Robin since he turned eight,” Dick shot back. “And he’s earned every bit of the mask. Don’t treat him like a pawn.”

Something in Damian’s expression flickered. His eyes darted to Dick, then away, as if the words were both a comfort and an accusation. Bruce stepped into Dick’s space, close enough that the heat from the suit radiated between them.

“You’re undermining discipline.”

Dick shook his head, exasperation bleeding through the cracks in his composure.

“You want discipline? Try listening. Instead of coming down here and barking orders like you never left.”

Tim’s keyboard clattered, a nervous semaphore. Bruce stabbed a finger at the air.

“I’m Batman. I set the agenda.”

Dick spread his hands.

“And I’m not eight anymore. Neither is he. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending the old rules apply.”

The words hung, then plummeted into the floor. Damian finally spoke, voice as careful as a bomb tech’s hands.

“If the city needs Batman, it should get the best Batman. But if you want Robin, you should respect his judgement.”

His voice didn’t waver. Not once.

Bruce looked at him—really looked, for the first time since entering the cave. The effect was almost chemical: the lines around his eyes deepened, and a note of raw, unfiltered grief surfaced and vanished in a heartbeat. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Tim’s phone buzzed on the console, vibrating against the plastic. The sound was a mercy. Bruce turned away, back rigid.

“Discussion closed,” he said, dead. “New rotations start tonight. Dismissed.”

Dick waited a full thirty seconds before breaking the silence. He glanced at Damian, who wouldn’t meet his gaze, then at Tim, who gave a tight, sympathetic smile. Dick followed Bruce up the stairs, footfalls matching his to the step. Left alone in the cave, Damian relaxed his fists, but his fingers stayed white where they gripped the cape. He looked up at the monitors—at the endless lists and maps, the visual evidence of order imposed on chaos. He exhaled, slow and steady, and let the feeling fill his lungs: not defeat, not surrender, but something cold and necessary. Above, the manor creaked with old weight, and the echoes trailed off, leaving nothing but the sound of bats.

The roof on top of Wayne Manor was technically off-limits, but rules in this house were always more about negotiation than law. It was the place he came to think. Damian slipped through the attic hatch, scaled the rain gutter, and in twenty seconds was at his favourite perch: a stone gargoyle, smoothed by decades of weather, looking out over the eastern half of the estate. The city was a blue smudge on the horizon. Closer in, the grounds sloped down to the woods, and then to the low, winding fence that separated Wayne land from the rest of the world. He sat, knees pulled up to his chest, letting the cold bite through the mesh of the Robin suit. Up here, the wind flattened everything—the roar of the city, the secret pulse of alarms, the tension in his own muscles. The suit felt too big, suddenly. It bunched at his elbows and tugged at his collar, making his arms look like they belonged to someone older, or just someone else.

He took out the knife. It was a small thing, barely three inches folded, the edge so fine you could split a hair and not even notice. Dick had given it to him on his eighth birthday with the go for Robin, with a joke about “responsible tool ownership” and a lesson in oiling the hinge. He flicked it open and closed, open and closed, letting the repetition sync with the twitch in his jaw.

Below, the voices had started up again—Bruce and Dick, echoing through a half-dozen layers of brick and hardwood. The words were mostly lost to the wind, but the rhythm was unmistakable. Bruce’s, all heavy and slow, each syllable a final verdict. Dick’s, sharper, breaking and regrouping and never letting up. Damian traced the knife’s edge along the seam of his glove, not enough to cut, just enough to feel the reality of the blade. He looked down at the suit, then at his own hands—still shaking, but only a little. The cold, he told himself. Not fear. Not uncertainty.

He tried to picture the city through Bruce’s eyes. Gotham as a problem to be solved, a wound to be cauterised. Then he tried to see it the way Dick saw it: a puzzle, yes, but also a home, and maybe even a place that could forgive you if you gave it enough time.

He flipped the knife again. It glinted in the Bat-signal glow—wait, no, not yet. The sky was still blank.

His mouth moved before he realised he was speaking.

“Bruce expects obedience. Baba supports partnership.”

He said it again, softer, tasting the truth of it like iron.

The wind shifted, lifting the cape and snapping it against his side. He clicked the knife shut and stashed it in the belt, then stood, every muscle strung tight. He should go back inside. There would be a briefing, or a mission, or just another round of talking, but he’d be expected. He hesitated at the hatch, fingers on the metal, letting the city’s cold wash through him one last time. Then he looked up.

The Bat-signal was alive now—a blade of white through the low clouds, splitting the sky wide open.

He exhaled, slow. The next part had already begun.

The Batmobile took the bridge at eighty, tires spitting gravel and river mist in twin jets behind it. Inside, the world was all red-lit displays and compressed silence, the only sound the rumble of the engine and Bruce’s voice, slicing through the dark.

“Two blocks to target. Hostiles: minimum four. They’re masked, armed, and have hostages in the main hall. No visual on explosives, but presume.” He twisted the wheel, lane-splitting an ambulance and barely skirting a mailbox. “Robin—recon only. Do not engage unless I say.”

Dick rode shotgun, legs braced against the slant of the road. He wore the Nightwing suit—blue stripe, mask tight against his face, hair slicked down by the G-force—but his expression was pure Dick, wry and just a little reckless.

“Copy,” he said, then flicked a look back at Damian, who was wedged into the rear jumpseat, posture already vibrating with anticipation.

Damian’s eyes were fixed on the live-feed tablet in his lap, mouth a thin, determined line.

“I can handle more than recon.”

“Don’t freelance,” Bruce warned, voice dropping into the subsonic. “We do this by the numbers.”

The car skidded to a stop behind a cop barricade. The street was chaos—squad cars fanned out, red and blue slicing the rain, a cordon of uniforms pressed against the perimeter. The first responders had their hands full with civilian evac, but everyone’s eyes went straight to the Batmobile the second it arrived.

“Go,” Bruce said, and all three doors popped at once.

They moved as a unit, even when splitting directions. Dick and Bruce stuck to shadow, cutting up the alley; Damian took to the rooftops, grappling up with a speed that left his cape snapping like a gunshot. At the cornice, he dropped flat and surveyed the glass frontage of Gotham National Bank. Four hostiles, as predicted. All wore the same cheap skeleton mask, all holding semi-autos with a kind of jitter that said “amateur, but dangerous.” There was a fifth figure inside, moving in and out of view—bigger, slower, probably the ringleader. Hostages—seven? Eight?—zip-tied together in the centre of the marble lobby, a fat coil of C-4 tape looped around the columns behind them. Damian flicked on his comm.

“Visual acquired. Entry points: main door, side service, or through the ceiling vents.”

Dick’s voice came through, low and even.

“Wait for signal, Robin. I’ll take east. Batman goes north. You stay.”

“Copy,” Damian said, but his eyes were already tracking movement on the far side of the lobby.

One of the gunmen was breaking off, heading for a woman who’d tried to crawl free. Bruce’s voice was granite.

“Robin, hold position. I have the lead.”

For a second, Damian obeyed. Then the gunman levelled his weapon at the hostage’s head.

It wasn’t a decision. It was a reaction.

He dropped from the roof, silent and clean, using the awning to brake speed before rolling through the shattered side door. The gunman didn’t even see him coming—Damian swept the guy’s legs, caught the weapon, and jammed it into the man’s throat. The struggle was over in two seconds, but in that time the ringleader spotted him. The lobby exploded with noise. Alarms, shouts, the dull boom of gunfire.

“Robin!” Bruce’s shout on the comm hit harder than the bullet that whizzed past Damian’s ear. “I said stand down—”

Dick was in the east vestibule now, Nightwing sticks crackling with current. He used the chaos to vault over a teller counter and shield the hostages, sweeping two of them out of the line of fire.

“Code left, Robin!”

Damian spun, ducked a wild swing from left, and disarmed the second attacker with a classic wrist-lock he’d drilled a thousand times. He heard the shot before he saw it—the third gunman, aiming dead at Dick.

Time slowed, the way it always did when it really mattered.

Damian moved. The cape caught the round, or maybe it didn’t; he hit the gunman square in the ribs, then disarmed him with a twist and an elbow that crunched cartilage. The man went down, retching.

Bruce—no, Batman—was already inside, silent as a rumour. He took the last two hostiles without a sound, just a blur of movement and the dull, meaty thump of fist against flesh. Then it was over. The lobby filled with the sound of hostages crying, the click of police radios, and the slow, deliberate footsteps of Batman as he crossed to the centre of the room.

He didn’t say a word. He just grabbed Damian by the shoulder—hard, fingers digging in through the suit—and spun him around. Damian froze, then twisted under the grip.

“That was a direct violation of orders,” he hissed, voice so low only Damian and Dick could hear it.

But he couldn’t, not really. The blood was rushing in his ears. The old training took over; he brought his hand up, not to break free, but to draw the katana at his back—never for show, always sharp. The blade sang in the air. Batman’s eyes widened, just a fraction, but he didn’t let go.

Dick moved before either of them could blink. He wrapped his arms around Damian’s waist, pulling him back hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. The katana hovered inches from Bruce’s arm.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dick said, voice all velvet and warning. “Put it away, baby. That’s not who we are.”

Damian’s breath came out in shudders. He let the blade drop, tip to the marble. Dick kept one arm locked around his chest, the other gently prying the katana from his grip. He held the kid close, not caring about the show, not caring about the line of cops and paramedics watching through the bulletproof glass.

“You did good, okay? You did exactly what you should have.”

Bruce let go, but his hand hovered, knuckles white and trembling.

“He endangered the team.”

“He saved a life,” Dick said, no softness left in it. “You trained us to do that. Remember?”

Police flooded the lobby, guns lowered but eyes everywhere. The three of them stood in a triangle—Batman, Nightwing, Robin—breathing hard in the cold aftershock.

Damian was shaking now, all adrenaline gone sour in his veins.

“We’re leaving,” Dick said, not a question, not even a suggestion. “Now.”

He tucked the katana under his arm, then lifted Damian—ten years old, but light as a rumour—into his arms and walked him out. The cops parted, and nobody dared say a word. Behind them, Bruce stood very still, the world’s best detective lost in a problem he couldn’t punch his way through.

The Batmobile was still running, engine idling low. Dick settled Damian in the backseat, then climbed in beside him, door slammed shut against the world.

Neither of them spoke. They didn’t need to.

They hit the Cave still in gear—boots on, suits splattered with marble dust and the stink of cordite. The elevator doors hissed open and Bruce stalked to the terminal without waiting for the others, every line of his body drawn tight as piano wire. Dick came in behind him, arm still slung around Damian’s shoulders. He gave the kid a gentle squeeze before letting go, then peeled off his mask and set it on the charging dock. His hair was sweat-glued to his forehead, and the cut above his eyebrow from earlier was leaking again.

Bruce spun, cowl in hand. His eyes were wild and rimmed with red.

“You deliberately disobeyed a direct order,” he said, every word punched like a code into the silence.

Damian didn’t flinch. He stood at parade rest, chin up, but the tremor in his jaw betrayed him.

“You’re not listening,” Dick said. “He made the right call.”

Bruce ignored him, zeroing in on Damian.

“You endangered hostages. You compromised the entire operation. That isn’t heroism. That’s recklessness.”

“Don’t do this,” Dick warned. “Not when you’re still running hot.”

Bruce rounded on him, voice rising.

“I won’t have you undermine my authority—”

“Authority?” Dick cut in. “You want obedience? Get a robot.”

“I want discipline,” Bruce shot back, “and I want to know my team isn’t going to freelance when lives are at stake.”

Damian’s voice, when it came, was soft but even.

“I did what was necessary. I did what I was trained to do.”

For a second, Bruce just stared. Then his expression turned to stone.

“This isn’t a game, Damian. Out there, you do what Batman says. No exceptions. You want to play hero? Fine. But you do it on your own time.”

He said it with a finality that echoed off the ribbed ceiling. Damian took a long, careful breath. Then, with precise, almost ceremonial movements, he reached up and unclipped his mask, letting it fall to the floor. He undid the cape next, slipping it off his shoulders and folding it in half. He knelt—old League training, never fully unlearned—and set both pieces at Bruce’s feet. Then he stood, and with his right hand, tore the red R patch from his suit. He crossed the cave in three measured steps and placed the patch in Bruce’s open palm.

“I will not be Robin,” he said. “Not your Robin.”

Bruce’s face didn’t change, but something in his eyes died a little. He closed his hand around the patch, knuckles whitening. Dick stepped up, voice barely more than a whisper.

“You happy now?”

Bruce didn’t answer. Damian looked from one man to the other.

“I’m moving to Blüdhaven,” he said. “With Baba. I would have anyway, but after today—I can’t live here.” He shrugged, as if it was out of his hands. “Not when I don’t feel safe.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned on his heel and took the stairs at a run, steps echoing up through the Cave like a countdown.

For a long time, neither man moved. Finally, Dick spoke.

“You wanted him to be a soldier. He’s a kid. He is… was your son.”

Bruce’s jaw clenched, but the words wouldn’t come.

“He’s been through enough,” Dick said.

Bruce’s hands curled around the patch.

“He’s soft. He’s dangerous. He pulled his weapon on me, Dick!”

“He’s traumatised,” Dick snapped. “You touched him, even though you knew how much it scares him! Or you should have understood that, by now. He was hit. Punished. By Ra’s. By his mother. By every psycho in the league who’s tried to carve a piece out of him since he was two.” He stepped closer, eyes burning. “And you? You keep doing it, over and over. Demanding more. Pushing harder. Never once asking what it costs him.”

Bruce looked up.

“He was built for this.”

Dick threw his hands up.

“God, are you hearing yourself?! He was built to survive, nothing more, nothing less. He’s a child, you asshole! He deserves better than this house, or this job, or your goddamn expectations.” Dick’s voice was shaking now, and he made no effort to hide it. “He set boundaries. You trampled them. If you ever put your hands on him again—if you ever so much as raise your voice to my son—I swear to God, Bruce, I’ll burn this place to the ground before I let you near him. You scared him enough to pull a fucking weapon on you.”

The threat landed, heavy as a death sentence.

Dick turned and strode up the stairs after Damian, leaving Bruce alone in the cathedral of his own design, clutching a patch and wondering, for the first time in years, whether he’d just lost everything that ever mattered.

Dick checked Damian’s room first—lights off, bed made, the same tangle of trophies and books on the shelves, a stack of old sketches fanned out on the desk like they’d been left in a hurry. No kid. He checked the bathroom, the library, even the corner of the attic where Damian sometimes read when he wanted the insulation of old dust and quiet. He tried the roof, but the moonlit stone was empty except for the usual parade of bats. The air was raw, and the city noise rolled in with the cold, making everything feel a little farther away. When he finally doubled back to his own room, he half-expected the kid to have vanished for good - he wouldn’t blame him, even if he’d worry, but there was a small, huddled mound under the comforter—just a shock of black hair poking out at the end, and a faint, uneven hiccup of breath that told Dick everything he needed to know.

He closed the door with a deliberate click and walked to the edge of the bed, kneeling so he was level with the bundle of blankets.

“Hey,” he said, soft enough to be mistaken for a breeze. “It’s just me.”

The lump didn’t move, but the breathing sharpened.

“You want comfort or alone time? I’d rather not leave completely though… So I was going to make tea,” Dick said. “Or hot chocolate, if you want it. And if you’d rather be alone, I can just hang out on the floor, maybe read until you’re ready to talk. Or want comfort. We don’t have to talk at all.”

The blankets shifted, and then, without warning, Damian launched himself forward, burying his face in Dick’s shirt and locking his arms around Dick’s ribs with surprising force. Dick rocked back on his heels, holding the kid close, one hand cupping the back of his head, the other rubbing slow circles between his shoulder blades.

“It’s okay,” Dick murmured, letting the words run like warm water. “It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you. I’m here. Not going anywhere.”

For a long time, that was all there was: Damian, shaking and silent except for the wet breath hitching at the base of his throat, and Dick, holding him together like it was the easiest thing in the world. When the tears ran dry, Damian didn’t move. He just stayed there, pressed tight, fingers tangled in the hem of Dick’s shirt as if letting go might set the world spinning again.

After a while, Dick asked, “Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

Damian nodded into his chest, the motion more a flinch than a gesture. Dick helped him up onto the bed, then kicked off his own boots and slid in beside him, pulling the comforter over both of them. They lay like that for a while—side by side, with a foot of mattress between them, like they were both afraid to shift the balance.

“You’re allowed to be scared,” Dick said, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re allowed to want to run.”

Damian stared up at the ceiling, eyes dry now but rimmed with red.

“He’ll never understand, will he?” he said. “He’ll always want more.”

Dick traced a line on the blanket, slow.

“Maybe. But you don’t owe him anything. Not anymore. You communicated your boundaries. Set them. He ignored it.”

Silence. Then Damian rolled to face him, all sharp elbows and bunched fists.

“Can we leave tomorrow?” The words were so small Dick barely caught them. “I don’t care about the commute. I just want to go.”

Dick nodded, and for the first time in hours, felt something loosen behind his sternum.

“How about we stay in the Manor, but you don’t have to talk to him. Or be in a room with him. Especially alone. You can sleep here, if you’re too freaked out to sleep alone. But I’d rather have you close by, baby, because you pulling that katana? I know how scared you have to be to react like that. And school is nearly over.”

Damian exhaled, shaky. “And we leave when the holidays start?”

“We’ll make it work,” Dick said. “However you want. Just… Let’s stay, for now. Spend some last weeks with Alfred. And the second school is over, we move.”

They lay in the dark, the silence finally a comfort instead of a threat.

“You can sleep here as long as you want,” Dick said. “All night, every night, if that’s what you need.”

Damian snorted, the ghost of a laugh.

“You snore. When we move, I want my own room again.”

“Deal with it,” Dick said, grinning into the dark. “We can move to a different flat if you want to keep the gym. But here, in the Manor? I really don’t want you to wake up alone. And this way, when you wake up at night, I’m right here. You can see me, and you can wake me, no matter what. Because Dames, I know you’re afraid of it, but I am not leaving you. Ever.”

Damian sniffed, and curled closer.

“Okay, Baba. I love you.”

“Love you too, kiddo.”

He waited until Damian’s breathing slowed, until the kid was actually asleep, before closing his own eyes.

Dick thought about moving—about packing up, about driving north with the car full of their stuff, about starting over in a place that might actually let them be a family without all the ghosts and rules. He thought about the promise he’d made: to always show up, to never leave, to never make Damian feel like he was less than enough.

He planned to keep it. When he finally slept, it was with one arm draped across the kid’s back, and the certainty that, for tonight at least, nothing could break them.

If Damian woke up scared, Dick would be there. Every time.

Chapter Text

Damian slept curled in the crook of Dick’s arm, face pressed so close to Dick’s side that their breath fogged the same spot on the blanket. Even at rest, the kid was coiled tight, knees to chest, hands balled up under his chin, as if the whole night was just a pause between battles. When Dick woke, he didn’t move for a long time. He lay there, cataloguing the size of Damian’s body—small but solid, every limb heavier than it looked—and the way his own arm curled instinctively around the kid, palm open and steady against the flutter of his heart. The room was cold, but under the covers it was all heat: the sleep-warmth of bodies, the thrum of city pipes in the wall, the constant low roar of winter wind against old glass.

It was almost nice. Or would have been, if the house above hadn’t been filled with ghosts.

They got up together, Damian extricating himself with surgical care, stretching his toes against the floorboards before pulling on the sweatshirt he’d abandoned the night before. His hair stuck out in all directions. His eyes were still rimmed with the red of old tears, but his face was set, deliberate, like he’d spent the last hour armouring himself for another day. He didn’t speak until they were both in the hallway.

“Do you think he’ll be at breakfast?” Damian asked, voice as soft as the carpet underfoot.

Dick shrugged, but he already knew the answer.

“Probably. But we don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want.”

Damian made a face.

“If I don’t talk, he’ll make it about obedience. If I do, it’s a test.” He shrugged, as if the algebra of Bruce was one of those problems with no right answer, only less-wrong ones.

They took the stairs together, Damian a step ahead, Dick matching his pace without thinking. The kitchen was already alive: Alfred moving at the stove, the clatter of forks and plates, the gleam of silver laid out with the kind of precision you could measure in microns. Tim sat at the table, half-hidden behind a copy of the Gazette, eyes flicking up at their entrance before dropping back to the page.

“Good morning, Master Damian. Master Richard,” Alfred said, not missing a beat as he plated a pair of omelettes and slid them onto the table. “Juice today, or tea?”

“Tea, please,” Damian answered, voice clipped but careful.

Alfred nodded, then poured from a blue-and-white pot, the steam rising in twin curls. Dick watched the ritual, the way Alfred made breakfast feel like the only part of the day that still obeyed the old laws.

They’d barely started eating when Bruce entered. He wore the morning the way he wore the suit: like a shield. He was dressed down in black, hair still wet from a run, but he looked more alert than anyone had a right to at this hour. He stopped in the threshold, scanning the room—Dick, then Damian, then Tim, then the small details Alfred had left perfectly imperfect on the counter top. He took a seat at the far end of the table, folded his hands, and waited. There was something almost theatrical in the way he let the silence fill the space.

Dick set his fork down, wiped his mouth, and looked Bruce in the eye.

“Good morning, Bruce,” he said, letting every syllable slide over glass.

Bruce’s face didn’t shift.

“Morning,” he replied, voice a hair softer than expected.

Tim, still behind the paper, snorted just loud enough to be plausible as a cough. Damian ate in silence, gaze fixed on the grain of the table, hands trembling just a fraction with every movement of the fork. Alfred moved through the kitchen, topping up mugs, slicing a grapefruit into perfect quarters, doing all the small things that, in this house, counted as love.

Bruce cleared his throat.

“I reviewed the patrol logs. East End looks clear, but the Narrows are still hot. Tim, I’ll want your analysis on the traffic uptick. Damian, if you’re up for it, we can run drills in the cave after breakfast.”

Dick stiffened.

“He has school in an hour. He’s not skipping for drills.”

Bruce nodded, but there was a glint behind the eyes—like a calculation running in the background, always looking for the next opening.

“It can wait,” Bruce said. “After school, then.”

Damian didn’t answer. He just stabbed a piece of omelette and chewed, jaw set like he was eating gravel.

Steph burst into the room without knocking, hair wild, purple hoodie a flare against the greyness of the kitchen. She made a show of sniffing the air.

“Is this… actual food? Did someone bribe Alfred, or is this a hostage situation?”

“Breakfast,” Alfred said, deadpan. “Would you like some, Miss Stephanie?”

“Hell yes,” Steph replied, sliding into the chair beside Tim and kicking his shin under the table for good measure. She looked around, took in the temperature of the room in a single breath, and grinned at Dick. “So. Did anyone sleep? Or is this just a contest to see who can look the most like a raccoon?”

Tim grunted.

“I’m winning.”

Damian didn’t look up.

“You’re only ahead because you never shower.”

Tim snorted, but the edge was gone—he was playing along, buying Damian a buffer against the gravity of Bruce’s presence. Dick relaxed, just a fraction. He watched Steph load her plate, watched Tim flick orange juice at her when she wasn’t looking, watched Alfred refill the scones with a tray that, miraculously, appeared just as the basket ran low.

Bruce tried again, though.

“Damian. I’d like to talk to you. Alone, if possible.”

Dick put a hand on Damian’s shoulder, not hard but clear enough to make the point.

“If it’s important, you can say it here.”

Bruce glanced at Alfred, who was drying a mug with surgical precision. Then, quietly:

“I wanted to say I’m sorry. For yesterday. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

Damian didn’t speak, but the tremor in his jaw faded. He kept his eyes on the plate. 

Steph, never one for long silences, jumped in:

“Anyone see the forecast? I’m betting five bucks on more snow before lunch. Freeze is busy again.” She shot a look at Dick, as if to say: see, this is how you do it. “Also, patrol schedules are a nightmare. Can we get those sorted before someone falls off a roof?”

Bruce turned to her, as if grateful for the out.

“I’ll send you the updated routes. But you and Tim are paired tonight, so coordinate with him.”

Steph saluted with a scone, sending a cloud of crumbs onto Tim’s plate.

“Copy that, chief.”

Tim, voice lower:

“Don’t call him chief. He hates it.”

“Yeah,” Steph said, but she winked at Dick. “That’s the point.”

Alfred set a fresh mug in front of Bruce, hand lingering a moment longer than usual.

“Sir,” he said, “perhaps today is a good day for reflection. The city will wait. Family matters should come first.”

Bruce looked up at Alfred, then at the table, and for the first time since entering the room, he seemed smaller. Human, almost.

“Thank you, Alfred,” he said, and even though it was nearly inaudible, everyone heard it.

The kitchen settled into a kind of uneasy truce. The old rituals—coffee, newspaper, the slow orbit of plates and conversation—pulled everyone along, even if no one quite relaxed. Damian finished his food and set the fork down, hands folded neatly in his lap.

“May I be excused?” he asked, voice just above a whisper.

Dick nodded.

“I’ll walk you to the car.”

They left together, moving in sync, two shadows peeled from the same line. In the kitchen, Tim finally lowered his paper.

“You think they’ll be okay?” he asked, voice pitched only for Steph and Alfred.

Steph shrugged, mouth full of scone.

“They have to be. It’s Gotham.”

He sighed.

“Are we?”

At that, the blonde stopped chewing. Swallowed slowly. Sighed as well.

“I'm not sure, Timmy. You and Cass… I get why Jason left. Hell, I even understand why you two refused to be lead by Dick. But me? Why did you cut out me too?”

He blinked, and she didn't let him reply. Steph got up, and left for the Batcave. Alfred just smiled, sad and secret. Encouraging.

“In this house, sir, even the smallest cracks can be mended. With time. And a little patience.”

He cleared the table, the sound of cups and silverware the only proof the world still spun as it always had. Tim stared after him, and leaned back defeatedly.

Down the hall, Dick waited as Damian zipped his backpack, shoulders squared for a day that would be harder than any drill in the cave. He put a hand on Damian’s head, gentle, and said, “If you want, I’ll pick you up after school.”

Damian looked up, and for the first time all morning, he smiled—a real one, small and sharp, but real.

“I’d like that, Baba.”

They stepped out into the chill, the day not yet begun but already brighter than what they’d left behind.

The Batcave came alive before anyone reached the bottom step. Sirens in the old limestone started as a low howl, then arced up into a chorus that made the walls vibrate. At the main terminal, screens cycled from blue to red, security overlays stacking in real time. Alfred’s voice cut through the alarms:

“Master Bruce. Citywide emergency. You are needed downstairs immediately.”

Dick and Damian hit the elevator together. Tim was already on the platform, head down, shoes untied and hair still wet from his morning shower, but he moved like someone who’d been waiting for this call all his life. The rest of the household followed in short order—Steph, still chewing an apple she had grabbed as a snack, skipped the first four rungs of the ladder and landed in a practiced crouch. Bruce appeared last, his steps the only ones you could hear above the noise. He didn’t run, but the shape of his body said urgency in a language everyone understood.

At the foot of the stairs, Bruce’s voice was already Batman’s.

“Report.”

Alfred, unflappable even with a klaxon two feet from his ear, pressed a comm to his mouth.

“There’s been a breakout at Arkham. Multiple confirmed: Joker, Scarecrow, Dent, Zsasz, Harley—possibly others. GCPD requests immediate containment support. The city is escalating to Code Black.”

Bruce spun to the console, hands flying over the keys. The screens split into quadrants, each one a window into hell: burning squad cars, masked figures in clown white, riot gas clouding the alleys. In the top-right window, Joker grinned into a handheld camera and waved a canister labelled “Smile, Baby!”

“Of course he’s streaming it,” Tim muttered. “Why wouldn’t he.”

Bruce didn’t break stride.

“Tim, get every open comm channel on lock down. Steph, coordinate with GCPD’s digital forensics and get a trace on Joker’s uplink. I've called in Cassandra and Jason. Dick—”

Dick, who had been half a step behind Bruce, straightened to full height and crossed his arms.

“I’ll run my own team. We’ll take the Narrows and the Red Line tunnels.”

Bruce’s mouth snapped shut, then opened again—about to object, or maybe to bite through the objection.

“That’s not protocol,” he said, every word pressed flat as a pressed penny.

“It is now,” Dick replied. He didn’t raise his voice, but every syllable was pure steel. “We cover more ground this way. You know it, and I know it.”

He looked over at Damian, eyes barely flicking there. Bruce's jaw stiffened, and he nodded, slightly. Tim, stuck between them, edged closer to the console. He threw a quick glance towards his older brother, who ignored it. Didn't even send him his usual smiles. With a sigh, he still said is piece.

“He’s right, Batman. They’re moving in packs, not solos. If we split, we can head off the copycats.” 

Bruce glared at the screens, then at Dick, then at Tim. The old chain of command buckled, but didn’t quite break.

“Fine,” Bruce said. “But you run point on your own sector. No freelancing.”

Dick gave a lazy two-fingered salute, the kind that bordered on disrespect but stopped just short.

“Copy that, chief.”

Steph, already in the gear-up bay, giggled at the nickname, then called back, “I want west side! If there’s a fire, I want the hydrant teams.”

Tim grinned, despite everything.

“I’ll take the grid. Call me when you’re about to get blown up. Otherwise, B, send Cass my way when she shows up.”

Alfred, who had been quietly pinging the family network, looked up from his tablet.

“We’ve managed to reach Master Jason. He says he’ll cover the harbour. I’ve also contacted Miss Cassandra; she’s already en route from the south bridge, and will regroup with Master Timothy.”

Bruce nodded.

“Deploy them. Full masks, anti-gas, and patch them in to our comms.”

In the chaos, Damian edged closer to Dick, shoulder brushing against his arm. He watched the flow of orders and the flicker of screens, eyes darting to every point of weakness. He didn’t say a word, but the way he stood made his allegiance unmistakable. Bruce, catching this, turned.

“Damian, you’ll be with me.”

Dick opened his mouth to protest, but he didn't have to.

“No,” Damian said, before Dick could.

Just that—no, flat and unshakable.

Bruce’s jaw flexed, but he managed, “Then with Dick. No matter, suit up. We need you in the field.”

Damian didn’t move.

“I’m not Robin anymore,” he said, voice clear enough to cut glass. “Not for you. And since you remain as Batman, I will not go out in Robin gear.”

Steph looked over her shoulder, a glint of respect in her eyes. Tim closed his laptop with a snap, as if to underline the statement. He may not really get everything that happened, but even he saw that Bruce’s way of demanding a change — or to get everything back to before — wasn't getting them anywhere except further away from Dick and Damian. And Steph, probably. Dick put a hand on Damian’s shoulder—not as a shield, but as an anchor.

“He’s with me,” Dick said. “We’ll go as Nightwing and—” he hesitated, just long enough for the kid to fill in the blank.

“D,” Damian said, like it was already settled. “Call sign D. For now. I’ll think of something.”

Bruce’s eyes were unreadable behind the cowl, but everything about his body said no. He looked at Dick, then at Damian, then back. He wanted to argue, to order, but there was no angle left. The decision had already been made in the space between father and son.

“Fine,” Bruce said, voice reduced to gravel. “But you keep him safe, Dick. Or I’ll bury you both.”

Dick grinned, a feral flash.

“Noted.”

Alfred, never missing a cue, glided forward with the cowl and gloves.

“Might I suggest the armoured undershirt for Master Damian, and the reinforced utility belt?” His gaze flickered to Bruce, then back to Dick. “And perhaps a blue-on-black hoodie, if one is available.”

Dick laughed, tension draining out.

“He’s already got one. Borrowed it yesterday.”

Damian smirked, just barely, and took the cowl and gloves from Alfred.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll get ready.”

Steph and Tim were already at the weapons lockers, checking out nonlethal rounds and snare lines. Steph pulled a spare set of riot pads from the shelf and tossed them to Damian.

“You’ll need these. There’s a lot of shrapnel when Joker’s in play.”

Tim opened his mouth again, but she just walked off.

“Later, Tim. Not now.”

Damian caught them one-handed, not bothering to thank her, but Dick could see the set of his shoulders relax. Bruce, meanwhile, was already halfway up the Batmobile platform, voice crackling in every headset:

“Team assignments: Red Robin, you’re with me. Spoiler, you’re with Batgirl and Red Hood. Nightwing’s team gets the Narrows, but I want hourly check-ins. If you see a breakout, you isolate and contain. If not, you fallback and regroup. This isn’t about heroics. It’s about keeping the city alive until sunrise.”

Tim punched the comm.

“Understood. On your lead.”

Steph spun her three-piece bo staff, shrugged into her jacket, and grinned at the others, her jaw tense.

“Fine. Let’s go ruin a clown’s day.”

The room broke into its separate orbits, every member snapping into their place like a piece of old machinery finally allowed to run at full speed.

In the armoury, the routine was as old as the Cave: select, adjust, seal, test. But today, every click of a fastener or hiss of Velcro sounded different—louder, closer to the bone. Damian stood in front of the lockers, hands sunk deep in the pockets of his regular cargo pants, the usual Robin suit draped limp over the back of a bench. He stared at it for a long time, as if expecting it to animate and slither back onto his skin. It didn’t. Instead, Dick nudged the suit aside and handed Damian a folded bundle: armoured undershirt, black tactical cargos, and the softest blue hoodie this side of civilian life.

Damian unfolded the shirt, running a thumb over the mesh.

“You sure this is bulletproof?”

“Only to small arms,” Dick said, with a grin. “But it has extra ceramic plates for the chest and spine. You’ll be faster than anything they can throw at you.”

Damian shrugged off his old T-shirt and pulled on the new kit. The fabric was snug, but not restrictive. He rolled his shoulders, tested the range. Satisfied, he slipped the hoodie on, flexing the sleeves.

“It matches you,” he said, half-mocking, but with something like pride underneath. "I took it because it calmed me down, but... It also matches."

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Dick replied, kneeling to help lace the boots. “Try not to outgrow me.”

He cinched the boots tight, then grabbed the utility belt from the hook—Robin’s, but stripped of the logo, a single blue line painted across the buckle. He held it out.

“You’ll need this. Gas grenades, tranqs, smoke pellets. I added extra cuffs for this run.”

Damian took it, clipped it on, and nodded.

“Thanks. I’ll pay you back.”

Dick laughed.

“Just get us home in one piece. That’s payment enough.”

From across the armoury, Bruce watched. He stood beside his own locker, cowl already up, gloved hands folded in front of him. The new suit—grey and black with a flex-gorget and no bright yellow anywhere—made him look less like a man and more like a shadow that decided to walk. His jaw worked, but whatever he wanted to say stayed locked behind the mask. Tim sauntered over, suited up as Red Robin: matte black with red accents, a staff collapsed at his hip.

“Hey, B,” Tim said, pitching his voice casual. “You ready to ride together?”

Bruce didn’t look away from Damian, but answered, “I’ll follow your lead on comms. We keep contact at all times.”

“Copy,” Tim said, and clapped Bruce on the back, drawing a surprised grunt. Tim shot Dick a wink. “See you on the roof, D. Don’t let the blue get you shot.”

“I could outpace you on a bad day,” Damian said, but his lips twitched.

“Gear looks good on you, kid,” Steph said. “Don’t let the old man bust your chops.”

Damian bumped the offered fist, not smiling but not pulling away, either.

“I’ll stay out of your way. Try not to maim anyone.”

Steph grinned.

“No promises. But you get points for style.”

Cass entered without a word, already in her Orphan blacks. While she was supposed to close in outside, she had decided to stop by anyways. She checked her gloves, then glanced at Steph, who was halfway through strapping on her own purple-and-black Spoiler kit. Steph caught the look, flashed a small smile, and said, “We’re covering the docks, right?”

Cass nodded, and together they started double-checking the gear bags. In all the chaos, their silence was a kind of glue—Cass’s calm a counterweight to Steph’s nervous chatter.

Dick pulled the hood up on Damian’s new jacket. It fit perfectly, the blue line down the spine just bright enough to mark him as Nightwing’s.

“You look good,” Dick said. “Intimidating, even.”

“I’m not scared,” Damian replied, but Dick felt him shake, just once, in the time it took to adjust the drawstring.

“You don’t have to be,” Dick said. “Just stay close.”

They moved to the hangar, where the bikes and cars waited, polished and predatory. Damian ran a quick systems check on his comms.

“Audio check: one, two, three. Nightwing, you read?”

“Loud and clear,” Dick said, sliding on his own mask. “D, you’re primary on my channel. If you lose signal, fall back to the cave. No improvisation.”

Damian smirked.

“You do nothing but improvise.”

“Yeah, but I’m better at it,” Dick said.

Bruce stalked past them, cape flicking at their knees. He paused a moment, then turned to face Damian head-on. For a heartbeat, the old gravity returned—the expectation that a single look could flatten a room. But Damian didn’t wilt. Instead, he straightened and zipped the hoodie, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dick. Blue and black, side by side. Bruce’s mouth pressed thin.

“You’re making a statement.”

“Not everything is about you,” Damian replied.

Dick stifled a grin.

“Let’s get to work.”

The teams split—Batman and Red Robin to the Batmobile, Orphan and Spoiler on the Batcycle, Red Hood would join with his own ride. Nightwing and D took the custom bikes, lighter and faster than anything on the street.

In the moment before the teams deployed, Damian tugged the edge of his mask and looked up at Dick. His helmet was still in his lap, hands fidgetting.

“You trust me?” he asked, quiet.

“With my life,” Dick said, and meant it.

Damian nodded.

“Let’s go, then.” 

Damian gunned the engine, Dick revved his own bike and shot down the tunnel, Damian a streak of blue and black right at his side. They vanished up the access ramp, two shadows moving perfectly in step, ready to face whatever waited in the streets above. Back at the main console, Bruce stared at their retreating forms, the echo of their footsteps fading into the stone.

“They’ll be alright, sir,” Alfred said, voice a soft certainty.

Bruce didn’t answer. But when he turned to the city map on his dashboard, his hands didn’t shake at all. Above ground, Gotham burned. But in the Cave, the old war was paused, if only for the length of a single night.

As they pulled out, Dick glanced in the mirror. He saw Bruce watching them, not angry or even disappointed, but searching. Like he was trying to find a reflection that made sense.

In the Batmobile, top still open, the old mask watched them go, and understood, for the first time, that the old rules were over.

It was a new team. And it belonged to them.

Gotham had always known how to break itself, but tonight it did so with a kind of deranged exuberance. The East End was a war zone: glass on the sidewalks, every fire escape crowded with people clawing for the high ground, and a chemical haze that shimmered green and gold over the floodlights. From the top of the rail trestle, Nightwing and D watched the chaos unfold, helmets up and visors polarised against the streetlights.

Dick flicked two fingers—west alley, quick and low. Damian nodded, dropped to a crouch, and slid down the maintenance ladder like he was born for it. Dick followed, flipping over the edge and landing with barely a sound.

Below, a half dozen masked bodies prowled the block: Scarecrow’s typical recruits, faces stretched by cheap plastic and eyes wild behind the mesh. They worked in pairs, corralling the crowd toward the mouth of the alley, forcing them through a choke point layered with canisters. Each burst released a fresh geyser of orange gas, rolling in sheets over the curb.

“Crowd control first,” Dick whispered, comm open.

“Copy,” Damian said, already inching forward.

They moved as one—Dick scaling the fire escape, moving horizontal, Damian darting shadow to shadow at street level. The henchmen barely had time to register the strike: Dick dropped two with a cross-line swing of his escrima sticks, the impact thudding through armour and into bone. On the street, Damian shoulder-checked one in the knee, sent him sprawling, then rolled over his back and yanked a second down by the collar. Dick landed beside him, neutralising another with a choke wire.

“Count?”

“Two left,” Damian said, scanning the street.

Dick pointed: the last two had peeled off, racing for a side door.

“Flank.”

Damian sprinted, boot soles kicking up chemical dust. He slid under a half-lowered security gate, straight into the lead henchman’s legs. The man went down, and Damian took his weapon—a short baton—then planted a boot square in the man’s ribs. The other goon got a punch off, but Damian caught it, twisted, and countered with the baton. He worked the guy down with clean, precise movements—no wasted energy, every blow a lesson in anatomy. Dick arrived at the curb, took in the tableau, and nodded approval.

“Nice work.”

Damian wiped his mouth on his sleeve, eyes watering behind the mask.

“Not even winded,” he said, but he swayed just enough for Dick to catch the lie.

Dick tossed him a canister.

“Antidote. Spritz, don’t chug.”

Damian inhaled, shuddered, then steadied.

“Ready.”

They cleared the rest of the alley, then double-timed it to the next checkpoint. Dick paused at the wall, tapped a sequence on his comm.

“Nightwing to Bats. East End perimeter neutralised. Requesting crowd support at Ave D and Market.”

Bruce’s voice came back, all grit.

“Red Robin en route. Expect resistance. Joker’s in the old post office, but he’s moving.”

Dick clicked back.

“Understood. We’ll hold here.”

Damian tucked into the wall, fingers splayed.

“If Joker’s moving, it’s a decoy. He wants you to chase.”

Dick smiled.

“You think I’d fall for that?”

“Wouldn't be the first,” Damian said, deadpan.

They waited, breath fogging in the cold, as a squad car careened up the avenue. Cops in riot gear spilled out, eyes red and blinking against the gas, but still moving with intent. 

Dick flagged them down, weapons holstered, and gave a ten-second debrief.

“Scarecrow’s people are scattered, but he’s still active. Avoid side streets until we clear the chemical agents. The crowd should move north, toward the hospital.”

The lead cop, a woman with a cracked visor and three stripes on her arm, nodded.

"Got it. We’ll set a barricade at Avenue D. Thank you, Nightwing.”

“Good luck,” Dick said, and the woman barked at her people to move, no hesitation, just the muscle memory of Gotham’s finest at their best.

They fell back to the rooftops, moving along the ridge until they hit the warehouse cluster at the edge of the river. Damian popped the lock on the hatch and went in first, keeping low. Inside, it was chaos squared: pallets knocked over, the air thick with fear gas and the sharp bite of ammonia. Scarecrow’s signature. 

They worked the perimeter, silent. Damian took the lead, signalling with two fingers for every new corner, every shift in the soundscape. In the centre of the warehouse, a cluster of henchmen huddled around a portable sprayer, canisters lined up like a macabre punch bowl. Dick made a quick gesture—wait, then hit from above. Damian grinned, and in that second, Dick felt the old thrill of running rooftops, of being part of something that fit.

They waited for the right moment—three seconds, four, five—then Dick dropped, using the overhead pipes for leverage. He knocked out the sprayer with a baton toss, then dropped into the thick of the crowd, fists and sticks moving in blur. Damian joined in, working the fringes, disabling three in quick succession. When a fourth lunged, Damian countered, locked his wrist, and bent the man backward over a crate. The fight went hot for a minute, then sputtered out. Dick cuffed the last conscious goon and keyed the comm.

“Warehouse clear. Moving to next grid.”

Scarecrow’s voice, piped through the PA system, filled the warehouse with static.

“You never learn, do you, Nightwing? All that muscle, no mind. I thought you’d know better by now.”

Dick laughed.

“We adapt, Crane. That’s the difference between us.”

He scanned the rafters, eyes sharp.

“He’s not here. This is all a show.”

Damian picked through the crates, found a handheld sprayer, and popped it open.

“He’s using a new dispersal method. The gas is—” he sniffed, carefully—“weaker, but it sticks to the skin. It’ll keep the crowd scared for hours.”

Dick relayed the info up the chain.

“Red Robin, Scarecrow’s gas is surface-active. Advise GCPD to keep masks on even after the zone is cleared.”

Tim’s voice:

“Copy. We’ll update.”

Damian loaded the sample canister into a case.

“Should we track him?”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “But we keep it tight. You okay for another round?”

Damian rolled his eyes.

“Obviously.”

They traced the chemical residue to the old subway tunnels. Down there, every echo was a threat. Dick took the lead, Damian right at his hip. Halfway through the second tunnel, Scarecrow sprang the trap: a tripwire, a deluge of gas, a battery of masked thugs charging through the smoke. Dick and Damian went back to back, Damian’s baton flicking in tight arcs, Dick’s sticks sweeping wider. They barely spoke—every move anticipated, every counter answered in the split second before it mattered. At the height of the melee, Scarecrow himself appeared, perched on a subway car like a vulture. He aimed a gun, not at Dick, but at Damian—classic leverage. 

Dick yelled, “Down!” and Damian dropped, flat to the rails.

Scarecrow’s shot whined overhead, splattering gas across the wall, but Dick had already moved, swinging up to the car roof and catching Crane’s wrist before he could fire again. They tumbled together, Dick getting the worst of it—breathing mask ripped off, a shoulder slammed into the car frame, a boot to the kidney—but he muscled through, twisted Scarecrow’s arm up, and wrenched the weapon away.

“Nice trick,” Dick said, voice raw from breathing in the gas.

Scarecrow hissed, tried to knee him in the gut, but Dick countered, using the man’s own momentum to send him crashing to the floor.

Damian was there in an instant, cuffs ready. 7

“You do never learn, Crane,” he said, echoing Dick’s words.

Scarecrow snarled, but it was over. Dick collapsed to a knee, breathing hard. Damian helped him up, grip steady.

“You hurt?” Damian asked, searching his face.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Dick said, and clapped him on the back.

"Antidote?"

"I've had worse exposure, I'm fine for now."

Their comm crackled. Tim:

“Batmobile reports Joker on the run, eastbound toward the river. Cass and Jason need backup near the power plant—Two-Face has hostages.”

Dick looked at Damian.

“Your call. Help the others, or chase the Joker?”

Damian grinned, teeth flashing white.

“Both.”

They ran for the exit, laughter echoing off the walls. In the darkness, the blue and black of their suits cut through the haze like a promise. The city could burn itself down a hundred times, but together, they would always find the way back.

The warehouse wasn’t on any map, not anymore. It was a lattice of rust and broken glass, huddled at the edge of the river where the city liked to hide its worst memories. By the time Dick and Damian arrived, the air was already thick with Scarecrow’s new toxin, orange vapour backlit by swinging work lights, every shadow crawling and twitching with the suggestion of things that shouldn’t exist. Dick slipped his mask down tighter, thumbed the filter to maximum.

 “Stay on my six. If you get dizzy, call it out.”

Damian grunted, “Copy,” but his steps sounded lighter than usual.

They moved fast, dodging the exposed rebar, up and over a heap of splintered pallets. The place was a maze, every corridor lined with stacked crates and old shipping containers. Dick caught the movement first—two, maybe three shapes in gas masks, holding down a perimeter at the far end of the loading floor. He signalled a stop, then pointed.

“Go wide, take the catwalk. I’ll draw them down.”

Damian hesitated.

“You’re exposed on the floor.”

Dick winked.

“I’m not as easy to hit as I look.”

He burst out, drew the first volley of rubber slugs, then veered behind a concrete pillar. The goons followed, closing fast, and Dick used their momentum, sweeping the legs out from under one, dropping an elbow into the second’s solar plexus. The third hung back, more cautious. From above, Damian dropped in, using the catwalk railing as a pivot. He caught the cautious one from behind, driving him face-first into a support beam, then cuffed him with zip ties before he could even reach for a weapon.

“Nice,” Dick called up. “Textbook.”

Damian grinned—then the floor shuddered, and the world turned upside-down. A trapdoor opened beneath Dick, dumping him into the under-level, a tangle of metal and old conveyor belts. The fall knocked the wind out of him, but he landed mostly okay—right up until the next wave of toxin rolled in, twice as strong as the stuff in the tunnels. And he still hadn't antidoted against that dose.

The world went off-axis. The edges of everything pulsed and doubled, shadows trailing behind even the smallest movement. Dick blinked, tried to reset his vision, but the colours bled, neon blue and nuclear yellow. He staggered upright, only to see three Scarecrows, each holding a different kind of weapon: syringe, pistol, scythe. He aimed for the one in the centre, but when he lunged, the others closed in. Dick ducked a sweep of the scythe, countered with a baton strike, but the hallucinations made it impossible to keep them straight. The voice came from everywhere.

“Do you see them, Nightwing? Do you see what you’ve become?”

Dick ignored it, focused on the real threats, but the more he fought, the less sure he was of where he was, or even who he was fighting. The syringe jabbed at his arm—he caught it, twisted, but then a bullet ripped through the side of his suit. The pain was hot, bright, almost electrical. He stumbled, clutching his ribs, as blood soaked through the blue lines.

Up above, Damian watched through the catwalk’s grated floor. He saw Dick drop, saw the blood, and for a second, his hands went cold.

“Baba!” he whispered, comms still picking it up, voice cracking, losing his cool for a second. "Nightwing, status!", he called, louder.

Dick looked up, blinking.

“I’m—” He tried to say “fine,” but the word dissolved in his mouth.

A fresh wave of goons poured in from the loading dock, their eyes wild even through the gas masks. Damian did the maths: six, plus Crane, and Dick was hurt. No backup yet. He had seconds. He ducked back, yanked a handful of smoke pellets from his belt, and rolled them down the stairs. They popped in sequence, filling the lower level with dense, grey fog. The henchmen hesitated—just long enough for Damian to drop down, three-point landing, and scramble to Dick’s side.

Dick was kneeling, still fighting to stay upright.

“Little busy here, D,” he muttered.

Damian slid an antidote injector into Dick’s thigh, then fished out a bandage and pressed it to the bullet wound.

“Pressure. Hold this.”

Dick complied, wincing.

“You’re in charge.”

“Obviously,” Damian said, scanning the perimeter.

He spotted Scarecrow, moving in slow arcs around the fight, using the chaos to stay clear. The henchmen pressed in, more aggressive now, less careful about friendly fire. Damian counted again: six enemies, one of him, one Baba with limited function. He grinned, feral and mean.

D grabbed Dick’s escrima sticks, flicked the ends open, and charged. He was shorter, lighter, but every move was calibrated—never waste energy, never telegraph a hit. The first goon went down with a crack to the kneecap; the second tried to grapple, but Damian ducked, reversed, and slammed a stick into the man’s jaw. The third got a hand around his throat, but Damian headbutted him, then jabbed up under the ribs until the air left the man in a groan. 

“Three down,” Dick gasped, keeping count. 

At least his vision was clearing again, the toxins slowly getting less. Damian used the bodies as cover, weaving through them, pulling one in front as a shield as Scarecrow fired off a round of darts. The darts stuck in the goon’s back, and he dropped, twitching. The last two hesitated, maybe spooked by the speed, maybe by the way Damian never stopped moving. He taunted them, left an opening, and when the first rushed in, he feinted, tripped him, and smashed the man’s wrist with a stick. The second tried to run, but Damian caught him, slammed him against a crate, and cuffed him hard enough to bruise.

The room spun with gas and noise, but it was suddenly very, very quiet.

Scarecrow, realising the tide had turned, started to back up, but Damian tossed a pellet at his feet, sending Crane into a coughing fit. Damian closed the distance, caught Scarecrow by the arm, and used a wrist-lock to drive him to his knees. He lost his own gas mask in the process.

“Your games are boring,” Damian spat, voice low. “You only ever pick on people smaller than you.”

Crane tried to claw free, but Damian held him, even as the fear toxin pooled in his own lungs and started to work. For a second, everything looked wrong—colours sliding, shadows crawling up the walls, Dick lying dead and bloody on the floor. Damian blinked, hard, then slammed Crane’s head against the cement.

“No more nightmares,” he growled, and cuffed Crane with trembling hands.

He crawled over to Dick, who was still pressing the bandage to his side, breathing shallow.

“Hey,” Dick said, voice soft. “You good?”

Damian shook, but nodded.

“I’m fine. Just—” He looked away, then back. “You’re bleeding a lot.”

Dick smiled, even with the pain.

“You did great.”

Damian pressed harder on the wound, maybe a little rougher than necessary.

“I told you to stay down.”

Dick laughed, and the sound was almost normal.

“Didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not helpless,” Damian said, a waver in his voice.

“I know,” Dick said. He rested his hand on Damian’s, grounding both of them. “But you're still my kid. You saved my life, D.”

Damian flushed, looked down at their hands, then at the chaos he’d left in his wake—six men out cold, Scarecrow drooling on the cement, the whole place a monument to what he could do when he had to.

“I could have killed them,” he whispered, not sure if it was fear or pride.

“But you didn’t,” Dick said. “You had a choice. You made the right one.”

Damian exhaled, shaky.

“We should leave. Before the toxin comes back.”

Dick nodded, and together, they limped for the exit, the orange haze swirling around their legs. At the door, Damian glanced back. He saw, not hallucinations, but the real damage—the line of unconscious men, the battered bodies, the blood. For once, it didn’t scare him. Not exactly.

Outside, the wind cut through the haze, and the city sounded almost normal: sirens, car alarms, the distant rumble of trains. Damian steadied Dick with one arm, walking him toward the distant blue of a cop’s floodlight.

“Hang on,” Dick said, leaning on Damian. “We’re almost clear.”

Damian gritted his teeth.

“I’ll get us out.”

He would. Because tonight, for the first time, Damian wasn’t just surviving. He was saving someone else.

And it mattered more than anything in the world.

They didn’t make it two blocks before the world found them. The city’s edge was burning, all the old orange sodium lamps replaced by police strobes and the epileptic flicker of news drones. Damian half-dragged, half-carried Dick along the riverside walk, both of them leaving a thread of blood that glowed black in the streetlights. 

Dick was fading—he held the bandage tight, but every breath sawed through his ribs. Still, he tried to joke, tried to lighten the load.

“You’re stronger than you look,” he said, voice slurred. “Have you been working out?”

Damian huffed, steady but raw.

“If you make a joke, I’ll drop you. Right here.”

“Better men have tried,” Dick said, but then the next step sent a red wave across his vision and he nearly toppled.

At the water’s edge, a shadow dropped from the sky—Batman, flanked by Red Robin, both landing with the kind of precision that made even Damian’s spine straighten. Bruce’s voice was barely human.

“What happened?”

Damian shifted his body between Bruce and Dick, setting his stance.

“He’s shot. Scarecrow’s down. Six others. They’re in the warehouse.”

Tim stepped in, scanning Dick’s wound.

“Through-and-through?”

Damian nodded.

“No arterial. I packed it. He needs a hospital though, or at least a stitch kit.”

Bruce looked at Dick, then at Damian, then back.

“You did this alone?”

Damian bristled.

“I did my job. He was supposed to back me up, not get shot.”

Dick coughed, a little blood in it.

“Takes after you, old man.”

Tim popped the latch on his med kit.

“Let’s stabilise him here, then move.”

Damian took the kit, hands steady, and started working on Dick’s side. He didn’t look at Bruce, not once. Bruce hovered, unsure, as if waiting for a chance to fix things by just being there. Tim saw the tension and gave Bruce a look—wait, don’t. He knelt beside Damian and started prepping the suture.

“You want me to do it?”

Damian shook his head.

“He trusts me. I’ll do it.”

Tim nodded, and together they patched Dick up, field-style. Damian’s hands didn’t shake, even when Dick bit back a scream as the needle went through. When it was done, Dick slumped into the ground, drained. Damian pressed his hand over the bandage, not letting go.

Bruce finally stepped closer, voice lower.

“You did well, Damian. Both of you.”

Damian glared.

“Don’t say that like it fixes anything.”

“It doesn’t,” Bruce said. “But it’s the truth.”

Dick looked up, bleary but smiling.

“He was perfect, Bruce. I couldn’t have done it without him.”

Something flickered behind the cowl. Maybe pride. Maybe regret. Tim closed the kit, then looked at Damian.

“Want help getting him to the car?”

Damian hesitated, then nodded. Together, they levered Dick up and started walking. At the Batmobile, Bruce opened the back and set up the gurney. Damian didn’t let go of Dick’s hand, not even when Tim tried to take some of the weight. 

Bruce stood there, watching, uncertain. He reached out to help, but Damian flinched, shielded Dick with his body.

“Don’t,” Damian said, voice quiet but final. “You weren’t there. And I don't want you near him right now.”

Bruce froze, hand suspended in the cold air. For a second, the only sound was the click of police scanners and the distant hum of helicopters. Then Tim touched Bruce’s wrist, gently, and steered him aside.

“Let him have this,” Tim said, soft enough for only Bruce to hear. “They need each other.2

Bruce stepped back, watched as Tim and Damian got Dick into the Batmobile, settled him in, and closed the hatch. He saw the way Damian bent to check Dick’s pulse, the way Dick managed a smile just for him.

It was a new shape to the family, one Bruce hadn’t built or planned for. And it was right, even though he hated it. They drove back in silence, the city behind them slowly stitching itself together—flashing lights fading, emergency crews washing the last of the gas from the streets, reporters breathless with stories of heroism and horror.

At the Cave, Tim handled the medical kit while Damian hovered, arms folded but eyes never leaving Dick’s face. Bruce watched from the edge of the room, not ready to leave, not ready to speak. After a while, Dick woke. His voice was rough, but clear.

“You can go now, D. I’m not dying.”

Damian’s face twisted, caught between a laugh and a sob.

“You’re sure?”

“Promise,” Dick said. He reached for Damian’s hand, squeezed it. “Thank you.”

Damian held on, just a second longer, then let go. He didn’t look at Bruce when he left the room. Tim patched up Dick, then turned to Bruce.

“You want to talk to him?”

Bruce shook his head.

“Not now.”

Tim studied him.

“You know they’re good together. You don’t have to like it. Just… let it be.”

Bruce watched through the window as Damian sat outside the med bay, knees pulled to his chest, eyes red but dry.

“I do,” Bruce said. “I just… it’s not what I planned.”

Tim smiled, a little sad. Thinking of Stephanie, and how he missed the casual way Dick used to be around him.

“Nothing ever is.”

For a long time, the house was quiet. Then, slowly, life crept back in—the shuffle of Alfred’s slippers, the aroma of coffee and fresh bread, the sound of Steph and Cass arguing over who would get the first shower. In the med bay, Dick slept, breathing slow and even.

Outside, Damian stayed at the door, watching. Waiting. When Dick woke again, the first thing he saw was the kid, face pale, but smiling.

“Still here?” Dick asked.

“Always,” Damian said.

And for the first time, Bruce actually understood. He really did.

Family wasn’t about who was in charge. It was about who showed up, who stayed, who kept the promise to never leave you behind. Something he never really cared to make sure. Something he never thought was important.

He stepped away from the window, walked the halls, and let the silence hold him. Tomorrow, the city would burn again. There would be new fights, new wounds, new mistakes. But tonight, the world was whole.

For a while, that was enough. And he wasn't the only one watching.

The med bay in the Batcave was quiet, except for the gentle whine of the wound cauteriser and the distant hum of city power echoing through bedrock. Dick lay on the main gurney, chest bandaged and shirtless under a silver thermal blanket, a fine sheen of fever on his brow that even Alfred’s best meds couldn’t quite dry. He had been out for barely an hour before he started heating up. When they had to wake him, to take more medication. Damian sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed, knees up, hoodie strings hanging like limp antennae. He looked at nothing, but his body radiated a kind of kinetic anxiety—as if the second Dick fell asleep, he’d spring up and punch the nearest threat through the wall. Tim hovered in the doorway, arms folded, eyes flicking between the blinking wall monitor and the kid on the bed. He waited until Damian shot him a warning glance before stepping forward, careful to stop a good two meters shy of the bed’s edge.

“I, uh, wanted to see if you needed anything,” Tim said, like he was making an offering to a skittish cat. “Water, maybe. Or—” He noticed the untouched glass already on the tray and bit back the rest of the sentence. “Never mind.”

Dick cracked one eye, then the other. His face was gaunt, but the lines around his mouth creased into something like a smile.

“Hey, Tim. It’s okay. I’m not contagious.”

Tim smiled, weak.

“You don’t look great. But I guess that’s the brand.”

Damian didn’t laugh, but the right corner of his mouth jerked up before settling flat again. He eyed Tim, then peeled his legs off the gurney, feet light on the rubberised floor.

“You want to talk?” Dick asked. “Or just keep doing the awkward dance?”

Tim glanced at Damian, who stared right back—his gaze bright, unblinking, and sharp as a needle. Tim cleared his throat and looked back to Dick.

“If you’re up for it. Alone.”

Damian’s head whipped around, suspicion instantly dialled to max. Dick ruffled the kid’s hair, gently, like stroking the edge of a blade.

“It’s okay, baby” he said, soft enough that Tim could pretend not to hear. “We’ll just be here, two feet away, just talking, nothing else. Promise.”

The kid's jaw worked, but then he stood, leaned over, and—without warning—wrapped Dick in a quick, fierce hug. It lasted just long enough to count, then he let go and padded to the door.

Before he left, he turned to Tim, measured him up, then said, “If you make him sad, I’ll know.”

The threat wasn’t empty. Tim blinked, then nodded, solemn.

“Understood.”

The kid vanished into the corridor, footsteps silent. For a moment, neither brother spoke. The Batcave’s ambient noise was all that filled the gap.

Tim started, “I know it’s late, and probably pointless, but I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Dick raised an eyebrow, sceptical.

“For what, specifically?”

Tim shuffled closer, but stopped a meter short, hands tucked into the sleeves of his shirt.

“For how I left. For how I just… dropped out. For the way I let you handle all of this, all of him, and the city, and Bruce‘s absence, and everything, while I went and did the ‘find myself while looking for a ghost’ thing.”

Dick exhaled, a wheeze that could have been a laugh or just a leak in his lungs.

“You make it sound like you went to Europe and started a band.”

Tim smiled, genuinely this time, and for the first time in ages he looked like the old Tim—the one who rigged Dick’s motorcycle to play disco when it hit 40mph, the one who never missed a code red, the one who called even when he had nothing to say.

“It wasn’t like that,” Tim said. “At first, I wanted to help. And it seemed the main thing, to find Bruce. I thought—I really thought—I was doing the right thing, for all of us. But once I was gone, I couldn’t… I couldn’t come back. Not after everything. I couldn’t be Robin again. I couldn’t be your Robin, especially.” Dick didn’t reply, and Tim felt his own words echo in the cave, bouncing around until they found a crack to wedge into. “I thought,” Tim continued, “that you’d be better at it. That you wouldn’t even notice, with Damian around, with Steph, with the whole situation. But it wasn’t fair. I left you with all of it. I’m sorry for that.”

Dick looked at the ceiling, eyes glazed with pain but clear.

“I did notice,” he said. “It wasn’t easier. It was worse. But I also get it. You went to find Bruce. You found him, in the end.”

Tim nodded.

“Yeah.”

Dick let the silence hang, then said, “I would’ve done the same thing. For Bruce. Or for you.”

“I know,” Tim said, voice small. “You always did. That’s the difference. The point. You were always the one to be there, for everyone. And when you needed us the most, we just... Left.” The conversation was slow, thick with a kind of weary gentleness. Tim watched Dick, watched the way his breathing hitched every third beat, the way his right hand kept twitching toward the bandage like he was checking the pulse of his own pain. “You changed,” Tim said, sudden.

Dick smiled, but didn’t argue.

“I had to.”

“No, I mean,” Tim said, “you always mother-henned us, but with Damian it’s… I don’t know. You’re his dad.”

Tim frowned at that, as if the word left a weird taste in his mouth. Dick shrugged, careful not to pull the stitches.

“He needed someone. I stepped up. I’d do it again.”

Tim looked away, then back.

“Is it weird? Being a parent?”

Dick considered.

“Weirder than being Robin, weirder than leading a squad of suicidal orphans, weirder than fighting a guy in a green question-mark suit. Weird enough that I would have stuck with But it’s good. It feels like something worth staying alive for.”

Tim nodded, silent. 

A moment later, Dick added, “You never reached out. You or Cass.”

Tim’s cheeks coloured, but he didn’t look away.

“She was busy with the Titans. I was… I didn’t know what to say, after all that. After you took over the cowl, after you brought Damian back. It felt like we weren’t needed.”

Dick’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s not how it works, Tim. You know that.”

“I do now,” Tim said. “I really do. But back then, it was easier to disappear. Cass and I talked about it, sometimes. We thought you’d be okay. Steph was still here, and Alfred, and—”

Dick’s expression softened.

“Yeah. Steph’s the reason I didn’t burn out. She kept me from losing it, more times than you know.”

Tim smiled, a little.

“She’s something else.”

“She’s family,” Dick said, like it was the whole answer.

Tim nodded.

“So is Damian. We were, maybe. But currently, we're not. Not really. I see that now.”

They let it rest, neither of them quite ready to patch the gap, but at least neither picking at the scab. The only sound was the slow, constant beep from the med bay monitors.

“I missed you,” Tim said, finally. “Not just the mission, not just the city. You.”

Dick reached out, one-handed, and Tim took it. The handshake was more an awkward mash of hands than anything, but it lasted. It was real.

“I missed you too, Timmy,” Dick said. “But you don’t get to just walk away again. Not unless you want me to hunt you down.”

Tim tried to laugh, but it broke off into a cough.

“Yeah, okay. Deal.”

They released hands, and for a long minute just stood there, breathing the same air, letting the old injuries air out in the filtered cave light. Dick’s voice, hoarse but warm:

“Can you go find Dames? He gets anxious when I’m not in his line of sight.”

Tim almost made a joke, but the request was too honest.

“Yeah. I’ll bring him back.”

Dick nodded, and let his eyes drift closed.

“Thanks, Tim.”

Tim watched him for a beat, then turned to the hall. He found Damian exactly where he’d expected—sitting on the lowest rung of the training mezzanine, staring down at the gym floor below, feet swinging half a meter above the mats. The kid clocked Tim before he reached the stairs, but didn’t move.

“Hey,” Tim said, sitting one step up and leaving a respectful three-step gap between them. “He’s okay. Just tired.”

Damian didn’t answer, but his feet stopped moving.

Tim waited, then said, “You’re really good at this. The saving people thing. And the, uh, looking out for Dick thing.”

Damian flicked a glance at him, razor-sharp.

“That’s not a compliment.”

Tim smiled, small.

“Wasn’t supposed to be.”

They sat in silence for a while.

Tim let it stretch, then said, “You want to go back down?”

Damian stared at the gym wall, then shrugged.

“He needs rest.”

“He needs you, too,” Tim said, standing.

Damian didn’t respond, but after a minute, he got up and followed. Together, they descended the steps, shadows twin and long in the cave’s blue-white light. They walked the last twenty meters in parallel, neither one looking directly at the other, but somehow synced in the rhythm of their footsteps. At the med bay, Tim paused. Damian entered first, slipped onto the bed, and curled up beside Dick’s hip, careful not to jostle the stitches. Dick, not quite awake, not quite asleep, reached out and rested a hand on the kid’s head. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know he was there.

Tim watched them for a while, then quietly left, the echo of old family rituals trailing behind him like the scent of ozone after a storm. He had work to do—repairs to make, schedules to rewrite, maybe even a call or two to people he hadn’t spoken to in years. But for now, it was enough to know that he hadn’t lost everything. Not yet. He wondered what Steph would say when she saw the three of them together. He hoped, for once, that she’d just let it go. Even if he knew neither he nor Cass deserved easy forgiveness.

In the Cave, the heartbeat of the house was strong and steady, and the family that lived in it was doing the best they could. For now, that was all any of them could ask. But above, in the cold glow of the morning, someone else was watching. Waiting for the right time to step in, to say the thing no one else dared to say. And when she did, it would crack the whole world open again.

But that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, the family was together. And that had to be enough.

They were just never good at holding it together, any of them. The quiet of the med bay lasted just long enough for Dick to think he might actually fall asleep. He didn’t. He caught the sharp note of perfume and the hard clatter of boots a full three seconds before Steph burst in, trailed by Cass, who moved like she’d been reluctantly towed by the gravity of the scene. Tim was still standing on the consoles, arms folded, one sneaker braced against the baseboard as if anchoring himself for impact. Steph swept the room in a glance, then locked on Dick.

“I brought reinforcements,” she announced, as if this were a party and not a war council for the chronically wounded.

She dropped her duffel by the nearest bench and planted herself at the foot of the gurney, arms crossed, blue-lavender hoodie hood up and tight around her jaw. Cass drifted to the back, hands in pockets, and studied the monitors. She said nothing, just watched Dick with a forensic sadness. Tim tried for a joke.

“Careful, the patient is barely stable.”

Steph ignored him. She flicked a thumb at Cass.

“I ran into her in the hall. Figured if we’re all going to have feelings, we should do it at once. Cut down on recovery time.”

Damian, who had gone silent since returning to Dick’s side, perched on the gurney like a gargoyle. He glared at Steph with open challenge, but she just grinned at him.

“Relax, tiny. I’m not here to hurt him. You should know I never am ”

“I’m not worried about you,” Damian replied. “But I will break Tim’s arm if he tries something.”

Tim rolled his eyes.

“Solid threat, but I’m on a two-arm maximum for violence this week.”

Cass smiled, just barely, and took a seat on a low stool near the IV cart. Steph shifted her gaze to Dick.

“You awake enough for another conversation, or do we need to dose you up first?”

Dick gave her a tired salute.

“If I pass out, it’s not from boredom. Let's get this over with, I'm tired of the awkwardness.”

She nodded, satisfied, and turned to Tim.

“So. You wanted to talk. You got your time. But you know what? I have some things to say, too.” Tim started to protest, but Steph steamrolled him. “Because even before you became my legal guardian, Dick, you were the one always there for me. For all of us, really. I know you hate hearing it, but it’s true.” Dick winced, then nodded. Steph’s eyes flickered. “When Bruce got declared dead, guess who became responsible for all the ‘minor’ kids? That’s right. Not the courts, not Alfred. It was you.” She pointed at Dick, then at the others. “And if you think that didn’t cover you, think again. Cass was eighteen, but I was seventeen, and you, Tim, were—what—sixteen? Guess what else? None of us were ready. Least of all Dick.”

Tim blinked.

“Wait. You were my—?”

“Legal guardian,” Steph said, triumphant. “Even if it was just on paper. Gotham likes paperwork. They need it for taxes, lawsuits, and funeral arrangements.” Dick snorted, then regretted it. The wound sent a hot spike up his side. He gasped, but Steph reached over and steadied his shoulder, careful not to touch skin. “Don’t play tough. Not today.”

Tim absorbed this, then frowned.

“Why’d you even take that on? We were a disaster. Hell, I bailed. So did Cass, most of the time.”

Steph’s expression sharpened.

“Because Dick always does. That’s the point.” She jabbed a finger at Tim, then at Cass, then at herself. “You left him holding the bag. You left him to clean up the city, to raise Damian, to keep the Manor from falling apart. And then you, what, acted surprised when he needed help. I was the one who stayed, and I am pissed I was the only one.”

Cass finally spoke, voice quiet but certain.

“I was with the Titans. I had to learn to fit into the new team. New… family.”

“Sure,” Steph said, scoffing. “But you could have replied when Dick texted you that Damian woke up. Or when I tried to get you on the phone for my birthday. Or when Tim vanished for years and nobody even checked to see if I was alive.” Her voice, normally pure sarcasm, cracked like a cheap cup. “You didn’t even try.”

Cass flinched, then nodded, slow.

“You’re right.”

Steph turned on Tim.

“And you—Tim, you were my best friend. You just stopped talking. Not even a meme. You used to send me memes when you were hiding in Malaysia, for Christ’s sake.”

Tim looked away.

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”

Steph’s eyes went hard.

“Well, you’re right. I don’t, not anymore. Not unless you’re going to actually say something that isn’t a self-pitying apology.”

Cass, in a small voice:

“I’m sorry.”

Steph shrugged, as if that were both expected and unsatisfying.

“Thanks. But it’s too late for sorry. I’m not interested in being the backup plan for the family that couldn’t decide if it even wanted me.” She raised her finger to Dick before he could even take a breath. "Not. You. You were the main support, a fantastic brother, a fabulous guardian and I never doubted you wanting me. So shush."

Dick closed his mouth again, swallowing audibly. The silence was total. Even the IV monitor beeped more quietly, as if afraid to draw attention. 

Damian, who had been watching with the intensity of a trapped ferret, finally said, “It doesn’t matter, anyway. They always leave.”

Dick moved his hand, slow, and placed it on the kid’s knee.

“Not always,” he said. “People can change. Or at least, they can try. And I'm sure this is them trying.”

Steph laughed, sharp.

“See? That’s why he’s the parent. He’ll always believe it can get better. That we can get better, but not in our abilities, but our happiness. Even when it won’t. Puts him miles above Bruce, too, who always read us the riot act when he was unhappy with us. Dick...” Steph took a shaky sigh. "Dick was the first person to ever actually ask me if I liked being in school. If I had friends, if I was happy. He's the one who asked me what I want." 

Cass stood, walked over to the gurney, and knelt until she was eye-level with Steph.

“I messed up,” she said. “But I want to try again.”

Steph’s mouth worked, but no words came. She just shook her head.

“You always want another shot. It’s like a loop. I get it, I really do. But I don’t trust either of you to have my back, not unconditionally. Not anymore. Because no matter what we promised, you still... left me.”

Cass looked gutted.

“Is there… anything we can do?”

Steph shrugged, pulling herself together.

“Maybe. But not today.” She turned to Dick. “You need rest. You need someone to watch your six while you’re down. I’ll bring Damian to bed. Then I’ll keep an eye on the comms.”

Dick squeezed her hand, grateful. His eyes were suspiciously shiny.

“Thanks, Steph.”

She squeezed back, then turned to Damian.

“Come on, kid. Let’s do a lap of the house before bed. Burn off the adrenaline.”

Damian nodded, silent, and slipped off the gurney.

He paused at the doorway, turned back to Dick, and said, “You’ll be okay?”

Dick smiled.

“I always am. No need to worry, baby.”

“Liar,” Damian replied, but there was no heat in it.

He didn't even protest at the nickname, at it being heard by everyone around. They left together, steps perfectly in sync, and the room felt two sizes bigger for their absence.

Cass stood, watching the doorway, then whispered, “Stephanie, please—” and hurried after her, leaving just the brothers in the med bay.

Tim sat on the edge of the next bed, rubbing his hands together.

“So,” he said. “Did I just lose my big brother, too?”

Dick took a long time to answer.

“No,” he said. “But you’re not getting off easy, either. You want me in your life, you put in the work. Same for Cass. Same for all of us. I’m not just going to swallow everything and pretend it didn’t happen. I did that for too long, and I have another responsibility now.”

Tim nodded, hollow.

“I can do that. I want to.”

Dick reached over, placed his hand on Tim’s.

“You’re still my brother. I’ll show up for you, every time. But I’m done being the guy who just absorbs every hit and never says it hurts. I can’t do that, not if I want to teach Dames how to… survive. How to not let people walk all over him.”

Tim didn’t smile, but his shoulders relaxed.

“He’s lucky. Having you.”

Dick looked at the ceiling, then at the dim gleam of cave lights reflecting off the steel.

“We’re all lucky. Even if we’re terrible at showing it. I certainly am lucky he set my priorities straight, and that he accepts me unapologetically.”

They sat together, in silence, until the monitor clicked to the top of the hour. Tim rose to go. He paused at the door, then looked back.

“Rest up, okay? I’ll see you in the morning. But for the record... We all accepted you for who you are. I think we just never... Appreciated it until we came back and realised it was gone. Different.”

Dick nodded, closed his eyes, and let the silence settle. For once, it felt earned. Down the hall, Steph and Damian’s voices echoed, trading sarcasm and barbed encouragement. Cass trailed after, not trying to force her way in, just following, hopeful.

In the dark, Dick thought about all the things he could never say. All the times he’d wanted to break, but didn’t. All the moments he’d survived by the skin of his teeth, for no reason except that the world expected it of him. He thought about the future—about the mess ahead, the fights and betrayals, the promises he’d have to keep even when they hurt. He thought about Damian, about Steph, about every lost kid who’d ever found themselves at the edge of his shadow. 

He thought, for the first time, that maybe it was okay to let some things go. Outside, the city pulsed and howled, but down here, in the battered quiet, the family—such as it was—held its shape. Not perfect, not even close, but enough to carry them into the next day. 

He slept, finally, and dreamed of nothing at all. Which was the best dream of all.

Chapter Text

The Batcave’s medical bay was colder than the rest of the cavern, the kind of chill that felt calculated. Dick perched on the edge of a steel cot, one hand resting over the fresh bandage on his ribs, the other running slow, absent circles across the thin hospital blanket. He was tired—more than tired, really, but the word for what came after exhaustion had escaped him somewhere back on the docks, maybe when the bullet punched through his side or maybe when the adrenaline evaporated and left just gravity and ache.

Damian sat beside him, close enough that their knees touched when either one shifted. The kid had a butterfly closure over one eyebrow, knuckles scabbed and raw. He wore the same hoodie from last night, sleeves chewed at the cuffs, dried blood visible along the hem. He radiated kinetic energy, but all of it was focused inward, like he might collapse if someone let him exhale. His gaze never left the floor, except in quick, sidelong checks to make sure Dick was still in the room.

Bruce hovered at the entry, cowl off but cape still slung like a shroud, posture less “commander” and more “statue left out in the rain.” His left hand was bandaged at the knuckles, purple-black blood pooling under the tape; the other hand cradled a cracked comms earpiece, thumb worrying the casing as if he might fix it with enough friction.

No one spoke for a long stretch. The only sound was the distant echo of a diagnostic running somewhere in the server core, the subtle whirr of the recirculator fans. Every once in a while, a water droplet hit the cave floor three rooms away, perfectly spaced. Dick broke the silence by shifting his weight, suppressing a wince and giving Damian’s shoulder a nudge.

“You okay?” he asked, tone soft but clear.

Damian nodded, then tensed as if the motion was too much. He opened his mouth, shut it, tried again.

“I’m sorry I broke the protocol,” he said, voice so small it got lost in the hum of the medical fridge.

Dick blinked.

“You saved lives. That’s the only protocol that matters.”

Bruce moved a step closer, not enough to close the gap, but enough that Damian stiffened further.

“You nearly got killed,” Bruce said, and this time it wasn’t an accusation, just a low thrum of worry under the gravel.

Damian’s jaw worked. He looked up at Bruce, met his gaze for half a second, then looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, but it wasn’t about the protocol anymore. “I know you wanted me to be Robin. I know I’m supposed to… I know you’re disappointed. You both are.”

Dick bristled, was about to say something, but Bruce beat him to it.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Bruce said, voice measured, as if he’d practised the words during the walk down from the manor. “You did what you were trained to do.” He hesitated, the way someone hesitates at the edge of a high dive. “You were right to save the hostage back then. You did the right thing protecting Dick.”

Damian frowned, processing.

“But I—”

His voice wobbled, just for a second, the mask slipping. Bruce let the silence stretch, then crossed the room in three strides. He stopped a foot away, but didn’t reach out.

“You’re not obligated to be anything you don’t want to be,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I was… wrong. To try to force you back into the suit. I thought it would help you heal. I didn’t realize it might hurt you instead.”

Dick felt the tension in Damian’s shoulders ease, just a little. He reached across and squeezed the kid’s hand.

“I want you to know you can be whatever you want, Dames,” he said. “No pressure. No expectations. Even if you want to quit the superhero gig entirely and become a vet or a coder, I’ll support it. I’ll be there.”

Damian laughed, or at least made a noise that passed for one.

“A vet?” He smirked. “I’d have to take care of animals.”

Dick grinned.

“You like animals more than people.”

“I do, but I don’t want to be a vet,” Damian said, but the smile lingered.

Bruce pulled a chair from the wall, spun it, and sat. His movements were careful, like he was afraid of spooking them both.

“I made mistakes,” he said, and the words were heavier for how rarely he said them. “I underestimated you, Damian. I tried to turn you into a copy of myself, and that was wrong. I didn’t see the person under the mask. I’m… sorry.”

Damian stared at him, eyes huge.

“You’re… actually apologising to me?”

“I am,” Bruce said. He didn’t look away. “And to you, Dick.”

He nodded at Dick, whose throat had gone dry.

“Uh, accepted,” Dick said, and then, quieter, “Thanks.”

A silence settled, but it wasn’t brittle this time. It had give. Dick fidgeted, then changed the subject before anyone could get weepy.

“So. We still haven’t decided if we’re keeping the old place, or finding a new one. I vote for something with better insulation. You know, lower risk of blanket piles.”

Damian perked up.

“Can we get one with a third bedroom?” He glanced at Bruce, then looked quickly at Dick. “I want a training room, still. For sparring.”

Dick’s eyebrows shot up.

“You want more training?”

Damian shrugged, but there was pride there.

“Not for fighting. For… keeping sharp. For you and me.” He paused, then, almost shy: “And if Steph wants to join sometimes. Or Tim, or Cass. I just don’t want to be Robin anymore. I still…”

Bruce leaned forward.

“I’ll pay for it,” he said. “Whatever you want. As a gesture.”

He didn’t say ‘of support’ or ‘of goodwill’ or ‘of love,’ but it was in the air. Dick rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue.

“All right. I’m going to let you handle the realtor, Damian. You’ll scare them into a good deal.”

Damian cracked a genuine smile, then, and for a second he looked younger, looked his actual age. He sobered quickly.

“Is it okay if I ask Steph if she wants to move in? Or maybe just… move to Blüdhaven?”

Dick opened his mouth to say something teasing, but Bruce cut in, gentler than expected: “She’s family. Ask her.”

Right on cue, the blonde barrelled into the medical bay with a box of donuts and a can of Monster, hair wild, face flushed with exertion.

“Did someone say my name? Am I being summoned?” She took in the tableau, then grinned. “Oh my god, it’s an intervention. Are we finally getting rid of the Robin branding, or just having a feelings party?”

Damian huffed.

“Neither. We’re deciding on the apartment.”

Steph plopped herself down on the foot of the cot, nudging Dick’s legs aside.

“Three bedrooms, huh? What, you want to get rid of me that bad?”

Damian flushed, but met her gaze.

“I was hoping you’d move in. Then we can make it four. Or at least, be around more.”

Steph’s voice went soft, just for a beat.

“That’s… really sweet, D. But I think I need my own place. For, you know, reasons.” She eyed Bruce, then Dick. “But I’m like, two blocks away from anywhere you idiots end up. So you’re not escaping me.”

Dick grinned.

“It’s a promise.”

She turned to Damian.

“Also, you can totally crash on my couch whenever you want. Even if it’s just because Dick’s snoring keeps you up.”

Dick bristled.

“I do not snore.”

Damian and Steph exchanged a look, then said in perfect unison: “You do.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, everyone in the room laughed—quiet, ragged, but real. Even Bruce. When the laughter subsided, Bruce stood.

“I’ll go start the paperwork,” he said, awkward but determined. “Let me know what you decide.”

Dick nodded, then watched Bruce retreat up the stairs, cape trailing behind. Steph stretched, then poked Dick in the ribs—carefully, just above the bandage.

“So, what’s next for you, big guy?”

Dick shrugged.

“I’m thinking we take it easy for a week. Get the new place set up. Maybe see if we can get a pizza without someone trying to gas the delivery guy. School’s basically over, so it’s time.”

Damian leaned into Dick, head tipped against his shoulder.

“I’m tired,” he said, almost plaintive.

Dick ruffled his hair.

“Me too.”

Steph looked at them, then smiled.

“You know, you guys aren’t half bad. For a pair of stubborn idiots.”

She stood, grabbed a donut, and waved it like a baton.

“Call me when you’re moved in. I’ll bring a housewarming cactus.”

She vanished up the ramp, leaving Dick and Damian alone in the humming dark.

After a few minutes, Bruce’s voice came over the intercom, flat but not unfriendly.

“Dick, can you meet me in the main console room before you leave?”

Dick stood, groaning theatrically.

“Duty calls. You okay if I leave you here for a bit, D?”

Damian nodded, already half-asleep.

“I’ll wait. Don’t be long.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dick said, and headed off, heart lighter than it had been in months.

The main console of the Batcave was still running at full tilt, banks of monitors throwing a cool blue over the granite and steel. Dick found Bruce exactly where he’d expected: hunched over the centre keyboard, but not typing, not really doing anything except watching the city cam feeds on slow cycle. He looked smaller from behind, civilian, every line of the body reading as “just a man” instead of a symbol. Dick slid onto the edge of the operations table, wincing as the stitches in his side reminded him he was not, in fact, invincible. He waited a few beats, let the silence settle. Bruce was the first to break it.

“You’re sure he’s all right?”

“He’s fine,” Dick said, voice gentle. “Alfred’s got an eye on him. He’s probably already halfway through the medical log, planning to lecture me about my own aftercare.”

Bruce nodded. He took off the cowl, set it down with a care that bordered on reverence. Without it, he looked almost unrecognisable—older, tired, with the kind of eyes that had seen too many things but never learned how to process them.

“I missed everything,” Bruce said, not quite looking at Dick. “Six years, and I thought I could just… step back in. Like nothing had changed.”

Dick ran a hand through his hair.

“Things changed because you left. I had to step up. For him, for the city, for everyone.”

Bruce’s voice was quieter than the hum of the machines.

“I know.”

A long pause, then: “You resent me.”

It wasn’t a question. Dick shrugged, arms folded over his chest—partly for comfort, partly out of habit.

“Not as much as I used to. Mostly I just want to do right by him. He deserves that.”

Bruce looked at him, finally.

“He does.”

The blue from the screens bleached both their faces, made it feel like they were underwater, old sounds and arguments muffled and out of reach.

“You did what you had to,” Bruce said. “Raised him. Gave him a life. A chance to be more than just what he was built for.” He flexed his right hand, like he was getting used to the idea of having it. “But I can’t just… give you my son and walk away. He’s mine, too.”

Dick flinched.

“He’s not a possession. And he’s not a replacement for anyone, not even you.”

Bruce braced his elbows on the desk, forehead pressed into his palms. He stayed that way for a while, the silence deepening.

“When I was young, I thought being a father meant making rules. Enforcing them. Being the last line of defence between the world and the people I cared about.” Dick didn’t answer, just let him talk. “I didn’t know it meant letting go,” Bruce said, and the words sounded like they’d been pried out of him with a crowbar.

Dick sighed, the old anger dissolving into something closer to pity.

“It’s not like you had a lot of role models.”

Bruce almost laughed.

“No.”

Dick leaned back, propping himself up with one hand.

“You know, you were a parent to a bunch of kids who weren’t yours by blood. You didn’t have to be.”

Bruce looked over, caught the edge of a smile.

“Neither did you.”

“Yeah,” Dick said, voice suddenly brittle. “But I did it anyway.” He hesitated, fingers picking at the seam of his jeans. “It’s not easy, you know. Being the one who has to show up. There’s no manual. Some nights it’s nightmares, some days it’s school meetings, and the rest is just trying not to screw it all up worse than the day before.”

Bruce nodded, a ghost of pride in it.

“I don’t think I understood what you meant by showing up and being there until I saw how you act with him.” The older man sighed. “In fact, I don’t think I ever did that. Not as Bruce, I mean. To all of you. I think the most time we spent was in training or the masks. You are there for him, no matter when.”

“Maybe. You might be right, there, to be honest. And I’m not asking for your blessing,” Dick said, voice firmer now. “But I am telling you: I’m not going to stop being his father just because you’re back. I never tried to replace you. I just… filled in, because there was no one else. And I’m not taking it back now.”

Bruce’s eyes lingered on the cowl.

“Would you do it again?”

“In a heartbeat,” Dick said, and for once didn’t sound like he was joking. “Even the worst of it.”

Neither of them moved for a while.

The spell was broken by the faintest shuffle of feet, the kind that only registered when you’d spent your whole life listening for the sound of trouble. Dick and Bruce turned in sync to see Damian, standing a dozen feet away, hands jammed into his hoodie pockets. He approached, but not all the way—stopped at the base of the platform, a physical boundary as clear as any force field.

“I left something,” Damian said, but didn’t move to retrieve it.

Dick smiled, a little.

“You’re not interrupting. You want to join in? Officially? Since I’m pretty sure you were eavesdropping anyways?”

The kid flushed, before stepping closer anyways. He looked at Bruce, then at Dick, then back at Bruce.

“I wanted to say something,” he said, and his voice was calm, almost adult. “I’m not angry at you. Not really.” Bruce blinked. “But I think you should know,” Damian continued, “that no matter how many times you say I’m your son, Baba is my father. He always will be. That’s not going to change.”

Dick felt his throat tighten, but didn’t trust himself to speak.

“I want to learn from both of you,” Damian said. “But if you want to be in my life, it’s as a grandfather, not as a father.” He paused, let it hang. “Or as Batman. Or as… something else. But I get to choose.”

It took a visible effort, but Bruce nodded.

“I can live with that.”

Damian looked at Dick.

“Is that okay with you?”

Dick nodded, a real smile this time.

“It’s more than okay. It’s what you want to do, so of course it is.”

Damian ducked his head, then turned and started back up the stairs, his footsteps echoing less than they used to. Bruce watched him go, then looked at Dick.

“He’s grown up.”

“Faster than either of us,” Dick said.

The two men sat, side by side in the blue-lit dark, and watched the city pulse in and out of focus on the screens. It wasn’t perfect, but it was real. For the first time, that felt like enough.

Breakfast at Wayne Manor had always been a weird mix of tradition and improvisation. Alfred set the tone—bow tie, pressed whites, coffee poured with a wrist flick that bordered on performance art. But the rest of the table was pure entropy. This morning, the lineup was Dick at the head, still in sweats and T-shirt, Damian glued to his side in a hoodie that swallowed half his face, Steph draped sideways in her chair with bare feet propped on the rung, and Tim eating cereal directly from the box. Bruce entered last, wearing a dress shirt over the same athletic tights he’d worn for his morning run, hair still damp, eyes clearer than the day before.

The table overflowed: pancakes, eggs, fruit, scones, two kinds of juice, and the near-mandatory pitcher of cold brew. Alfred glided between seats, topping off mugs and sidestepping Steph’s wandering elbows with all the grace of a world-class fencer. For the first few minutes, the only conversation was cutlery and Steph’s monologue about the world’s worst news assignment. (“There are entire channels dedicated to cat videos, and they have me writing about bridge closures? It’s like being demoted from Batman to mall cop.”)

Tim snorted.

“You could always go vigilante again.”

Steph smirked.

“Only if you’re my sidekick, Timmy.”

He threw a Cheerio at her, missed, and pretended not to care. Bruce waited for a lull before clearing his throat. The room went still.

“I wanted to say something,” Bruce began, voice formal but not cold. “To all of you.” Damian tensed, but Dick gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I made mistakes,” Bruce continued. “I tried to force things back to the way they were. I didn’t listen. And I didn’t see how much you’d all grown.” He paused, looked straight at Dick. “I know I can’t erase the past. But I’d like to find a way to move forward. As a family.”

Steph saluted with her fork, sending a scone crumb arcing onto the table.

“About time, B. I was running out of snarky comebacks.”

Tim grinned.

“She really was. It was getting sad.”

Bruce smiled, just a little, then turned to Damian.

“I’m proud of you. And I support your decision. If you want to train, I’ll help. If you want to do something else, I’ll still help.”

Damian blinked, clearly thrown. He recovered fast.

“Thank you,” he said, and the words sounded honest.

Bruce nodded, then shifted his gaze to Tim.

“I wanted to ask if you’d come back to the team. As Red Robin. Not as Robin.”

Tim’s head snapped up.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Bruce said. “If you want.”

Tim looked around, making sure he wasn’t being pranked.

“Yeah. I do.” He grinned, all teeth. “Only didn’t want to go back to regular Robin. And I’ve got some upgrades to show you. I think you’ll like them.”

Bruce chuckled, low and genuine.

“Looking forward to it.”

Steph raised her glass.

“To new old jobs and slightly less dysfunctional family meetings.”

Dick clinked his juice against hers.

“Hear, hear.”

The talk shifted to logistics: who’d be running which city, who’d take which cases, whether it was actually possible for Steph to pull off a purple-on-black uniform without blinding anyone in the dark. Damian announced, almost offhand, that he’d be going by “Flamebird” from now on, which sent Steph and Tim into a ten-minute spiral about bird-themed costumes and whether or not Dick’s Nightwing suit should have actual feathers.

“I’m not wearing feathers,” Dick said, but no one listened.

When he looked at Damian, with a soft smile, he just mouthed ‘Flamebird?’ at the kid. Damian shrugged. ‘Clark’ he mouthed back. Dick bit back a grin. Obviously. He’d gotten that part.

At the end of the meal, Alfred reappeared with a notebook and pen.

“If I may,” he said, “I’d like to help with the move. I can have the old flat packed by the weekend.”

Bruce added, “I can help transport. The Batwing has cargo capacity.”

Dick grinned.

“It’s a date, then.”

They finished breakfast the way families do—slow, loud, with someone always fighting over the last slice of bacon. When it was done, Dick caught Damian’s hand, squeezed it, and whispered, “You ready for the next adventure?”

Damian nodded, the smile finally making it all the way to his eyes.

It wasn’t perfect, not even close. But it was theirs.

Three days later, Blüdhaven felt less like a transfer and more like an upgrade. Dick and Damian had finished unpacking the last of the boxes that morning, stacking them in the empty laundry room of the new third-floor apartment. The place wasn’t big by Wayne standards, but it had three bedrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a rooftop access ladder that Dick had already circled as the best part of the lease. The training room (formally “Bedroom Three”) had mats on the floor, a heavy bag in one corner, and a weight bench salvaged from a police auction. Damian spent the morning taping lines on the mat for drills, then arranging his books and sketches along a single shelf. The whole place smelled like new paint and delivery pizza, which Damian insisted was “authentic Blüdhaven atmosphere.”

By noon, Dick had managed to set up the living room: a battered but clean couch, coffee table, and a TV mounted so high on the wall Damian said it would cause permanent neck damage. Dick just grinned and called it “cinematic immersion.” The kitchen was mostly empty, except for a rack of mugs, three bottles of sriracha, and a box of instant oatmeal.

At five, the doorbell rang, and Stephanie rolled in with a bag of Thai food, a six-pack of grape soda, and the kind of energy that bounced off walls. She dropped her bags and immediately took a tour, offering unsolicited opinions on closet organisation and recommending a blackout shade for Damian’s bedroom window (“unless you want to wake up every day at sunrise, which is frankly criminal”).

“Where’s your new place?” Dick asked, popping a soda.

“Two blocks down, above a dog groomer,” Steph said. “You can smell wet fur when it rains. Super cozy.”

Damian grunted.

“You’ll never be late, then. The street noise will keep you awake.”

She beamed.

“Aww, you care.”

Dick rolled his eyes.

“You two want to set up a coffee date, or are we eating?”

They ate straight out of the cartons, all three cross-legged on the floor because the chairs hadn’t arrived yet. Damian went heavy on the pad see ew, Steph inhaled the green curry, and Dick stuck to the satay because his ribs still twinged when he bent forward. Steph waved her fork.

“Okay, actual news. I got a job with the Blüdhaven Bulletin. Real reporting, not just copy-paste from GCPD scanners. And—get this—Clark and Lois wrote me the best references ever. Clark’s had the big S on his resume for, like, a decade. I’m basically set for life.” She dug into her bag and produced a glossy press badge, laminated and everything. “I’m, like, legit,” she said, sliding it across to Damian.

He examined it with the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for autopsy photos.

“It says ‘probationary,’” he noted.

Steph snatched it back.

“Details, details.”

Dick laughed, then sobered.

“Seriously, though. Congratulations. You earned it. Glad to see you found something to be passionate about that matches your chosen B.A. subject.”

Steph nudged him with her knee.

“So, what about you, Dick? What’s the plan? Full-time Nightwing? Or are you going to be one of those stay-at-home dads?”

Damian snorted, but kept his head down. Dick shrugged.

“I was thinking about going back to the PD. Maybe not as a detective, at first. But I liked the work. Solving things for real people, not just the costume crowd.” He looked at Damian, trying to gauge his reaction. “I want you to know that doesn’t mean I’ll be around less. If anything, more. The schedule is flexible, and—” He hesitated, unsure.

Damian saved him.

“Don’t worry about me, alright? I know you will be. You like helping people,” he said. “Even when you don’t get credit for it.”

Dick blinked, surprised by the insight.

“Yeah. I do.”

Damian leaned back with a smile, then.

“If you're afraid I'll get lonely you could always get me a dog, Baba.”

Steph grinned.

“Sneaky. You’ll be Blüdhaven’s best cop. With or without the leotard.”

Damian polished off his noodles, then stood and carried the carton to the recycling. He paused at the kitchen window, looking out over the city as the sun dipped behind the towers. The reflection in the glass showed a kid with too much history, but also someone standing taller than he ever had before.

After dinner, they cleaned up, then sprawled on the couch to watch cartoons. Steph fell asleep in the first episode, snoring softly and drooling onto a throw pillow. Dick watched her, then covered her with a blanket, smiling as she curled into it like a cat.

He went to check on Damian, who sat on his bed, sketching quietly. The room was neat, but lived-in—posters on the wall, his favourite books stacked by the lamp, a model glider hanging from the ceiling.

“Hey,” Dick said, tapping on the door frame. “You ready for tonight?”

Damian set the pencil down.

“Yeah.”

Dick entered, sat at the foot of the bed.

“You nervous?”

Damian shrugged.

“A little. Not about the city. About… being Flamebird. It’s new.”

Dick nodded.

“You’ll be great. Just be yourself. You’re more than ready for this. Plus… we can talk more about that dog.”

Damian nodded, then met Dick’s eyes.

“Thank you. For everything.”

Dick squeezed his shoulder.

“Anytime, kiddo.”

As night fell, they suited up—Dick in the blue and black, mask snug and jacket zipped; Damian in a brand-new set of gear, black with red accents and subtle flame patterns stitched along the sleeves. He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled, just a little. Steph woke, yawned, and pulled on her Spoiler mask. She tossed Dick the keys to the new cycle.

“Call if you need backup,” she said, stretching. “I’ll take the east side.”

“Will do,” Dick replied. “You, too. Meet back here in three hours.”

They climbed out the window, three shadows against the city lights, and perched on the edge of the fire escape. Dick looked at Damian, then at Steph, then back at the city waiting below.

“Ready, Flamebird? Spoiler?”

Damian grinned.

“Born ready, Nightwing.”

Steph fist-bumped them both, and then they dropped into the Blüdhaven dark. Above them, the sky was empty—no bats, no spotlights, just the promise of a city that needed saving. And this time, Dick knew they’d do it together.