Chapter Text
The night had promised to be a good one- a rarely and blessedly mundane one.
“How’s the West End tonight, B?” The sound of a batarang accompanied Tim’s query, checking in the way he did so often through the night to ensure Bruce didn’t need backup.
It’s like he thinks he’s the parent here, he thought in a dry grumble as he swung himself onto a nearby rooftop and grunted noncommitally. Dick was home for the weekend and had promised to take Tim to a new time and space exhibit at the museum while he was in town. It actually sounded relatively interesting, and seeing the way Tim lit up with such effusive delight at the idea of his brother spending time with him, Bruce had casually mentioned that he might go too. Tim had dropped his plate on his way to the sink and had gotten tense and quiet again when he cleaned it, almost painfully surprised when Bruce had mentioned later on that he would still go with them.
Sometimes it was… troubling, the way Tim expected for things to be taken away from him, the way he expected to be punished for saying things a certain way or failing to do something innocuous. Bruce had a list of such moments and was watching carefully for another, concerned by this situation.
Was it Bruce’s fault? Was it some leftover from when Tim had first started as Robin? God knew there had been missteps there. He’d never trained any of them as hard or as long, before or after the boy’s training in Europe. Was this uncertainty a shadow from their beginning that Tim wouldn’t ever be able to shake? He had been brutal at times, so desperate not to repeat the mistakes that had led to Jason’s death that he had made all new ones. The boy didn’t seem to have the same issue with Dick.
Bruce wanted that to improve. Tim had more than earned his place as Robin, and he’d proven himself as Red Robin time and again. It was his place at the Manor he seemed most uncertain of, especially with Damian wearing the mantle now. He didn’t often stay with them, typically at home with his uncle, but…
Surely he knew how Bruce saw him. He was the smartest child Bruce had ever met. Even if their beginning hadn’t been a neat one, surely he knew how important he was to Bruce, how much he meant to the team, how solid his place was.
Regardless, this would be a good opportunity to affirm that. Damian was off on Spring Break at the Kent farm, Dick was home for the weekend, and after this patrol, they’d be able to relax. They could function as the family they had cobbled together, and it would be fine.
“I’m telling you, Mr. Freeze would beat the absolute pants off Penguin,” Tim said in Bruce’s ear as he grappled to a nearby rooftop, resuming the earlier argument, and Bruce smiled slightly. Freeze was definitely the boy’s second-favorite villain, his first being Riddler simply because he liked a challenge. Dick, on the other hand…
“There’s no way Freeze would beat Penguin,” Dick disagreed immediately, as he always had. “He plays way dirtier than Freeze, he’d get him before the doofus even saw what was coming.”
“I think Freeze is the correct answer,” Bruce agreed, perching on the edge of the roof to watch a woman cross the street. She made it safely into her building and he turned his gaze further down the road.
Tim laughed, which was one of Bruce’s favorite sounds in the world. It had been a while before the boy had relaxed enough as Robin to joke and laugh the way his predecessors had. Bruce hadn’t exactly been in the right mind to encourage it or to chuckle at any of his jokes himself, which wouldn’t have helped. But eventually he had started joking, and started laughing, and that had been…
Different.
Jason had been (dead gone buried) away and Dick had been furious and heartbroken, refusing to even speak to Bruce much less laugh with him. His world had been dark and cold, shut tight like a Venus flytrap. Tim had pried it open with his presence, but things hadn’t really gotten brighter until he’d heard him laugh.
He’d missed the sound of a Robin’s laughter so much.
“There’s nothing more exciting than a mugger.” Bruce glanced back to see the man being hauled up by a policeman, pulling himself out of his woolgathering. He watched to ensure the mugger was thrown into the back of a police car, then headed off in the other direction. “What kind of disturbances are you seeing in your part of the city?”
“Quiet so far, but there’s more activity the closer I get to Crime Alley. I won’t cross over the line, but there’s definitely something going on tonight.” He sounded a little tense, and Bruce couldn’t entirely blame him.
Jason.
But he had it handled, and any of them looking to lend a hand in his second son’s neighborhood was a sure fire way to end the night with someone bloody.
“Keep to our side of the line,” Bruce agreed, but headed that way anyway. He wouldn’t interfere, but seeing Jason working, watching him move and breathe and take care of things was sometimes helpful for his anxiety.
His son was (a murderer a criminal so strong so beautiful so alive) a complicated situation for the entire family, but hesitant boundary lines had been drawn and as long as everyone stuck to their side of the deal, there was peace. Bruce could look out at Crime Alley so long as he didn’t step foot in it. He could see Jason- from a distance, so long as he didn’t try to cross over or really interact with him too much. They always ended up arguing if he did.
Dick had more luck, of course. He was relentlessly bright, dedicated beyond measure to his brothers in a way he wasn’t even to Bruce. He had lost Jason, had understood what their relationship should have looked like, and had been ceaselessly supportive and patient with Tim and Damian after. And once Jason was back, all that love and patience and devotion had been aimed back at him again. It was no wonder that Jason wasn’t quite as good at holding a grudge against him as he was against Bruce or Tim.
“Gang fight on North End,” Dick’s voice came, and Bruce redirected, swinging himself into the Batmobile to cross the city. “Corner of 8th and Park, I’m going to have injured, possibly casualties if nothing gets in their way.”
“Do you need backup?” Tim’s voice was sharp.
“I’m on my way,” Bruce assured him. It hadn’t passed his notice that his eldest had been around more often lately, was clearly trying to get Jason’s attention and have him join back in again.
Jason had made his stance clear. Bruce was fairly certain that being around was just upsetting him more, honestly, and when Jason was upset, people tended to get injured. But Dick was hard to resist, and Bruce was silently hoping that he would succeed where Bruce himself always failed.
“Red Robin, how are things in your sector?” He needed to stop with the wool gathering, needed to focus on what he was doing. A moment’s distraction in the field could cost lives.
“The area’s been cleared, no people, no signs of a fight. Looks like a rogue’s work. Maybe Riddler? Is he loose right now?” He hummed. “I’ll look for a calling card.”
“We will.” He could handle any clues Riddler had left, at least for now. That would be fine. “Tell us if anything changes and we will go your way. Nightwing, two minutes to your location.” He spun the Batmobile around a corner.
He had arrived and they were a good four minutes into the fight with the gangsters when his comm caught his attention again. The fight was fine- their opponents were big and stupid, but had the advantage of guns and numbers. Even rival gangsters will fight together to fight the Batman, Jason had once remarked with a roll of his eyes when he had been so much smaller and so much sweeter. It was a time-honored truth by now. They could kill each other later, they only had that moment to try to kill the Bat.
On the plus side, he was always seen more as a threat, so his much more armored suit tended to take the brunt of the bullets. It paired well with Nightwing’s ability to flip around and disarm their opponents while they were distracted.
Much like Bruce was at-
“Whoa, Hood, I didn’t even cross over. The border is that telephone pole right there.” Tim didn’t sound afraid (a problem always a problem he was too fearless Jason had been the same) but was annoyed if anything.
“So why are you sniffing around, then? Spying?” Jason’s voice was masked by his helmet and aggressive, tense and already spoiling for a fight. That didn’t bode well for the ability for them to actually work together tonight.
“Red, come back to our side,” Dick said sharply as he flipped over the back of a taller man, tamping down the sadness in his tone. Bruce could sympathize- it was always somewhere between relief and pain that Jason always used a modulator to mask and distort his voice.
Bruce could barely even remember what his son’s laughter sounded like, now. He desperately wished he could hear it again. How did it sound now? He was older, had his laugh changed?
How much more heartbreaking would it be if the answer was yes? That he’d lost that sound forever, that Bruce would never hear it again, that he’d wasted, so thoroughly, his chances to elicit that sound and make his child’s life easier?
“What’s there to spy on?” Tim laughed, though it was more tense than pleasant. “If I wanted to critique your lack of- there, look at that. Calling card?” Interest replaced the antagonism.
“Baby bird,” Nightwing half-sang as he flipped over his opponent’s head and twisted the gun he’d been aiming to the ground, barely keeping his tension reined beneath his cheerful demeanor, “Get on our side, don’t poke the bear.”
“That’s not the Riddler’s sign.” Red Robin’s voice had a frown to it. “Is this something you’ve been seeing in your territory before now?”
“Because I would tell you, Replacement?” It was amazing how he was still able to sound scathing even through the helmet’s distortion.
“Red Robin.” Bruce was slammed into the brick behind him and a gun was discharged against his side. He grunted- he hated the bruises point-blank shots made- and slammed his fist into the opponent's head. “Get back to our side. Now.”
“Probably should listen to Daddy Bat, Pretender. I told you that you don’t need a license to shoot down birds in this part of town.”
It was unsettling, so wrong and chilling on so many levels to hear such a cold, serious threat and know it was being said by his own son, a boy who had been so bright and funny and bold, but who never would have threatened another hero, a kid younger than himself especially.
“Fine, I’m going,” Tim relented finally, and Bruce breathed a little easier as he ducked, allowing one man to shoot another in the shoulder. “But just- Hood!” A note of distinct alarm, something spine-numbingly close to fear, followed by a violent cracking on the other side of the connection.
Bruce didn’t even think. He tore through the gangsters, slamming them into the walls and ground as he got back to the Batmobile, swinging in. “Nightwing!” He yelled as he fired it up, and his son barely made it in before Bruce was tearing down the street toward the other two.
This couldn’t be happening. Whatever that sound had been, it had to be something they could handle. It had to be something they could control. He could not and would not lose another child. Never again.
“Robin, report.” A mark of how stressed his eldest was that he was reverting to the older moniker and leaving off the Red, an action that Tim would have bristled at and Damian would have fumed over in any other circumstance on any other day. There was no answering voice on the other end of the line tonight, though. “Robin, report,” Dick said again, leaning forward and pressing a hand to his ear, nearly vibrating in anxiety. “Hood! What the hell just happened?!”
Bruce hit the tracker program with one hand, trying not to run them into a wall as the silence continued.
It hadn’t been a gunshot. It hadn’t been a neck snapping. It hadn’t been a gunshot. It hadn’t been a neck snapping. Jason wouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. The only reason he had gone as far as he had in Titans Tower had been because of the fresh Pit rage. It was gone now, he had (grudgingly angrily aggressively bitterly) coexisted with them for nearly two years. He wouldn’t kill Tim. Not for crossing the border, not so unprovoked, not- he wouldn’t kill Tim. It hadn’t been a gunshot. It couldn’t have been a bone breaking.
The tracker blinked to life on the map, directly on the border between Crime Alley and Gotham proper.
It wasn’t moving away or toward either.
It hadn’t been a gun and they were both fine but he couldn’t hear either of them and-
The Batmobile wasn’t even fully stopped when Bruce launched out of it where the tracker indicated Tim was. Dick was right behind him, scaling the wall to head up to the roof. Bruce prowled along the alley, forcing himself to pay attention to where he was going.
“Red Robin!” He called. He was ignoring how his own voice sounded, gravel mixed with broken glass, trying so hard to forget the last time he’d heard it like that. “Report! Now!”
“Cape,” he heard Nightwing report sharply, though Tim didn’t say a word, and he whipped around the corner to find his eldest crouched beside Tim’s cape and his utility belt. His staff wasn’t there though, and there wasn’t any sign of Jason one direction or another. There was no blood, no sign of a scuffle.
Breathe breathe Tim reported similar abandonment in the area it could be a third party-
He turned and found Tim’s watch on the sidewalk, the tracker embedded in it vanishing on Bruce’s phone when he made contact.
Bruce picked up the watch, curling his fingers around it, and allowed himself a beat to try and take in breath that didn’t exist. Two of the children he’d tasked himself with protecting were gone. Again, he was finding pieces of a Robin’s costume strewn behind to let him know what had happened.
The chains of his self-control were cracking and he slowly put the watch in his belt. “Go north,” he said, voice sounding almost disembodied. This wasn’t like last time. It couldn’t be. Not at Jason’s hand. “I’ll go south. Cover as much as you can. Call in the others, have them search too. Whatever happened, they couldn’t have gone far.”
His eldest, the talkative sunburst, didn’t say a word now, just crossed rapidly to put the cape and belt into their vehicle before taking off at a run to flip, catching a lamppost in a swing, and vanishing over the edge of a rooftop again. Bruce gave himself another moment, forcing his breathing even in the same way he had taught to all of his sons, then turned and started moving, searching down alleyways for any movement, any activity.
A calling card, Tim had noted. A rogue’s activity. This could be a trap of some sort, an ambush.
This could even be further theatrics from Jason. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d given into his flair for the dramatic. Maybe he’d kidnapped Tim, taken him hostage to try to teach Bruce a lesson about letting a (former) Robin out patrolling on his own. That sounded plausible… surely it was plausible. Perhaps-
He caught only a glimpse of a shape vanishing through a broken-out window, the briefest flutter of movement, and took off at a dead sprint. If this was a trap, he wasn’t going to call Nightwing’s attention to it, especially if this was going to go sour, or if this was a misdirection, or something entirely unrelated, he had to let him keep searching, but in the meantime-
In the meantime it was becoming rapidly clear that this was a chase, that Bruce was hunting someone quick and light-footed who knew the area well, because every time he shoved his way into a room, he caught the smallest glimpse of a shape whipping around a corner or through a door, out of sight again and again.
If he wasn’t chasing someone who could have something to do with his children’s disappearance he might almost be impressed. This was someone fast, someone capable, someone who clearly knew the area well. It could be a sign that the escape route had been planned in advance… Or perhaps they were just very familiar with the territory. It was hard to say- Bruce had a hard time tracking the players in Crime Alley these days, with Jason’s violent repulsion of anything Bat-related within his bounds.
And he was, truly, in the heart of Crime Alley now, all pretense of stealth abandoned in the face of ensuring that this lead didn’t evaporate on the spot, He sprinted on, ignoring the gasps here and there from those gathered by little fires or relaxing on front porches at the sight of the Bat thundering down the street on foot rather than racing along rooftops.
He rounded a street corner just in time to see a door slam shut to a small one-story building, the front of which had several working girls either chatting up potential customers or wandering to the sidewalk in the hopes of catching other attention.
“Uh-uh, where you think you’re going?” One stepped directly in his path when he headed toward the building in a prowl. There were no obvious entrances or exits aside from the front door, but there were sure to be back windows. “Hey.” The girl, maybe in her late-twenties, clapped hard in front of his cowled face. “Batsy. What the fuck you think you’re doing? Gonna bust us for earnin’ a living? I’ll bust ya face first. There ain’t nothin’ in there you need.”
“Someone just ran in there and I need to question them.” He moved to the other side, stepping around her, and she backed up rapidly to stay in his way. There were absolutely ways out of that room and building, and the lead was probably gone already and his son was missing and the boy he had been thinking of like a son was missing and it was his fault that another Robin had been hurt and he was going to lose his shit.
“I said, there ain’t nothin’ in there you need.” She stepped to the side with him a second time when he tried to push forward, shoulders rolling back a little as she shot a scowl at him, and he gave a quick, brief assessing glance. Slightly curvy, no muscle definition to speak of, not armed- and yes, a flash of fear in her brown eyes, despite the aggression in her tone. Her glare intensified. “This place is protected by the Hood, we don’t need no bats or birds here. You mess with us and you’ll regret it. You go back to the Diamond Diss and keep those pretty skyrises safe.”
A slight movement by one of the windows, the smallest shuffle of the curtain and the sight of what might have been black hair before the curtain closed again fast.
“I respect the Hood’s grounds,” Bruce said through his teeth (he wasn’t about to do anything to Jason’s girls, but the fact remained that this was taking too much time), “And I’m not planning on hurting anyone. I just need to speak to the person who just ran in. Not arrest, not harm. You can supervise if you need to.” And he’d deal with that when it came.
“Nina,” one of the others murmured, and Nina snapped her fingers at her with a sharp look, then eyed him, tapping her fingers nervously on her leg for a minute.
“Text the Hood an’ let him know,” she said to the girl nearest her, and she pointed at Bruce’s face aggressively. “I don’t give a shit if you’re the Batman or Jesus’ firstborn son, you hurt those kids an’ I’ll crack your head like an egg,” she threatened, turning on her heel to head for the front door.
“Kids?” Bruce’s brain took a moment to catch up with his body as he followed close behind her. “It was children who ran in here?”
They hadn’t been the culprit, then, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t seen something. He hadn’t necessarily wasted time here on this chase, and Dick was still running the other leads down.
“Did I stutter, motherfucker?” She shot him a hateful look as she opened the door, then peered inside. “Hey, babies, he says he just wants to talk,” she said, voice gentling as she stepped inside. Bruce had the brief view of a grungy front room as she stepped to the right, and then Red Robin’s bo staff was being swung violently down toward his head.
He caught it out of instinct despite his shock and looked down-
Did I stutter
Maybe she had, everything else certainly was-
Did I stutter,
Because this moment was freezing and replaying, over and over, this one instant perpetuated into at least twenty seconds, time grinding to a halt as he stared down at the angry twelve year-old on the other end of the staff.
Did I stutter?
Messy black hair that had a tiny bit of curl to it, just enough to make it perpetually untidy. Blue eyes without so much as a trace of green in them even when they were narrowed into a ferocious scowl. Teeth bared in a growl that showed off a tiny gap between his right incisor and the rest of the teeth. A hand wrapped tight around the staff, another reached backwards-
Did I-
Bruce couldn’t tear his eyes away, couldn’t process the thought, but the one moment was twenty so he found a spare second in which his eyes moved on their own to extend to the end of the reaching hand, finding an absolutely tiny boy with much softer black hair, two delicate hands pressed over his mouth in horror, almond blue eyes wide with fright at the scene in front of him.
Did I stutter?
Unmistakably, absolutely unmistakably-
These were his sons.