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Cass was the first to leave. She saw signs of the incoming disaster, she saw the disregard, the apathy, the jealousy, the favouritism. The void left in her father’s wake was all consuming. She did not stay to meet the event horizon to let it destroy her. She had survived on her own for years once, and she could do it again. Staying, drowning in grief would kill her. The decision isn’t easy, but she’s gone by dawn.
Tim was the second to leave. He didn’t want to leave the last of his living family, but they gave him no choice. He wasn’t safe with them. Gone were the moments of jokes and sass in good times and mutual emotional support in the hard times. Apathy, depression and negligence replaced it. One too many assaults in his father’s home - the one place he was supposed to be safe;- one too many dismissals - by those who he loved and was supposed to be loved in return. He tells everyone it’s the technicality of taking over his father’s day job but really - staying would’ve killed him.
Barbara was the last to leave. She may not have been privy to the disasters that happened within the Manor’s walls, but she saw everything that happened outside of it on the streets of Gotham. No action made by any vigilante in Gotham got past her. She saw the corruption in the new Bats. When her warnings were ignored, she withdrew her support. Oracle remained a watchful eye over Gotham - keeping track of cops that liked to tamper with evidence or abuse those with no power or protection - but that was all.
. . .
Barbara is the one who brings them back together.
She flies to Hong Kong and finds her niece in everything but blood and name, living on the streets and as a vigilante and using the violence to numb the pain. Like father, like daughter. It takes very little effort to pull her into a loving hug and back to Gotham (so little effort, the others couldn’t have bothered to try).
She drives downtown with her niece, and finds that her nephew has re-created his own home base - complete with Bat-level security, weapons stash and computer power. It’s no Bat-cave, but then again the Bat-cave will never be the same without Bruce. It takes very little effort to pull him into a hug, and regain his loyalty and trust (so little effort, the others couldn’t have bothered to try).
. . .
In these months, Gothamites see several violent shifts of power within the vigilante network. Despite the Bat-flock’s nature to be cloaked in darkness and mystery, it’s clear as day that there’s a new Batman and Robin.
From his cell in Arkham, the Joker cackles as he realizes that the Bat has not one, but two sons that are murderers posing as vigilantes - one in prison with him and other roaming the streets. He knows that the man must be turning in his grave, forever unable to rest knowing that he failed two Robins. It gives him endless joy.
The rest of the Rogues are furious. Sure, they love to cause mayhem within Gotham, but it’s always pointed. There’s always a redeeming cause, like attacking corrupt corporations intent on polluting Gotham’s already dying greenery, or attacking corrupt politicians and police with city-wide riddles that gather attention on a nationwide scale. They can count on Batman and Robin to minimize the amount of civilians that get injured or killed as collateral - and in some cases, take down the very corrupt people they are attacking in the first place (after the Rogue themselves have been transported back to Arkham). Batman’s good like that - he visits, delivers good news and offers rehabilitation options. Most of the Rogues have at least tried - even if old habits are far too easy to slip back into.
Gone is that balance, that support, that hope.
Under the rule of the new Batman - the second? third? - and the fifth Robin, crime flourishes. Rogues are attacked with extreme prejudice that leave them in hospitals instead of jail cells. Their cases against corruption go uninvestigated. This Robin doesn’t care about anything beyond the fight in front of him, and this Batman is too tired from restraining his Robin and grieving his predecessor to do anything else. Hostages and kidnapped victims that would’ve easily been rescued by the previous vigilante flock end up dead as the fifth Robin escalates the situation. Crime spikes. The GCPD institutes a curfew for the first time in a decade. The Commissioner lights up the Bat-Signal, hoping for answers and instead gets his carefully crafted plausible deniability statement ruined, along with a batarang in the leg and another in the shoulder.
Coincidentally, the Commissioner of the GCPD gets a horrifying tip from his daughter - a known close friend of the Waynes - about the youngest son of late Bruce Wayne.
Damian Al Ghul Wayne is being horrifically abused by his primary caretakers: Bruce Wayne’s eldest son Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne’s former butler Alfred Pennyworth. They have not enrolled him into school, nor provided alternate education. The boy bears serious injuries - bruises, strains, fractures - both old and brand new. He does not have access to formal healthcare from a pediatrician. He is not enrolled in any cultural or recreational activities where he can interact with children his own age. He exhibits behaviours seen in cult members and long-term child abuse situations. His senior guardian believes that the boy is ‘wild’ and that he is ‘fixing,’ the boy, a terribly racist stance that would’ve been commonplace when the US was being built by British colonizers. The few people who have encountered Damian Al Ghul Wayne have been assaulted by him - other children, adults, seniors - and have been quickly paid off by his guardians to keep quiet about it.
Damian Al Ghul Wayne is immediately moved into state custody where he is placed in a psych boarding school designed to help troubled children. (Coincidentally, three bat-vigilantes and one justice league magic user visit the school, and all statements about any of the Bat-flock’s identities abruptly stop). Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth face multiple child abuse charges - the former gets off by paying millions in fees along with a laughably short three weeks in prison plus mandatory councilling and the second uses his spy contacts to flee to England.
It’s all anyone in Gotham - and beyond - can talk about, but Gothamites are loyal people. They all have their suspicions about who Batman, Robin and their ever-shifting flock are, but they also realize that the bat-flock is the only thing keeping their city’s crime rate average compared to the rest of the US as opposed to by far the worst in not just the US, but the entire world - other third world countries included.
They also realize that the bat-flock is more than just its deceased member - the third Robin and Black Bat - Batman’s chosen successor are still out there - and Gothamites are relentless in covering up any ties between vigilantes and Cass and Tim Wayne. Some bring up Damian’s ludicrous claims that he is Robin and Brucie Wayne is Batman and try to investigate, but Gothamites have decades worth of alibis, evidence and bullet-proof reasoning why that’s nonsense. Plus, the boy isn’t even saying anything about that anymore. It’s quickly shut down, replaced with the latest absurd nonsense about the Waynes’ daylives: Gothamites learned well from Brucie Wayne’s example after all.
Sure enough, the gap left behind by the fifth Robin and his Batman is quickly filled. The third Robin (quietly nicknamed savior Robin or the Real Robin) quickly returns to the streets with Batman’s true successor: the Black-Bat. They de-escalate the gang wars that their predecessors ignited. They continue rooting out corrupt organizations, officials, police and politicians from Gotham’s social infrastructure - working with the Rogues, when their intentions are to better Gotham. Slowly, the crime rate peak lowers back to where it was before, and the curfew is lifted. Gotham will never be perfectly safe at night, but there’s an acceptable amount of risk and safety when the bat-signal is on. That returns, and it’s enough for most citizens.
. . .
With all the other Waynes in prison or underaged, Cass and Tim get majority ownership of Wayne Manor. Moving back in is a painful choice, but the right one. They keep the Nest as their primary safehouse, but the Wayne Manor will always be home, in a way no other building will ever be. It’s where they met. It’s where they decided they were family. It’s where they signed their adoption papers. It’s where they were loved.
It’s early morning hours after a slow night - the least amount of crime since Cass became Batman and Tim took back Robin, that Tim is poking around an old hallway when he sees it. The portrait of Bruce - down to the exact faint scars on his forehead and the dimples on his cheeks when he’s faking a smile as Brucie Wayne. He stares, for a full minute, grabs the painting and runs to the den where he knows Cass and Barbara are winding down after patrol.
He shows them the picture and presents his half formed theory: Bruce is alive. Cass plucks the painting from his hands and stares at it with an intensity that makes Tim doubt she’s listening to him, so he talks to Barbara. She’s hesitant - not shutting him down the way Dick or Alfred would have, but jumping to build on his theories. He doesn’t blame her - Tim knows it’s a long shot. He knows he hasn’t been all here - all right - since the deaths of both his fathers, his step mother, his girlfriend and his best friend. He knows - but the fact that Barbara is at least hearing him out, and making plans to investigate it after they sleep means the world to him.
If there’s even a small chance that Bruce is alive…
… well, Tim knows he wouldn’t be proud of how they dealt with Damian, Dick and Alfred. But Bruce had wanted Damian to stay with Talia, and Tim had called her himself to update her on the situation and practically told her they wouldn’t interfere if she took her son back. Dick was still in prison, scheduled to be released soon. Dick was the one who put Jason in Arkham for murder. Alfred was a grown man, and Tim suspected Bruce would be angry with Alfred for being the catalyst that split up their family.
Cass crawls into his bed less than an hour later. In the dim lighting, Tim can see obvious signs of tear tracks. It’s not the first time they’ve done this - not since Bruce died, not since before Bruce died. His older sister hooks her ankle around his, puts her hand on his chest and rests her head on his arms. She’s always been intensely affectionate, and Tim’s always been intensely affection-starved. Bruce always thought they were good for each other.
“It’s him.” Cass says finally, voice wrecked like she had been crying. “It’s dad.”
Up until this point there had been a quiet voice at the back of Tim’s mind that said Tim had finally lost it, and was going to join his two older ‘brothers’ in prison. He exhales, tears of his own pricking at his eyes. “You believe me?”
“It’s him.” Cass repeats, quietly. “He looks the same, sits the same, smiles the same, has the same scars. His eyes always do they crinkle-y thing when he’s thinking about us.”
“Crinkle-y thing?” Tim teases. She smacks his chest. They both chuckle, and then quiet before Barbara can hear them.
“You know, when he calls us twins.” Cass says, and then sits up. Tim watches as her body behaviour shifts like a chameleon, looking so eerily like Bruce for a moment that it makes him ache badly. Cass rolls her eyes to the side, not dramatically but exasperated and a tad fond - exactly the way Bruce did. “Hn.”
Tim sits up, giggling. “Remember that time when he had a concussion after Riddler got out and he couldn’t get out names straight for a week?”
“Yeah, he called me Tim! And Dick, Jason, Barbara, Steph…” Cass chuckles.
“That’s it?” Tim exclaims. “He got through most of the Justice League’s names - and yours - before he got to mine.”
Cass clears her throat, and then in a low, Bruce-like voice: “Clark - no, Hal, Diana, Barry, Victor-”
They burst into laughter. It’s the first time they’ve really laughed since Bruce ‘died’ but it’s also the first time they’ve felt hope on the horizon.
They hear wheels rolling from down the hall. By the time Tim’s door creaks open, they’re cuddled together, fake-drooling, snoring into their pillows and tucked under the blanket. Barbara sighs, shuts the door and leaves.
“We’ll get dad back. Together.” Tim whispers.
“Yes. I promise, little brother.”