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I.
One year into being Batman, Bruce is very familiar with needles. Needles inserted into his arm for IV’s, needles injecting antitoxin straight to his bloodstream, needles dug into his skin for stitches so he doesn’t bleed out from a wound — it’s all routine, really. And while it is usually Alfred or Lucius who usually provides medical care for him and never a hospital, the general idea remains the same. The needle pierces skin, tunnels under it, and leaves a mark once extracted.
So when Robert’s sleeve hikes up on his arm while they are fooling around in bed, revealing the inner crook of his arm, Bruce notices the needlemark on Robert’s skin right away.
“Give me your arm,” he says and moves without thinking, grabbing Robert’s arm to check for himself.
There is no bruising around the needlemark. The redness is still fresh. By Bruce’s estimate, the mark cannot be more than three days old.
His first reaction is, of course, a thundering, protective anger over the sight of something marring Robert’s otherwise pale skin. The needlemark doesn’t look painful, but the redness still grabs his attention. What could it have been — a draw for a blood test, an IV being administered? Is Robert okay?
And then Bruce gets thinking. Did Robert even have a medical appointment recently? As far as he’s aware, Robert’s last visit to a doctor was six months ago for a routine checkup where he was told that aside from work stress taking a toll on his body, he was otherwise healthy.
But then, where else could Robert have gotten such a mark? To that question, Bruce hates that he can come up with multiple answers in an instant. Or rather, multiple people who would want to hurt Robert Fischer or wish him dead.
“Where’d you get this?” Bruce asks. He keeps his voice soft, not wanting Robert to think he’s mad at him. He’s not mad at Robert; he would never be mad at him. But for the people who dared to hurt him, Bruce is furious.
Robert grabs his arm back and yanks his sleeve down. He refuses to meet Bruce’s eyes. “It’s nothing.”
And well, that sets off even more alarm bells in Bruce’s eyes. If Robert is trying to hide something from him, it must have shaken Robert badly. Whatever it is, whoever it is, Bruce can make them pay. He can give them a little visit in the night and make them choke on their spit and blood, make them regret touching Robert.
He tries to reason with Robert. “Rob, please. Nothing’s going to happen if you tell me. Promise.”
Robert shoots him a glance. His gaze flicks to the medley of bruises still healing on Bruce’s torso. “Like the bruises you keep coming back with that you refuse to explain? The bruises that you promised to explain to me a month ago, and since then, not even a word of explanation from you.”
Bruce grits his teeth. This same topic again that Robert has been insistent on. That’s different, he wants to argue. Bruce keeps Batman a secret precisely for this reason, to protect Robert. It was exactly for this reason that Bruce created Batman, to protect the ones that he loves the most — the city he loves, the man he loves. He’s sunk so much of his hurt and pain and spite into building Batman, but what good can his secret identity do if he cannot even use it to protect Robert when he needs it the most?
“If you won’t explain your bruises, then I don’t owe you an explanation either,” Robert says and turns away.
They both don’t speak after that for the rest of the night. They’ve reached an impasse.
Bruce goes to sleep thinking of Robert’s face when he said ‘It’s nothing.’ Deadset eyes, muscles taut and closed off, expression pained. Is that what he looks like when he lies about Batman? Does he also look haunted whenever he lies about getting his bruises in a bar brawl or an accident in the shower?
He doesn’t take Robert for a fool, that’s for sure. For all he knows, Robert might already be halfway onto his identity. A few more weeks, he promises himself, and then he’ll come clean with Robert. Face to face, he’ll tell him he was lying to him all this time about the late nights, the wounds, and the midnight calls. He can only pray that Robert won’t be too mad.
That night, Robert tosses and turns in his sleep. Bruce catches bits and pieces of his speech. Ransom, safe, drown, and pinwheel of all things. “Don’t hurt me,” Robert whimpers once, and “What do you want from me?”
Slowly, a cold fury takes over Bruce. Whoever hurt Robert, Bruce is going to rain hellfire upon them.
II.
The picture comes together in pieces.
Robert had taken a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles a month ago. There is nothing strange about that alone; Robert makes that same flight about every two weeks. However, Bruce remembers, in that flight a month ago, Robert’s usual plane needed unexpected maintenance. By the time Bruce received Robert’s message about his plane situation, he offered to send one of his private jets over, but it was too late because Robert had already boarded another flight.
After landing, Robert had called him. It was then that Robert first said to Bruce “What if I break up my father’s empire?” And afterwards, they began the long process of what exactly that entailed.
At the time, Bruce hadn’t thought much of what Robert said. He understood where Robert was coming from, even if it surprised him. Robert hadn’t had a good relationship with his father to put it lightly, and Bruce understood the appeal of wanting to distance yourself from your legacy far too well. Now though, Bruce questions the true origin of Robert’s idea to tear apart his father’s legacy. And if the idea was not derived from Robert’s brain, then what or who exactly gave Robert the idea?
He starts to dig into the other passengers on the same flight that shared the cabin with Robert, and he finds a group of people that clearly have a history together.
One man has a charge of murder against his late wife that very recently got dropped. Two other men have served in the military together in some kind of secret operations unit that even Bruce has trouble finding more about with the database technology available to him. One of them has a criminal history with two counts of theft and one trespassing; the other, a suspiciously blank slate. Then, there is a woman about a decade younger than the rest of the group, who goes to a school of architecture in the same city where the father of Mal, Dominick Cobb’s late wife, teaches.
And perhaps most alarming, there is Saito, the leader of a multi billion dollar conglomerate with Fischer’s corporation as his main competitor. Saito bought out the airline of the flight that Robert had taken the day before his flight, and Saito was on the flight himself.
The connection between these people and Robert is fuzzy, but it’s there. Like a spiderweb, Bruce can imagine the invisible pasts of these people weaving them together, and at the center somehow lies Robert, ensnared. But, just how? Where does Robert play into all of this?
Bruce digs his fingers into his thighs, hard enough to hurt. Just what did these people do to Robert that he doesn’t want to tell Bruce? Bruce, who he was the first to call when his father died. Bruce, who held him as he cried in the nights after his father’s death.
Bruce has his current theory. These people forced Robert to upturn his family empire and told him to remain silent unless he wanted to face consequences. Maybe they even threatened to hurt Bruce or kill him. Bruce’s heart clenches. Of course Robert would stay silent then.
A theory isn’t enough to go on, though. Bruce needs more information, more clues to work off of.
These people are enigmas; he doesn’t even know if the names registered on their passports are their real names or fake ones. Are their passport photos real or the photo of some stranger that only bears resemblance to them?
Bruce zooms into the passport photo of Ariadne, the architecture student. He’s searching for any clues that the photo could have been doctored, but finds something registering in his brain. She wears a patterned scarf in her photo, the shade a deep burgundy red. In one of the recent photos that Robert had sent him while he was away, that same shade of red was there in the corner.
To his dismay, Bruce gets the feeling that he’s only untangled the first outer layer of the web.
III.
Being a billionaire has its benefits, namely in information gathering.
Bruce offers a large tip to anyone who can tell him about the undisclosed military branch that the two men worked in. Several people reach out to him. They tell him that the branch specialized in dream technology. It almost sounds too surreal to be true until they show him the blueprints of the devices involved.
There is a machine called a PASIV, which brings multiple people together in a single dreamer’s dream. They call it dreamshare. Someone designs the workings of the dream, and then the dreamer fills it with their subconscious: people in the dreamer’s life or fears manifested physically.
Learning this sends a chill down Bruce’s spine. He thinks of all the dreams he’s had featuring the Joker or bats swarming his body or other truly horrific things. Dreams where he relives the worst parts of his life over and over again, and wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. Those are private things that no one should ever have access to, let alone strangers.
Even worse, there is no requirement that the dreamer has to know that they are dreaming. In fact, there is an entire underground information network dedicated to making sure that the dream is constructed close enough to reality that the dreamer thinks they are still awake. Bruce could have been brought into a dream without even knowing it, and that horrifies him, the total loss of control about it all.
Later, he makes a mental note to dig deeper to see if there were ever any feelers put out for Robert.
He is told that the PASIV administers a drug called somnacin intravenously to facilitate the dreaming, and he remembers the needlemark on Robert’s arm with sudden clarity. In a dream under somnacin, anything can happen. You could be shot, tortured, and subjected to pain beyond imagination. Pain is only in the mind, after all. The only thing that ends the dream is dying.
He imagines Robert, restrained and brutalized, thinking he’s about to die, and he feels sick to his stomach. Robert is one of the kindest people that Bruce has known. What did Robert ever do to deserve such cruelty?
Bruce revises his theory. The mysterious group of people forced Robert into a dream. They tortured him until he agreed to break up his father’s empire. Robert must have been in agony and terrified, doubly so if he wasn’t aware that he was dreaming. And afterwards, Robert must have woken up, disoriented and confused, with only the faint memory of what he agreed to.
Bruce’s theory explains why there wasn’t any trace of a wound on Robert’s body, save for the needlemark. It would also explain Robert’s new nightmares where night after night, he claws at the bedsheets and begs not to be hurt before Bruce gently wakes him up.
There is one thing that he cannot reason though.
Robert was on the flight a month ago. The needlemark that Bruce found on his arm could not have been more than three days old.
IV.
Robert starts to change.
He begins to take an unusual interest in puzzles. A whole variety of puzzles, but three dimensional ones especially. He stays occupied for hours with a puzzle in his hand, deconstructing it until he understands the inner workings of it. He also starts reading books on architecture, of all things. Every chance he gets, he doodles geometric shapes and forms on scrap sheets of paper.
“Designing a building?” Bruce asks, to which Robert just hums. “More like a maze.”
Bruce has never known Robert to be interested in architecture or design. But now, he isn’t so sure.
He asks about the new interests, and Robert responds with something about keeping his brain busy. It makes sense, of course, considering Robert does not have his corporation to keep him busy anymore. But even so, why does Bruce get a feeling that he can’t shake off that he’s being lied to?
Meanwhile, Bruce arrives at a dead end trying to track down the group of people on the flight with Robert. Functionally, they are ghosts. Aside from their passport information that they used to purchase flight tickets, Bruce cannot find anything at all about their recent movements or whereabouts. Hell, they could even be in Gotham for all he knows.
So as much as he loathes guns, he gives Robert a gun, fearing that the group of people will return and try to hurt him again. He doesn’t tell Robert about the information that he’s secretly uncovered behind his back. He instead says “Carry it for my peace of mind? Please, Robert.”
To his surprise, Robert takes the gun and holds it in his hands without a moment’s hesitation. His movements are perfectly comfortable. He handles the gun like it belongs in his hands, and Bruce finds himself once again, utterly lost. The Robert that he knew would never have known how to hold a gun let alone look prepared to use it. This Robert doesn’t even ask where Bruce got a gun from and accepts it without question.
Not for the first time and probably not for the last, Bruce finds himself studying Robert and the new lines on his face since he got on that flight. He wants to beg. What happened to you and why won’t you tell me?
Another time, Robert wakes up after a dream, disoriented and panicked. “You’re awake,” Bruce tells him, but Robert doesn’t believe him — not after the first time he says it, and not after the third time he says it either.
Robert gasps, “My totem,” and before Bruce can ask what a totem is, Robert grabs some small figurine out of his pockets and clutches it in his hands.
“I’m not dreaming,” Robert mutters to himself, turning the figurine over and over again with shaking fingers. He does this for minutes until his breathing finally slows. Bruce can do nothing except rub a hand back and forth on Robert’s back. The sight reminds Bruce of watching victims infected by fear toxin, helpless to ride out the fear all on their own until it leaves their system.
This too is new. Robert has never had difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality before.
How bizarre it is that nothing Bruce said seemed to reassure him after waking up. Only the little figurine was able to calm him. What could possibly explain that?
It is like a metamorphosis, Bruce thinks. Incomprehensible for anyone except the one undergoing the transformation. Robert is changing right before Bruce’s eyes, and he is helpless to watch.
V.
Bruce does not tell Robert about his snooping. He does not tell Robert about his ongoing investigation into dreamshare, nor does he tell Robert about how he’s started tracking the location of his phone, even if he risks destroying Robert’s trust in him forever.
He has two reasons for staying silent. The first is that Robert would no doubt hate him prying like this. Robert would see it as an invasion of his privacy, no worse than what the strange group of people did to him. But Bruce is different from those people because he has Robert’s best interests at heart. He’s protecting Robert, not trying to hurt him.
The second reason is a growing rift between the two of them. Robert grows more and more cagey every time Bruce tries to bring up the topic of what happened to him. Meanwhile, Bruce’s secret adds even more tension to their relationship.
“You have your secrets,” Robert insists, his eyes cold. “And I’ll keep mine.”
And therein lies the rest of Bruce’s dilemma. Bruce cannot tell Robert about Batman because it would put Robert in danger and now more than ever, Bruce needs Batman to protect Robert.
VI.
It all comes to a head when Robert messages him one day that he’ll be travelling to London for two days for a legal meeting related to Fischer Morrow. Don’t bother trying to text often or call — he’ll be busy in meetings all day, he tells Bruce. Which is a little strange, Bruce has to admit. Usually if someone needs to discuss Fischer Morrow with Robert, then they come to him, not the other way around. Moreover, Robert also always tells him days in advance if he ever does need to travel. This time, Robert messages him the day of, right before his plane takes off.
And so as much as Bruce feels guilty doing so, he tracks the flight that Robert is on. After the flight lands, he starts to track Robert’s phone’s location and gets on his own private jet to find Robert.
He wants to trust Robert. He really does. But, after what happened with the Joker and the havoc that he wrecked on Gotham — after what happened to his parents, Bruce is scared. No, terrified. This situation has him in the dark, and nothing good ever comes out of feeling blindsided.
Robert could have been threatened to go to London, probably by the same group of people that tortured him and messed with his head. Robert could have told him it was a business meeting because he didn’t want Bruce to worry. Robert could be alone in London right now, hurt and afraid.
What do they want with Robert now, Bruce thinks with desperation as ice fills his veins. His mind flashes with his parents lying cold, lifeless in an alleyway. He doesn’t want to have anything bad happen to someone he loves, not again. Not if he can help it.
He tracks down Robert in an abandoned warehouse, which already raises all the alarm bells in his head.
It is a good thing that he was prepared for the worst and brought all of his getup, he thinks, as he puts on the Batsuit and prepares to storm the building. The last piece he puts on is the mask. It fits snug over his face, and he feels a calmness settle over him.
This is it. He’ll have his revenge over the people who dared to hurt Robert, and he’ll get Robert out of their grasp, and he’ll fix this. After everything dies down and Robert returns back to himself, Bruce will tell him the truth about Batman, and this divide between them will finally close.
He barges through the warehouse door, and frantic, searches over the space until his eyes finally latch onto Robert.
Robert is lying down in a chair, his body lax and hooked up to an IV. The PASIV machine running somnacin through his veins looks just like the blueprints that Bruce studied.
There are two other people lying down next to him — Bruce looks over their faces. It is just as he feared. He knows these faces. They are the same people that Robert was on the flight with. There’s the architectural student, wearing that same burgundy scarf. And then the man with the military background with that rugged look.
Their bodies are both slack in sleep, just like Robert’s. But Bruce knows their sleep is no ordinary one. At this very moment, they could be hurting Robert, tormenting him in a dream of their creation.
Someone is watching over their sleeping forms — the other man who was in the military with a suspiciously clean past. His face falls when he sees Bruce.
Bruce watches as he lunges to press a button on the PASIV and then reaches for the IV on Robert’s arm. Like hell is Bruce going to let anyone lay a hand on his Robert again.
Bruce throws himself at the man before he can make any more moves. If Bruce can disarm him before everyone else wakes up, he’ll have an easier time restraining the other two of the gang. The man has a gun, but Bruce is quicker and stronger. Even more dangerous, he has a hunger for vengeance fueling him.
The man shoots twice before Bruce tackles him. One bullet grazes Bruce’s arm, the other hits the armor on his chest. Bruce doesn’t feel anything. He raises his arm, ready to punch the daylights out of the man and make him puke blood before he hears a groan behind him.
It’s Robert’s. Robert has woken up.
He jerks his head around to see Robert shakily sitting up on the chair. “Arthur?” he calls out — So the man’s name is Arthur, and not whatever was on his passport — “Why’d you stop the dream?”
Before Bruce has time to process what Robert’s words mean, that Robert had never been here involuntarily, Robert’s eyes snap to his. Bruce can almost see the gears turning in his brain as second by second, Robert takes in his form in the batsuit.
Even with the mask on, Bruce feels like a fool for ever thinking he could hide the truth behind Batman from Robert. He should have known that Robert would know his eyes anywhere.
Robert’s breath hitches. “Bruce?”
