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Duke suits up with a giddy smile on his face. It’s a rare thing for all of the Bats to be in one place, and Duke has never gotten to go out on patrol with all of them at once. Even Jason is here, helmet tucked under one arm as he pushes a boot against Dick’s back to help the older boy stretch.
Cass comes up to stand at his side, and she smiles up at him. “You’re excited,” she says as she pokes his arm. Her hair sticks up in wild dark tufts; there’s no reason to bother with a brush when she is about to shove her hair into her cowl. Duke runs a hand over his own hair sheepishly.
“Am I that obvious?”
“It is exciting.” She smiles again as she pulls on her gloves. “The Arkham breakout is not exciting. That is no fun. But, you joining us on the night shift is exciting.”
“Damn right it’s exciting!” Steph bounds over and wraps her arms around Duke from behind so that she can rest her chin on his chin. “Sucks Bruce always keeps you on the day shift. You’re on my patrol route, by the way.”
“I swear to God, Steph, if you’re bitching about my patrol route assignments again, I’m going to lose it.” Tim tucks his knees beneath him and pops up over the back of the chair that sits in front of the Batcomputer. He jabs a finger in her direction. “You go where I tell you, and if you have any problems, you can sit in front of this fucking computer for three hours and make a new map.”
“Jesus, Tim, I was praising your patrol routes.” She flips him off with a smile. “You kiss Bernard with that mouth?”
“Bring him up again, Steph, I dare you.”
“Okay, that’s enough out of you two.” Dick gets up from the mats, cuffs Tim on the back of the head, and gives Steph a warning glare. There’s no real heat behind it, and Duke finds himself grinning. He loves this, loves the way they all joke around with each other, loves that he is beginning to find his place with these people that he cares for so deeply.
“Tim, your patrol routes are very well planned. Steph, you’re going to give him an aneurysm, and I really don’t feel like dealing with that while there’s a dozen criminals on the loose.” Dick winks at him, like they’re both in on some kind of joke, and then he goes over to help Damian tie his boots.
Bruce watches them all from the driver’s seat of the Batmobile, cowl loose around his neck. He pats the passenger suit, and Duke climbs in with a grin. Damian and Steph slide into the back, and then they are racing off towards Gotham.
He and Steph are dropped off at the edge of Gotham; they will work their way towards the centre of the city before coordinating with the GCPD, who are waiting to bring the escaped prisoners back to Arkham. Duke hears Tim going over the final details through the comm in his air, and then he and Steph leap into the night.
She screams with delight beside him, a streak of purple that he watches from the corner of his eye. Duke whoops along with her, and he’s smiling so hard that his cheeks ache.
Puddles splash beneath his feet when he drops down into an alley. They have a rough idea of Zsasz’ location, and he and Steph stalk towards the blinking red dot that Tim had sent to them.
He’s so focused on the task that he’s been given that he doesn’t notice the shadow lurking in a dark corner until he is staring right at the red greasepaint smile of the Joker.
Everything goes quiet. All he can hear is his own heartbeat pounding in his chest as the Joker begins to laugh.
“Oh, I was hoping I would see you tonight,” the Joker says. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Joker. And you are?”
Suddenly, Duke is back in the hospital, and he tries to blink away the images of his parents that float to the front of his mind. He cannot afford to be distracted, not with one of Gotham’s most vicious criminals grinning in front of him, but terror has frozen him to the spot. Sweat drips cold and uncomfortable down the back of his neck as he watches Steph engage. She’s yelling into her comm, and Duke wants to rip the thing free because everyone is yelling. He shouldn’t be able to hear it over the cacophony of voices in his ear, but the Joker’s laughter cuts through the noise, brash and unafraid, and Duke roars as he leaps into the fight.
He covers Steph’s blind spots, relishes the feel of his fists against the purple fabric of the Joker’s suit, leaps into a kick Jason had taught him that sends the Joker flying.
“Get out of there!” Bruce yells into the comm. “Don’t engage without backup, do you understand?”
Duke should listen. He really should listen, because that’s Batman telling him to retreat, but he’s face to face with the man who had ruined his life, and Duke finds that he actually doesn’t want to listen at all.
To her credit, Steph does not leave him. She continues to fight, but her movements grow panicked when the Joker keeps coming. Duke feels something break in his chest when the Joker kicks him hard enough to knock the wind right out his lungs, and Duke stumbles back out of range. The Joker is holding a wicked sharp blade, and Steph hisses out a curse when he slashes it across her calf. Duke leaps over her as she drops to one knee, but he’s mistimed the jump, sloppy from the pain in his chest, and all of a sudden, the knife is buried deep in his gut.
“Pity,” the Joker says as he dusts off his hands. “You know, I don’t know where Batsy keeps on finding you kids, but he really needs to raise his standards. I mean, you’d think after I killed the second one, he'd do a better job of training you. Ah, well, I suppose some things can’t be helped. Thanks for playing, kid.”
And then he is gone.
“You complete idiot.” Steph is pulling bandages from the small med kit in her belt, and she presses them around the wound. “B told you to pull back!”
“That bastard ruined my life,” Duke gasps through the pain.
“And he’s just ruined it even more! Goddamnit, Signal, I am never going to forgive you if you bleed out on me here.”
There’s an awful screeching of tires, and then the Batmobile appears. Duke’s breaths catch in his throat, and he feels his ribs shift with every choked wheeze. He coughs, and blood dribbles down his chin. Distantly, Duke knows that he’s probably punctured a lung, but the information doesn’t quite register. He feels like he’s floating, and the blood loss makes the moon above him spin.
“Report.” Bruce’s voice is gruff, and the sound makes Duke flinch.
“Stab wound, likely broken ribs and a punctured lung.” Steph pushes down hard against his gut, and Duke whines. His chest hurts too much to scream, and the pain in his gut spreads out through his limbs until his fingers begin to tingle.
The rest of the night passes in a blur. Duke is drugged for most of it, and he sees birds and bats of every color flit in and out of his blurred vision. Someone is holding his hand, and he focuses on that point of contact to keep himself from drifting. Everything is hazy; even the pain has turned dull around the edges as the drugs work their way through his system, and he barely feels a thing as he stares up at the bright lights of the med bay.
He comes to with a muffled groan. His chest is burning, and he tries to reach for it when a soft hand wraps around his wrist.
“You better not be trying to touch those ribs,” Dick says with a smile. Dark smudges stain the skin beneath his eyes, and Duke glances over to check the time. It’s noon, nearly twelve hours after his run in with the Joker. He wonders how many hours of sleep Dick got since then, if he even got any at all. “He really did a number on you, kid. What, were you trying to beat Jason’s high score?”
“Can we not call it that please?” Jason is sat on top of one of the other cot, legs crossed beneath him as he plays a game of solitaire. He doesn’t look up from the cards as he speaks, but Duke can see him smiling. “Oh, and for future reference, going recklessly after the Joker is kind of my thing, so you’re going to have to find another hobby.”
“Trust me,” Duke wheezes. He can still taste blood on his tongue. “I will.”
Bruce confines him to bed for two weeks, and Duke is quietly grateful. The stab wound has missed anything vital, and it was ignorable after a few days, but his ribs scream in protest every time he moves, and there is nothing to do about those except wait for the bones to heal.
During his bedrest, Duke has a constant stream of visitors. Damian will curl up at the foot of his bed, a silent presence as he sketches. He leaves fingerprints of charcoal on the sheets that Cass laughs at when she comes to distract him with a game of chess. Steph will bring Uno and see how close she can come to making Tim cry when she piles plus four after plus four onto the pile. Duke has to tell her to leave before he breaks another rib laughing so hard. Jason will come and help him with the pile of homework sitting on his bedside table while Dick smuggles fast food under Alfred’s nose. They eat burgers and try not to drip ketchup onto the bedsheets, and Dick wipes his face with a napkin when Duke can’t really lift his arms to do it himself.
He knows what they’re doing; after such a foolish mistake, he had questioned his place among them, wondered if he had any right to work alongside them and call himself one of Batman’s partners, but their constant attention says what none of them can truly articulate with words.
He knows there will be consequences for his actions. Despite his relatively short time under the man’s care, Duke knows Bruce Wayne, sees how fiercely he protects his children, and Duke knows that it will be a long time before he is trusted to go out on patrol without supervision again.
Still, the man shows no hint of disappointment when he brings Duke his dinner each night, and he sits at the edge of Duke’s bed and keeps him company while he eats. He’s a man of few words, but Duke doesn’t mind. His chest still aches, and there’s an ugly scar that shines white against his skin, but Duke cannot bring himself to doubt his place here, not when Batman himself smiles softly and rests a gentle hand on Duke’s thigh.
He is still learning their patrol routes, how to blend with their fighting styles, how to decipher the special codes they use out in the field, but Duke knows for certain that he has already learned how to be a part of their family.