Chapter Text
BREAKING NEWS: BATMAN AND NIGHTWING HAVE BEEN REPORTED DEAD BY THE MAN OF STEEL HIMSELF. WHAT'LL HAPPEN TO GOTHAM AND BLUDHAVEN NOW?
The day the news broke, Wayne Manor didn't explode with grief. It went entirely, suffocatingly cold.
The alert had come from the Watchtower from Superman himself, a catastrophic, definitive transmission that left no room for hope, no loopholes, and no missing bodies to search for. Bruce and Dick were gone. They died as Hero's. Stated Superman when he was explaining the news. And after that?
The once chaotic Manor had fallen silent for the first time in years.
The manor split along fractured lines. Tim had locked himself in the Batcave, the harsh blue glow of the monitors reflecting off a face that had gone completely numb as he frantically ran data loops, searching for a glitch that didn’t exist. Searching for clues that could have explained something, anything
Upstairs, Duke sat on the edge of his bed in absolute silence, staring at his hands, crushed by the sudden, suffocating weight of a legacy he had only just begun to understand.
And Damian? Damian had vanished into the training room.
The rhythmic, violent thud-crack of a practice sword striking a reinforced dummy echoed through the lower levels of the house. He was pushing himself past the point of exhaustion, his breathing ragged, his form slipping, but he refused to stop. To stop meant letting the reality catch up to him.
Jason found Cass standing just outside the training room doors. She wasn't moving. She was just listening to the desperate, angry sounds from within, her eyes wide and dark with a heavy, unreadable sorrow.
"He's going to break a bone if he keeps that up," Jason said, his voice unusually quiet, stripped of its usual rough edge. He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped as if the jacket he wore weighed a thousand pounds. He wanted to grieve but fate would not allow him. He had siblings to care for now that he and Cass were the oldest
Cass didn't look at him, but her hand reached out, her fingers lightly catching the sleeve of his jacket. "Angry," she whispered. "In denial." Her voice itself sounded hollow and tired
"Yeah," Jason murmured, looking down at her small hand against his sleeve. "I know that trick." Jason sighed
Before either of them could move, the sound inside abruptly cut out. It was followed by a sharp, frustrated cry and the clatter of a wooden blade clattering across the floor.
Jason and Cassandra didn't hesitate. Thee pushed the heavy doors open, Just to have their hearts broken by the scene.
Damian was on his knees, his hands pressed into the mats, his chest heaving. His knuckles were raw, and his head was bowed so low his dark hair hid his face. Hearing the doors, he snapped his head up, his eyes flashing with a fierce, defensive rage.
"Get out," Damian hissed, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to sound lethal. "I did not grant permission to-"
"Save it, kid," Jason interrupted. He walked over, picked up the discarded practice sword, and set it on a nearby rack. He didn't mock him. He didn't tell him to calm down, He quickly sat down where Damian knelt
Damian scrambled to his feet, his fists clenching. "Do not pity me, Todd! I am the son of Batman! I am the-"
"You're a kid whose dad just died," Jason said bluntly, though the harshness was entirely absent from his tone. It was just a brutal and tired undeniable fact. "And it sucks. It's the worst thing in the world." Jason emphasised "You don't have to go through it alone.." Jason opened his arms
Damian choked on his next breath, the fiery defiance stuttering out of him, leaving him looking incredibly small in the center of the massive room. He looked finally his age
Cass stepped forward then, moving as silently as a ghost. She didn't say a word. She just closed the distance between them and dropped to her knees on the mat, reaching out to pull Damian into a firm, unyielding embrace. Jason moved and overlapped the embrace
For a fraction of a second, Damian stiffened, his instincts screaming to fight the hold. But Cass held fast, her grip projecting total safety, total understanding. Slowly, the tension drained from the boy's shoulders. His hands gripped the fabric of her shirt, and he buried his face in her shoulder, his quiet, shuddering breaths filling the quiet room.
Jason pulled away and stood over them, guarding their space. He looked up toward the ceiling, swallowing hard against the lump in his own throat, knowing they still had to go find Tim, still had to check on Duke, and still had to face Alfred.
But looking down at Cass holding the youngest of them together, Jason felt a strange, quiet shift happen inside him. The grief wasn't gone, it wouldn't be for a very long time but the direction became clear.
He caught Cass's eyes over Damian's shoulder. She gave him a single, solemn nod.
They need us. the look said.
Jason nodded back. Yeah.. They do.
Next was Tim.
The silence in the lower levels of the cave was different than the silence upstairs and the training room, but down here, it felt empty, down here, it felt heavy, like the atmospheric pressure had dropped right before a storm.
Jason and Cass found Tim exactly where they knew he would be after tucking Damian into bed, perched on the edge of the swivel chair in front of the batcomputer. The massive monitors threw a harsh, electric blue light across his face.
Tim’s fingers were flying across the keyboard, a manic, rhythmic clacking that was the only sound echoing through the cavern. On the screens, lines of data, satellite feeds, and encrypted telemetry from the Watchtower were looping over and over again.
"Tim," Jason said softly.
Tim didn't look back. "The transmission code has a three-second latency delay from the primary array. If the bomb tube signature was corrupted by the atmospheric interference, the telemetry might be misreading the disintegration bio-signatures. I’m just recalibrating the dampeners to account for the margin of error.. they must have missed something.. an error.. a clue"
Jason stepped closer, his boots heavy against the metal grate floor. He looked up at the screen. The data was clear. The bio signatures hadn't been corrupted. The margin of error was zero.
"Timmy," Jason tried again, dropping the rough exterior entirely. "Stop."
"I just need to run the diagnostic one more time," Tim insisted, his voice tight, his eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at the code. "If Dick's tracker pinged even once before the explosion, we can isolate the coordinates. I can trace the residual radiation. And we'll find them! I just need to-"
A small, pale hand rested gently over Tim’s hands on the keyboard, covering his fingers and stopping the typing mid-stroke.
Tim froze. He stared at Cass’s hand on his.
"No error," Cass said, her voice a quiet, devastating weight in the room. "Tim. No error." She said again trying to snap him out it
"You don't know that," Tim whispered as his voice cracked terribly, his voice suddenly sounding incredibly young. He tried to pull his hands away to keep typing, but Cass didn't move her hand, her grip firm but entirely gentle. "We don't know that until I finish investigating! Let me finish!" Tim cried, sounding desperate in denial
"Tim." Jason placed a heavy, grounding hand on Tim’s shoulder. "It's done. They're gone." Jason emphatic "Superman wouldn't lie to us about this.."
The word gone seemed to physically hit him. Tim’s hands dropped from the keyboard. The manic energy that had been keeping him upright vanished in an instant, leaving his shoulders hunched and his chest heaving. He didn't cry not yet but he looked at the screens with a profound, hollow despair, grieving and denial
"I can't find their bodies..," Tim whispered, looking at his hands. "I'm supposed to be the smart one. I'm supposed to be the second best detective.. And I can't find them.." Tim finally broke and covered his face with his hands
Cass leaned down, wrapping her arms around his neck from behind, pressing her cheek against the crown of his hair. Jason squeezed his shoulder, anchoring him to the spot.
"Don't.." Cass murmured. "Just stay."
Leaving Tim under Cass’s watchful eye for a moment, He knew Cass would comfort him better than him. So Jason went upstairs to find Duke.
Signal’s room was completely dark, the blinds drawn tight against the afternoon sun. Duke was sitting on the very edge of his bed, his yellow leather jacket slung over the back of a chair across the room. He wasn't crying, and he wasn't looking at data. He was just staring at the floor, his elbows resting on his knees.
Jason knocked quietly on the open doorframe before stepping inside. "Hey."
Duke blinked, looking up slowly. "Hey, Jay."
Jason walked over and leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. He didn't push. He just let the silence exist until Duke was ready to break it.
"It feels weird," Duke said after a long minute, his voice hollow. "I mean... I didn't grow up here like you guys did. Bruce took me in, and Dick helped train me, and I... I love them. But looking at this house right now, looking at the cave... it feels like I'm trespassing on a tragedy that belongs to you guys." Duke confessed as he held back tears
Jason frowned, straightening up. "Don't do that."
"Do what?" Duke suddenly jolted and looked up
"Exclude yourself," Jason said firmly, walking over to sit on the mattress a few feet away from Duke. "Bruce brought you into this house because you belong here. Dick wore his heart on his sleeve for every single person in this family, especially you. You don't get to sit in the dark and pretend your grief doesn't count just because you weren't raise by him"
Duke looked down at his sneakers, his jaw tight. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. Who's going to clear the comms? Who am I supposed to check in with when the sun comes up?"
"Us," a voice said from the doorway.
Cass was standing there after she had just tucked Tim and Damian to bed, She was holding a stray blanket she had pulled from the hallway closet. Her eyes were soft as she walked into the room, draped the blanket over Duke's shoulders, and sat down on his other side.
"Don't patrol, heal first" Cass patted his shoulders
Duke looked between the two of them, the suffocating isolation finally beginning to thaw as he nodded. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself, letting out a long, shaky breath as tears began to fall
"We're still a team," Jason said, reaching over to cuff Duke's shoulder playfully but firmly. "The shift just changed, that's all. Me and Cass have the watch. But like Cass said.. you don't have to patrol.. spend some time healing first."
Duke nodded slowly, leaning sideways until his shoulder bumped against Cass's. "Okay," he murmured. "Okay."
Jason needed to cry, he needed to let it out but he didn't do it in front of Alfred, or Tim, or Duke and he certainly hadn't done it in front of Damian. Jason Todd had standards. They were stupid, arbitrary standards, but he clung to them anyway.
So, he waited. He waited until everyone had gone to bed, until Alfred had finally retired for the evening, and the sprawling manor had fallen completely silent. Only then did Jason venture down into the dark, finding himself standing right in the middle of the empty Batcave.
He thought he was alone until a shadow dropped silently from the rafters. Jason didn't even flinch, Because he knew who it was
"Cass," he murmured.
Cassandra landed lightly beside him, her movements fluid and weightless. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Above them, the giant supercomputer screens sat dark and dead. The cave felt entirely wrong without Bruce's looming presence
Finally, Cass asked the one question nobody else had dared to voice. "How?"
Jason let out a short, broken laugh. "I don't know.. but they'll need us"
Cass nodded slowly. "Yeah."
That single syllable was all it took to shatter his resolve. The grueling funerals, The hollow condolences, and the desperate praying for this to be a cruel joke and that Bruce and Dick would walk through the door and announce it had all been a terrible mistake. Everyone else was completely falling apart, and he had spent the whole day holding everyone together but now he just couldn't carry it anymore.
Jason folded. One second he was standing, and the next, Cass had her arms wrapped tightly around him. Jason clutched her back like a drowning man, burying his face against her shoulder. His breath hitched, and then he broke. It wasn't a loud or dramatic display. it was just years of repressed grief pouring out of him all at once. He wept for Bruce, for Dick, for their fractured family, and for the crushing, terrifying realization that there was no one left above them anymore. They were the roof now. The supposed back bone of the family
Eventually Cass cried too, weeping silently as her hands fisted into the fabric of his shirt. The two eldest remaining children of Batman clung to each other in the dark. Nobody saw them. Nobody knew. And maybe that was for the best, because tomorrow they would have to be strong again.
Because tomorrow, Tim would need someone to lean on. Tomorrow, Duke would need guidance. Tomorrow, Damian would pretend he didn't need anyone at all, and Alfred would need a desperate amount of help just keeping the manor's walls standing. Tomorrow, they would have to be the adults. But tonight, they were just two grieving kids who desperately missed their father and their brother.
The next morning, however, Jason walked downstairs to find complete and utter silence, it was a creaking painful silence.
Tim was staring into space, his eyes rimmed red showing he was crying
Damian was quiet as well, And that was unusual for him but they could blame him.
Jason stopped in the doorway and stared. The scene broke his heart so much. Next to Damian, Duke and Alfred were also staring, looking entirely drained. Tim looked seconds away from passing out, while Damian looked prepared to have another break down.
Cass walked into the kitchen. She took one look at the scene, smoothly grabbed the cereal box out of the cupboards, and poured the cereal into a bowl for the three of them before adding the milk. Then she patted the three of them, encouraging them to eat
The room fell dead silent. Damian looked tired before he picked up a spoon and started eating
Cass sighed, Looking at them, Jason let out a shuddering breath trying to hold himself back from tears witnessing such a broke scene.
And from that morning on, a distinct pattern formed. It was always Jason and Cass. They were always together, always on the same side, quietly handling the family's problems before anyone else even noticed a fire had started. Babs would help occasionally but she too was grieving.
When Tim stopped sleeping, still so stuck into solving 'the case' Cass was always the first to notice the shadows under his eyes, and Jason was the second to handle it, practically forcing the boy to rest by dragging him to his room.
When Duke was struggling, Jason would quietly brew tea while Cass appeared out of nowhere with a mountain of warm blankets ready to offer him their best advice.
And when Damian’s grief manifested as explosive fights at school, Cass would sit silently beside the boy to calm him down while Jason went to the academy to aggressively deal with the principal.
And as for Gotham, They were protected by Red Hood and Black bat. Despite their exhaustion and need to grieve, they were simply not given the luxury to. Because Gotham needed a hero.. who knows what'll happen when villains figure out there's no hero to stop them. So Cass and Jason worked out a new route schedule. They didn't want to make the youngest patrol. So for now it was just the two of them protecting Gotham.
Three months into the new normal, Tim got sick. It wasn't a rogue's toxin or a combat injury, it was just a regular, run of the mill flu that left him miserable, feverish, and thoroughly exhausted. And it was bad since he was missing a spleen.
Jason walked into the bedroom carrying a warm bowl of soup that Alfred had made only to find Cass sitting faithfully beside Tim's bed. Tim was fast asleep, and Cass was holding a book, or at least pretending to read it. When Jason set the tray down, Cass looked up and began to gesture in quick, definitive sign language.
She pointed to Tim. Then she pointed to the soup. Finally, she pointed directly at Jason and signed: Parent.
Jason didn't flinch or deny it before he signed the words: If I'm a parent then so are you. We're in this Together
Cass breath hitched softball before she nodded solemnly. Yes. She signed quick
Right then, Tim stirred, opening his heavy eyes just to look at Jason "Soup..?"
Jason let out a soft sigh and nodded before placing the tray in the bed side table. He'll leave it to Cass to make sure he eats and sleeps
After that, the routine only intensified. Or improved
By year two, Duke had entirely stopped viewing them as separate entities, introducing them to outsiders as a singular unit. It was always
"Ask Jason and Cass,"
"Jason and Cass said no,"
"Jason and Cass are picking us up from the station."
By year two, even Damian had entirely given up pretending he didn't rely on them.
One rainy evening, Alfred walked into the library and found all five of them fast asleep by the fire. Duke was sprawled across one of the leather couches. Tim was using Jason’s side as a makeshift pillow, while Damian had fallen asleep curled against Cass’s shoulder, a forgotten book resting open in her lap. Jason was snoring softly from his armchair. They looked safe. Comfortable. Home.
Alfred moved through the room like a ghost, quietly covering each of them with heavy blankets. When he finished, he paused, his gaze drifting to the formal family portraits hanging on the dark wood walls. He looked at Bruce. He looked at Dick. He looked at the people who should have been there, the agonizing spaces left behind by the missing.
Then, the old butler looked back down at the children sleeping by the hearth. He looked at Jason and Cass. the ones who had stepped forward into the chaos when nobody had asked them to, the ones holding the fragile pieces together as best they could.
For the first time since the funerals, Alfred smiled. The family had survived. They were not unchanged, and they certainly weren't unbroken, but they had survived nonetheless. Against all conceivable logic, Jason Todd and Cassandra Cain had become the unbreakable foundation keeping the entire house standing. Even when they were close to crumbling.