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There was something dangerously comfortable about Batman’s darkness.
It pressed heavily on Dick’s shoulders, imprisoning his cranium, swallowing him whole, and shrouding him from the outside world. Its cold was less like hypothermia slowly eating away at his sense and more akin to being in bed after a long day, the blankets not yet warm enough, all the lights in the room gone, all sounds muffled as he slipped into slumber. Everything disappeared. He disappeared. The exhaustion weighing on his limbs and clawing inside his chest, threatening to break every single rib in an attempt to escape and squeezing his eyeballs as if trying to juice them may not yet be gone, but they would be soon, and there was relief to be found in that. There was freedom. Salvation did not come in the form of sleep, but rather, it briefly blessed him during that in-between state when consciousness was suspended yet not fully absent. It came during that window of time when the self was destroyed and the nightmares were yet to arrive.
Batman’s darkness ate away at his mind, letting him live in nonexistence. He could think clearly, he could think sharply, he could think quickly. And yet, despite being fully cognitive, the pain never got to him because because Batman’s darkness extinguished anything attempting to pierce its armor. Beneath the cowl, only Batman was allowed to exist, and when the world was too much and when the people were not enough, when the heart starved for that which it knew it could never have, when the soul carried festering wounds that would never heal, nonexistence was a mercy.
Dick had always known this. For the longest time it had been his job to keep that darkness at bay, preventing it from consuming too much. From becoming too permanent. When Bruce could not find his way out, it was Dick who willfully walked into the shadows and took his hand, guiding him back to the light. Dick braved that path again and again and again and again and again and again, equipped with nothing but that single candle melting in his grip.
He did it because he refused to abandon Bruce. He did it because he knew that though the darkness threatened to eat Bruce away, it was safe and merciful, and it loved Bruce just as much as Dick did. At times, the darkness could even be kind. That was why Bruce, the strongest and most stubborn man to ever exist, always fell prey to its song. No matter how many people Dick introduced to Bruce’s life, no matter how hard Dick proved to Bruce that being happy was not a betrayal to his parents’ memories, no matter how much Dick offered Bruce the unconditional acceptance he so desperately needed, the darkness remained alluring. It remained welcoming. It remained comforting. It remained kinder than even the most loyal of friends. And so Bruce always came back to it. And so Dick always followed him.
Not that doing so was unpleasant, of course. Dick had always loved the Bruce the most, but he also always loved Batman second. He never learned how to love Dick Grayson enough.
Now that Bruce Wayne was gone, sacrificing Dick Grayson to that all-consuming darkness was worth it if it meant Dick could at least keep Batman by his side.
It was only thanks to another sleepless night that Batman picked up on the odd readings. Agent, Robin, Oracle, and Batgirl had, thankfully, long gone to bed. This was not a job in which he would want their company or assistance, however well-intended. Had the signals arrived during their regular patrol, he would have dropped Robin at the Cave, instructed Batgirl to take over his regular route, and would have shut off all communications with Agent A and Oracle. He did not need any distractions when investigating Gotham City’s Youth Center.
Whatever energy the Computer detected, though, was not perceivable to the cowl’s scanner. He switched between the lenses’ numerous settings, jaw locking as his surroundings remained unchanged. It would be easy to dismiss the situation as a fluke, but Batman knew better than to be so careless. Just because he wasn’t picking up on anything now, it didn’t mean that something didn’t happen before his arrival, and if that was the case, he needed to discover what that something was, determinate whether or not it was a threat to his city, and deal with it accordingly. Which meant he needed to locate where specifically that no longer detectable energy spike that set off the Computer had come from.
Which meant he had to go further into the building.
It was four hours until the break of dawn, and while full moon was high in the sky, it’s silver gleam barely penetrated the inside of the edifice. Most of its windows were purposefully designed to keep the light out, after all. Careful not to let his footsteps echo, Batman walked past the entrance hall and the visitor center, then turned left to go to the west wing. A long, dust-encrusted corridor with tiled floors that had never lined-up properly extended before him, its cracks resembling veins from which dried up sprouts grew, and then, deprived of any nourishment, withered. Though now hollow of its utilitarian grandeur, the walls were still too tall yet too claustrophobic, their deteriorating blankness forging grotesque monsters out of peeling paint and grime. They watched him. Judged him. And they found him wanting.
No. That wasn’t it. The feeling of being watched was not due to some abstract discomfort, to memories of dark room and closets with paint buckets and broken mirrors — memories that should no longer hold any power over him. There really was something watching him, but the cowl’s augmented lenses showed no signs of life within a five meter radius. Yet, the feeling persisted, and nearly two decades of vigilante work taught Batman that if it were a choice between human instincts and technology, then no matter how much Oracle or Red Robin may disagree with him, human instincts always won out.
Batman reached for one of the batarangs. Magic, aliens, or time travel. All of those could easily bypass even the Justice League’s security systems — systems that Batman himself helped code. All of them were a possibility, none of them were options he cared for, but he needed to be prepared.
He turned the corner, going right. A time traveler might show up in any old supply closet or broken bathroom, but sorcerers would require space to perform a ritual, and aliens… Past experience dictated that alien behavior would depend on the native culture, but new comers liked to stick close to windows for easy access to their spaceships. As the east wing was composed primarily of small offices built with narrow angles, going west had been a good decision. The cafeteria on the first floor would provide more room, while the brick-walled basement would be more hidden. But perhaps whoever — or whatever — was behind these readings did not have a choice where or when it — whatever it was — took place. Often were the times when those dealing with magic or futuristic technology were forced to submit to strange and unknowable whims. Still, that gave Batman a place to start. It helped narrow down the locations he could search first, so that he was not just mindlessly wandering through the abandoned building, trying to locate an unknown factor.
His cape dragged behind him. Even before the building had fallen into such a dilapidated state, it had always been safer to navigate these halls from the shadows. With each step, the back of his neck prickled as if long nails were slowly and grazing his skin with a ghostly touch. Chills shot down his arm, making his breath catch in his throat. Someone — something? — was definitely aware of his presence, and while Batman was perhaps not the focus of its conscious, it still observed him from the peripheries.
Yet, there was no sign of anyone having walked these halls in the near past. A wayward, far too well-preserved and well-made chair by a window or a too pristine old soccer ball revealed the once upon presence of ghost hunting enthusiasts whose stage-setting was abandoned after recording, while sprayed paint walls proved that as infamous as the youth center was, it would not deter Gotham’s vandals — there were the classic and expected vulgarities, the Freaks’ tell-tale F insignia, a puzzling “HELL?” in neon orange, bright blue numbers reading 3-8-1-9—
Batman halted. He turned far too briskly at the numbers, only to see he was mistaken. Bougie. Written in a strange handwriting and completely devoid of context, but that’s what it was. Bougie. Not numbers. Not in that order.
Focus, he told himself, holding tighter to the batarang, teeth grinding. He needed to focus.
Then, a sound. Far in the distance, one would be excused to dismiss it as an owl hooting or a tree creaking with the wind. But there were no tress surrounding the youth detention center, and Batman had yet to see good spots in which a bird as big as an owl could make their nests, though there would most likely be plenty of rats to feast upon. Batman waited and — Yes, there it was again. Louder this time. And also… Also stranger. Like a corrupted recording of an owl’s screech was played backwards. There was something… Something terribly wrong about it.
Without another moment of pause, Batman followed its beckoning. After three minutes going in its direction, his scanners detected signs of life for the first time since stepping inside the building. It was just a few paces above his head.
Human. Large frame that indicated they most likely were male-presenting or assigned male at birth. Heart still beating, but fast. Too fast. Breathing heavily. They were on the floor, most likely hurt. But not dead. Yet.
With that new information, there was no time to be careful. Batman ran, turning a hallway, then going up a flight of stairs he knew from memory would be there. He reached for five other batarangs so that he had three on each hand, tucked between his fingers. As he stepped into another corridor, he skidded through another corner so that he was now facing the fallen figured.
Though cowl’s scanners still did not detect any other signs of life, Batman’s eyes showed that they were not alone.
Its body looked human, but only vaguely so, as if rather than skin, a thin layer gray wax covered its organs and skeleton. Shackles chained both ankles, the links looking heavy and rusted. It’s knees bended inward, though their placements were not only too high on the legs, but they also did not quite match. There were feathers in its too-long arms, many close to the shoulder, then its quantity diminishing as it descended down to the hands. Those were composed of sharp, long, blood-stained claws. They, too, were bent in a way that did not align with any functional biological purpose as they gripped a splinted baseball-bat. Nearly as tall as the ceiling, its head was that of a barn owl. Though it wore a velvety red blindfold, Batman did not doubt that it knew exactly where he stood.
Whatever that creature was, it was not human, and… And Batman was not sure if it was even alive.
For a moment, there was no movement. Batman stared at the creature, and the creature appeared to stare back at him. Then, its head slowly rotated until it was upside down. Its shoulders hunched as it screeched.
It was only a lifetime of training that kept Batman from stepping back in shock. The noise the creature made was not the one that had brought Batman to that corridor. No, rather than that wrong owl-like noise, when the creature opened it’s beak, it was a child’s cheerful laughter that reverberate within the walls of Gotham City’s Youth Center.
The spell that held them all still was now broken. The creature dragged itself forward, its body contorting with each uneven step, torso swaying from side to side, bat swung back violently and clumsily over its shoulder. It’s beak was still open, but the cheerful laughter slowly transformed into a child’s heartbreaking cry.
Batman charged forward, jumping over the fallen figure and throwing his batarangs. The creature swung the bat, deviating each of them from their course.
“Leave,” Batman growled at the person on the ground, his stance firm and protective. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can, but you need to leave. Now.”
There was no time to see if the person would follow his orders. The creature was close now, bat within swinging distance of the cowl. Batman avoided its attack just in time, lowering to the ground. He skidded between its legs, and in doing so, grabbed the chains connecting the shackles. Just as he was hoping, the creature fell with a heavy thump. Rather than continuing to go forward, it turned around so it was facing Batman once more, giving the other person a window to escape unseen.
The creature did not stand up immediately. Still holding a bat with its right hand, it crawled on all fours, its movement still crude and harsh, as if it broke a bone each time it crept forward. It opened its beak, once more letting out that child’s laughter followed by a cry.
Bracing for impact, Batman once more lowered himself so that when the creature jumped on him, it would roll off his back. By timing it just right, he leaped up and added even more force to the toss, sending the creature to the opposite side of the corridor, the bat flying off its hand.
The structure of the building was not sound enough for him to use any explosives or grenades. A close, narrow hallway gave him little room to move about, much less use heights to his advantage. Still, there were options. The bolas could slow it down, but Batman doubted it would be able to hold it down for long. Tranquilizer darts could be useful, but as he had no idea what this unliving creature even was, there was no guarantee that sedatives, no matter how strong, would knock it out. The creature was blindfolded, which meant it either saw through the fabric or that it relied on other senses besides its vision. That eliminated any smoke bombs or flashes. There were also the shock-gloves that he had newly implemented on his armor, the electricity right on his fingertips. Those could come in handy. And he could always try for a sonic attack, but that would be better saved for when the person had safely cleared the area.
Batarangs, both normal and electric. Bolas. Tranquilizer darts. Rope. Hand-to-hand combat. Not a great arsenal, but Batman had faced worse odds in the past. The longer the fight went on, the more he could learn about this creature and how to take it down for good.
Batman did not wait for the creature to come to him. He ran, lunging forward and landing right on top of the creature. He pinned it down with one hand, then punched it with another. Electricity zapped through its body with a sickening buzz, the child’s laughter growing louder as the shock caused its limbs to convulse.
He punched the creature again. Then another one. And another. Each time it’s screeches grew louder, its convulsion increased, yet it still tried to fight Batman. The electricity did little to incapacitate it.
With a kick that had far too much force for legs that thin, the creature managed to throw Batman off. With a flip, Batman landed easily on his feet.
He grabbed more batarangs as the creature reached for its bat. This time, it was not able to knock the flying weapons out of the way. Four struck its torso, piercing the clay-like skin. The two others cut its arms.
The creature twisted its head and cried. A thick, black, viscous liquid slowly trickled from the open wounds.
So it could be hurt. Good. But how fast would it heal?
Batman reached for more batarangs — electric, this time. He was ready to throw them, but the first drops of the black blood finally hit the ground. Two, four, five, eight, ten. Small puddles pooled at the creature’s feet. From every single drop of blood that hit the floor, up sprang more monsters.
These were not like the creature Batman was originally fighting. They barely reached Batman’s knee. Yet their appearance confounded him more than the original, for though bizarre, it still had some semblance of a human shape. These new ones… They were like teeth. Sharp, dangerous, giant teeth. Or tooth, each one of them, a single tooth. There was no mouth, nose, eyes, or any form of dent or carving on its surface that indicated where their front ended and their back began.
They did have arms, though. Or, something that resembled arms, that functioned like arms. Their hands, like the first monster, was made up of sharp claws.
The first creature tilted its head upside down again and let out what could possibly have been a battle cry. Then, it, and all of the teeth surrounding it, charged towards Batman.
Batman readied himself, stance low. His hands curled into fists. But before he could do anything, someone grabbed his forearm.
“Run.”
Instinct kicked in. He followed the order. Together, they raced down the hall at full speed. They turned left, ran straight ahead, then turned right. The creatures chased them, but they were not nearly quick enough.
They opened a door to their left. Both entered the room and quickly closed it. They waited with bated breaths, listening for the creatures, ready to fight again if needed. After two minutes waiting, it was clear they had lost the monsters, and so they stepped away from the walls which they were pressed against and properly looked at one another.
The man in front of him was tall. Broad. His square jaw was dusted with a light black and white stubble, his posture carrying a quiet confidence that was painfully familiar. Though his eyes were covered, they were undoubtedly the iciest shade of blue possible.
Dick drew in a breath.
“Bruce.”
By the time Dick went on his first patrol fourteen years ago, he thought himself accustomed to his reflection dawning the green and red uniform and yellow cape. After all, he’d worn it plenty of times already, be it for training, fittings, or for testing the resilience of the fabric material. And yet, as he put his mask and looked at himself in the mirror, he saw for the first time not Dick Grayson staring back at him, but Robin.
He stared for what could have been an eternity. It was his skin, his hair, his nose, his lips, his arms and legs, and it was him in that reflection, yet it was Robin standing there, and not Dick Grayson. They were the same person yet also different in a way that was impossible to fully discern. Like two sides of the same coin, they were a single entity, but for one to be visible, the other must be hidden.
This uncanny dissociation Dick — Robin — experienced was validated when, as he was about to enter the Batmobile, a heavy hand laid on his shoulders, stopping him in his track.
“Remember,” Batman had said. “No names in the field.”
Those same words were repeated to him nearly every night for three months until they were fully internalized. When the mask was on, when the cowl was up, there was no Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, only Batman and Robin. Only Batman and Nightwing. Only Batman.
It was a sacred rule that Dick had never before broken… Until now.
Stupid, stupid, stupid Grayson.
“Those five magical amulets were purposefully scattered across the multiverse,” Bruce debriefed. His posture was just a little bit too stiff, the way it usually was when he tried to make the pain disappear through pure will power and stubbornness. “One was in my universe. I’ve recovered three others. The last one is in this building.”
They were inside a classroom. The desks were crammed together in the small space, some still with pencils on top, others with yellow-paged math textbooks. Not an ideal layout for battle, especially when there were two of them. Time and neglect bent the legs of some of the chairs and tables, making them unfit to stand either their weight or that of the monsters. They could also be easily used as obstacles. A split moment of unsteadiness or having to navigate around such big hurdles could be crucial to gaining the upper-hand on a fight.
“I’m guessing they were kept apart for a reason,” The light fixtures were still attached to the ceiling despite the building being deprived of electricity for over a decade. A hard yank would be enough to knock them down should need arise. “Which must mean you must also have a reason for collecting them.”
Behind Dick, the chalkboard was marred by white markings that glowed beneath thin slices of the full moon’s light. Miraculously still legible, the right and center sections were simple algebraic equations waiting to the be solved. The far left corner immortalized a series of numbers and followed by Xs.
J. I. #140414 — X X
J. I. #081019 — X
J.I. #150898 — X
J.I. #010108 — X X
J.I. #270916 — X X X and a line to strike it all.
The nails holding the chalkboard in place were rusty, but firm. Though not impossible, it would still be impractical to attempt to remove it from the wall in the middle of a battle.
“After being separated for so long, their magic started to reach towards each other across the multiverse,” Bruce explained. His voice was deep. Steady. It was as if it was made of the night sky’s heavy shadows and of great stone monoliths. It was like being given a warm hot chocolate before bed, after a school day filled with bullies and a night patrol with too many bodies. “That resulted on some… Anomalies.”
“Is that what you call those things?” By contrast, even Dick’s voice modulator could not fully remove from his words that long-winded, fleeting quality that had the same steadiness and confidence as rustling leaves.
“No. The anomalies have yet to start in this universe,” Bruce said. The almost imperceivably weight shift from one foot to the other showed that whatever injury he was sporting must be really bothering him. His neck was stiff, his lips pressed together ever so slightly. “Those… things…. Are how the amulet defends itself.”
“That… implies sentience,” Dick said. Should he ask about it? It would be prudent to make sure none of the injuries were too severe, after all. But Bruce never liked having his wounds fussed over, even if it had always been Dick’s job to do so. “At least, sentience enough to want to protect itself from… I’m going out on a limb and guess destruction.”
“Red Robin and Zatanna created a mechanism to safely dispose of them.”
“So that’s a yes on destruction and a yes on it being somewhat-sentient,’” Dick nodded. “Any idea where exactly in the building this thing is?”
Bruce raised his hand, touching the side of his temple. He was probably flipping through the lenses of his cowl, trying to get a reading on the amulet’s magic. As Dick’s own cowl was unable to detect anything, that meant Bruce’s must have been specifically equipped and calibrated to pick up on the object’s unique energy signatures.
“East. Possibly underground.”
“The basement, then.”
“The readings are more specific the closer I am to it.”
“Alright,” the wooden door to Dick’s right had a long, thin window. At just the right angle they could remain unseen from the outside while keeping an eye on the corridors. Dick peered through it, studying the surroundings. “There are multiple ways to get from here to the ground floor, but there’s only one entrance to the basement. We’ll need to move fast, though, if we want to get there before more defenses come our way.”
Just as Dick reached for the door handle, Bruce held his wrist.
The silence that followed was a familiar one. It always preceded words Bruce knew would not be well-received. When it stretched on for far too long, Dick held back a frustrated sigh and turned to look at Bruce.
“What?”
“You don’t need to come with me.”
Dick’s teeth locked together. It took all of his self-control not to scream.
“Did any of the other Batman you met let you run around their universe looking for a dangerous, somewhat-sentient, magical amulet alone? Or am I the only you don’t trust?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“What else could you have meant?”
Another hesitation. At this pace, Dick’s teeth would soon turn to chalk in his mouth.
“I can handle it on my own,” Bruce said.
Dick snorted.
“Yeah, you really had things under control when when I showed up.”
“I’m serious, Dick,” it was Bruce’s turn to sound frustrated. “You don’t have to be here. Not in this place.”
Ah. So that was it.
Dick wanted to take in a deep, calming breath, just as he often did when he fought with his Bruce. But Batman never took deep, calming breaths — at least, not in a way that it was noticeable.
“This is my Gotham. I’m her Batman. If she’s in danger, then I’ll be there to stop it.”
Dick left the classroom. He did not have to wait long for Bruce to follow him.
When viewed from outside, Gotham City’s Youth Center appeared as if it were constructed of identical gray blocks arranged around an inner courtyard. This plain exterior masked the fact that, inside, those seemingly identical gray blocks were purposefully designed to have a nonsensical layout. Like the labyrinth meant to disorientate and terrorize its tributes as they were stalked by the Minotaur, the corridors were long, radiating with unexpected turns and sharp angles from the center structure — the Main Hall, where all the administrative and public-facing facilities were located. There was no symmetry to be found, no mirroring of rooms across all floors, no two hallways that perfectly lined up. Certain sections of the building were left unused even when the youth center was at maximum capacity, their purpose being to deter escapes by confusing and slowing down the juvenile inmates.
The malicious design had never quite worked on Dick. A myriad of different routes were forever seared into his brain, their interconnecting shapes impossible to forget.
They had reached the last step of the stairs when Dick paused. Causing Bruce to stop as well. Though the pale moonlight was still minimal, there was still enough to cast two dark shadows in front of them. When viewed side-by-side, the difference between them was glaring — even with an armor specifically designed to compensate for Dick’s slim figure and short stature, he was still significantly smaller than Bruce, the slope of his shoulders more delicate, his height less imposing.
The contrast added to the weight of Dick’s cowl and cape.
“Something is wrong,” Bruce said. A statement, not a question.
Dick hummed, looking behind them but making no further comment. The only sounds around them were that of the wind outside. The air remained cold, but not abnormally so. They were not being followed.
“What is it?”
Dick counted the steps for the third time. He looked up, counting the number of floors. The upwards spiraling of the stairs was dizzying, the shapes created by concrete, empty air, moonlight, and shadows adding a strange rhythmic movement to the breathing stillness of the abandoned building. Vines crawled and hanged from windows; there were spots where the handrails were broken, bent, or missing all together; more graffiti and crude drawing. Dick almost expected to see that owl creature peer down from the very top, looking at him like a predator before letting out that chilling laughter-turned-cry. He held his breath.
One second passed.
Then two.
Three.
No others sounds, no new shadows, no other movement. They were still alone.
Dick turned to face Bruce.
“Ask me again in five minutes. I’ll have an answer then.”
Dick couldn’t see Bruce’s eyes behind the white lenses, but he imagined that they, too, were now examining the stairs. He nodded, and the two continued to their journey.
They checked their surroundings whenever they made a turn or when they were faced with a new segment or wing of the building. Their footsteps were eerily silent, their capes sweeping the dust on the floor.
After two minutes, Bruce spoke up.
“You knew to come here.”
A question, not a statement. There was no suspicion in his voice, though. He was trying to assess if there were other potential risk factors to their current situation.
“The Computer detected an unidentified surge of energy coming from this location,” Dick said. At a bifurcation, Dick saw mismatched footprints made at odd intervals turning to the left. Though it was the longer way, they turned right. “It was already long past usual patrol time, but something like that required immediate investigation.”
“My arrival, most likely,” Bruce said. “Or the anomalies have begun.”
Dick nodded, having already come to the same conclusion. This particular corridor had no windows, darkness engulfing its length. The right wall had doors leading to classrooms and offices and broom closets, while the left one was claustrophobic in its emptiness.
“You have not contacted anyone,” Bruce continued.
The feeling of being watched returned — or maybe it had never gone away, and its intensity had simply magnified. Logic dictated that it was the amulet’s gaze on him, but there was something familiar about the way it made his skin feel just a bit too tight, his inhales requiring just a bit more effort.
“There’s no back-up coming,” Bruce concluded, and Dick had to tell himself that the judgment he heard was his own projection.
Dick looked behind them, then ahead. Given what they had walked so far, they should have already reached the atrium ahead of them, yet there was still about six meters separating them from the fire doors.
“Dick—”
“No. There is no one at the comms right now, and there is no back-up coming,” Dick said. “As I said, it was past patrol. Robin, Agent A, Batgirl, and Oracle retired for the night hours ago. I was not going to disturb them for what appeared to be a minor investigation.”
“There may have been no reason for you to expect or prepare for this scenario, but you knew where the energy readings were coming from,” the disapproval in Bruce’s voice clenched Dick’s heart, squeezing it as if it were a toy. “Yet you still chose to come here alone.”
Dick grit his teeth. It took a conscious effort to keep his hands from curling into fists. Rather than giving into the rigidness that threatened to seize his joints and limbs, Dick focused instead on the feel of the gauntlet against his skin. The fabric was rough, the padding stiff as they embraced each finger. It was almost as if Batman himself was holding his hand, guiding him back into the darkness so Dick could rest and he could take over.
“I could not afford distractions while investigating this place.”
“Distractions?” Bruce asked. “I may not agree with your choice, but I respect you keeping the truth from your siblings. Alfred and Barbara, though—”
“Are not responsible for my actions or my well-being. They do not know I am here, they do not need to know what is happening, and they will not know about any of this.”
“Dick—”
“I am Batman.”
Dick’s words were a growl, spoken through teeth and tension. Their gravitas was too heavy to allow them to echo, their weight fixing them to the spot like nails hit by a hammer. Saying them had almost knocked the air out of Dick’s lungs, leaving him far more breathless than the fight with the monsters. Each passing second only added to the dread of the moment, only made his grief harder to swallow, the cape and cowl a bulk that Dick Grayson could not shoulder.
He wanted the darkness. He wanted Batman. He closed his eyes, and turned his face.
“I am Batman,” this time, he did not growl out the words. He said it as one would state an impartial fact — with little emotion and little doubt over its truth.
“Even Batman—”
“—needs partners. I know. That is not what I meant.” Dick focused on the gauntlet, he imagined fingers closing around his hand, he willed himself to slip away “I’m Batman. So you must have guessed what happened to my predecessor.”
Bruce didn’t say anything, his lips pressing together.
“You’re here only to get this amulet, and then you’ll be returning to your world,” he continued. “I’m not going to make Agent A, Robin, or even Oracle see you only to lose you once more.”
“Dick, you—”
“It’s been five minutes,” he interrupted, gesturing towards the fire doors in front of them, which led to a triangular atrium. “Did you notice it?”
Bruce’s lips thinned into a stubborn line. For seven seconds, it seemed as if he was not going to answer the question. Both Batmen stared at each other, willing the other to back down. Finally, Bruce sighed.
“The dimensions are not right,” Bruce said. He looked behind them, then to the ground, and finally to the fire doors “If one were to judge based on the turn we made to get here and the set of doors in front of us, the width of this hall becomes too wide for the space it is meant to occupy.”
“And the previous hallways was longer than it should be. The stairs coming down from the second floor had ten additional steps despite the fact the interval between each other floor remained the same,” Dick said. “There are three likely options. One, this is the first anomaly you spoke of; two, the amulet is making us hallucinate the same inconsistencies; or three, one of the amulet’s defensive mechanism allows it to break the laws of physics by distorting space.”
“All possible,” Bruce said. “But the third one is most likely. None of the anomalies I’ve encountered did something like this.”
Dick frowned. He was about to demand more details about what he did encounter previously and what exactly the anomalies he spoke of entailed when a ear-piercing laughter and the sound of something dragging across the tiled floor cut him off.
Bruce and Dick turned to look behind. Though there were no windows in their current corridor, there were on the previous one, allowing for some of the moonlight to illuminate the entrance. They saw a shadow peak through the corner, growing larger and larger with each off-beat footstep.
No words were needed. At the exact same second, they ran ahead, past the fire doors and into the atrium without bothering to check if there were any enemies in sight. From the corner of his eyes, Dick saw Bruce reach for his grapple gun, and he did the same. They aimed for an inner window in a room on the third floor, the hooks breaking the glass and undoubtedly alerting nearby enemies of their location. Both men flew up and entered the room — a small office, it seemed — as quickly as possible, boots crunching on broken glass as they crouched to the ground so as to not be visible from below.
They waited. After almost a minute, they heard laughter again — not just one, but multiple. They overlapped one another as they bounced on the walls, creating a hollow echo.
When Dick peered down, he saw three of the owl-like monsters. Though they had the exact same characteristics, one was much taller than the others, and a second was much wider. The third one had a bat in each hand — it dragged them over the tile floor as its body swayed dramatically from side to side as if it were a pendulum.
Dick pulled out a batraang. Rather than throwing it at the enemy, though, he scratched the wall in front of him. When none of the monsters responded to the noise, Dick put the batraang away. So long as they kept their voices to about the same volume as the batraang scratch, then the creatures wouldn’t be able to hear them.
“What is their weakness?” Dick asked, his gaze still fixed on the creatures. They spread out over the atrium, and the one with the two bats threw back its head and shrieked.
“It is unknown if they have any.”
“Everything has a weakness,” his voice carried far more certainty than he felt. “What were they in the other universes you visited?”
“This is my first encounter with them.”
Dick turned his gaze away from the monsters and onto Bruce, silently demanding an explanation.
“Each amulet’s magic is unique, as are the defenses they employ.” Bruce said. “Last universe, we infiltrated the Elliot Center, whose interiors — and only its interiors — were flooded with near zero temperature waters.”
A few years back, Dick had a mission with the Titans that involved a 120 meters dive in the Arctic circle. Even with Garth at his side to provide for support, the best technology available to the League, and a warming charm given to him by Rachel, the entire experience ranked high in Dick’s Top 15 Never Again list.
“Should have gone for the Iceberg Lounge,” Dick said. “At least then the giant aquarium theme would have made sense.”
Bruce almost smiled, “that’s exactly what Nightwing said.”
The fondness in his voice was so great and so ill-disguised that Dick turned his attention back to the monsters below.
“So you think that because they are attached to the amulet, they can’t be defeated?”
“The cowl’s scans showed you that there are no living organisms in this facility besides us.” Bruce asked. “They’re not alive, Dick. The only way to get them to disappear is to get to the amulet.”
The monster with the two bats started to swing them against a pillar as if it were a punching bag. Right, left, right, left, right left. It did this again and again as it threw its head back and laughed… Then cried.
“So any fight would be fruitless.”
“They would be a waste of time and energy.”
Dick smiled bitterly. Batman never ran away from his enemies, yet what other choice did they have? Even if these creatures could be defeated or incapacitated, there was no way to tell how long it would take for them to discover their weaknesses and to successfully execute a plan. And if this was the defense mechanism the amulet was employing when they were still so far away from it, Dick could only guess what awaited them in the basement.
Better to save their energy. A stealth mission it was.
“Right. Basement, then.”
“As fast as possible.”
With a last glance behind them, Dick and Bruce skulked across the small office. After Dick signaled that they would be going left, they opened the door and resumed their journey.
The more they walked, the more obvious the spacial distortions became — the hallways were longer, the doors a little too tall, the angles where wall met floor too wide to offer proper structural support. The scent, too, began to shift — Gotham’s pollution being overtaken by a stuffy smell of urine and fresh paint. Above them, dead electrical wires hung from the ceiling like thin snakes observing their prey with amusement, waiting for the inevitable moment when they would make a deadly mistake.
They passed three corridors without running into any other creature. They could still hear them, though. Below them. A few paces behind. Somewhere impossible to locate. Laughter and crying, the sounds of heavy bodies being dragged across the floor… Even when muted by distance, they retained that unsettling resonance that made the hair in the back of their necks stand.
As Dick was about to indicate they could descend two floors down by using the staircase to the right, he stopped, his breath caught in his throat.
Right in front of them were the number 381940 scratched across the white wall. From top to bottom, multiple angry lines formed each shape, their alignment just crooked and imperfect enough that it felt as if a real hand had created them. But it couldn’t have. Not with numbers that size, and not those specific integers in that specific order.
Dick blinked. The number did not disappear. The monsters in the distance sounded like high heels clicking with impatience, like multiple steps running with malice, like small hands banging on a close door. The urine and paint scent were now almost suffocating. Dick could taste them in his tongue. He closed his eyes tightly for five seconds. When he opened them again, the numbers were still there, taunting him.
381940
Dick grit his teeth, his jaw tensing. He took a step back, and some relief flooded him as the shadows took him into their arms. The darkness around him was familiar. It was merciful. It was Batman’s hand guiding Dick Grayson into peaceful non-existence.
But a voice snatched him back.
“Dick?”
Dick. One single syllable was loaded with a thousand unspoken thoughts. Bruce’s voice was as steady as ever, but the slight intonation shift punctuated Dick’s name with a demand for explanation, while the clear concern added more weight to the cowl and cape.
Dick thought about stepping into the moonlight so he could run his fingers over the scratch. He thought about asking Bruce if he saw the same thing Dick did, or if this was just his mind — or the amulet — playing tricks on him. He could only take in their sheer massive size, feeling so terribly small in comparison. They wouldn’t disappear. No matter how long Dick stared at them, they wouldn’t disappear.
“Dick.”
Batman’s shadows recoiled at the sound. The number refused to disappear.
Dick turned to the right, wordlessly guiding them to the staircase.
The rest of their journey was relatively uneventful. Twice they had to wait for those teeth-like things to slowly drag themselves across the corridor, and once they had to alternate their route because they heard something strange in the distance. If Bruce was surprised that, even after all these years, Dick still remembered the layout of the place, he did not say anything. In fact, though Dick could feel Bruce’s scrutinizing attention on him, they did not speak at all until they finally arrived at the entrance to the basement.
It was an unassuming door. Purposefully designed to be overlooked, it sported the same white colors as the wall. Time had been as kind to it as it had the rest of the facility; the peeled paint mixed with grime, the rotten and splintered wood, the hinges rusted… All of it lent to a pitiful, neglected air of the basement entrance.
Bruce and Dick both knew better than to assume that every threat announced its presence with a cane in the shape of a question mark or a purple and green three-piece suit. While Gotham villains were known for their over-the-top theatrics, places like Gotham City’s Youth Center proved that the evil at the core of the city laid not in the news-worthy acts of manic and senseless terrorism, but in the core structures that kept the city alive. It was why Batman not only saved people from earth-shattering dangers, but also brought justice for those who fell prey to mundane cruelty, to silver revolvers in a dark alley… To those who were collateral damages in a mob war. By focusing solely in Gotham, by treating every case as a priority, Batman did more than save the world — he saved countless individual worlds.
So yes, both Bruce and Dick knew that threats could hide behind unassuming, overlooked, neglected doors. And as they stood there, the lack of foreboding energy gave them both the same thought:
Something was not right.
It was Dick who took a step forward and, with far more care than it was perhaps warranted, opened the door. A loud creak echoed around them. Bruce held three batarangs in his right hand, surveying their surroundings. Dick waited with bated breath for something to leap at them.
A second passed.
Two seconds.
Ten.
Thirty.
A minute.
The flimsy steps in front of them remained unchanged.
Dick switched the cowl’s lenses to night-vision, trying to see what laid ahead of them, yet that thick darkness still prevailed. The augmented reality proved to be just as useless, its detection pulse disappearing as it radiated outwards, not even sensing how many steps would take them to reach the floor. From setting to setting, nothing Dick tried was able to penetrate the magical obscurity.
Something was definitely not right.
“Bruce.”
Bruce, too, had likely, gone through every single different lens setting. With his cowl calibrated to the amulet’s magic, it was possible that perhaps he could see things that Dick could not, but his low grunt proved otherwise.
“Well,” Dick said. “It did seem bit too easy, didn’t it?”
Bruce almost smiled.
“Still does.”
Dick nodded. Behind them, they could hear a laughter, then a cry in the distance. Behind them, they could see all the ways in which space had been distorted. Behind them, the number 381940 was spray-painted on the too-wide ceiling. But in front of them there was nothing. No sounds, no smells, no sight.
With one last look at each other Bruce and Dick went down the stairs into the basement.
They should have been greeted by the basement. There was only one entrance to it, after all, and Dick had led them there. That was the only place those steps descending from the ground floor could have taken them. And yet, as they crossed the threshold like one stepped through a waterfall, the dense darkness clinging to their bodies for a moment before sliding off, they found themselves on the third floor of the Main Hall… The warden’s office.
Well… It did seem a bit too easy.
Dick knelt to the floor. Carefully, he reached into the darkness. His fingertips went first. Then, his hand, up to his wrist. A pause, and he leaned forward until his elbows had been swallowed.
He grit his teeth. There should have been a step there. He should have found some resistance. Anything. Yet, all Dick felt was a bone-deep cold that, given all of his armors’ paddings and thermal precautions, should not be so perceptible.
“Is it an illusion?” Dick asked, still elbow deep into the darkness.
“No,” Bruce straightened his back, failing to mask his discomfort. His shoulders must have been really hurting. “My scanners still show the amulet to be underground. Still to the east.”
“So it went from minor inconsistencies with space to teleportation.”
“No,” Bruce said again. “It’s still operating by changing our surroundings. It changed the layout of the rooms so that doors no longer lead to where they should.”
“Teleportation, but done the hard way, then. Instead of picking us up and dropping us somewhere else, it’s doing that with entire rooms and hallways,” Dick held back a sigh as he stood up. “Well, as far as defense mechanisms go, making the environment utterly nonsensical is a pretty good one. Who needs a labyrinth when you can just turn right into left?”
“It does make reaching it… Challenging.”
Challenging. Dick nearly snorted. Yes, that was a word for it.
“We need a new plan, then,” Dick said.
Bruce nodded, “Give me a minute.”
Wordlessly, Dick agreed. Given that his lips were pressed together in a thin line, Bruce could use a bit of rest while they figured out a way forward.
Though the warden had been one of the few staff members who did not live in the premises during Dick’s tenure at Gotham City’s Youth Center, his office had been the most well-maintained space within the entire facility. It was there that the warden — Mr. Taylor, his name had been — took visits from Harvey Dent, whose threats to shut the place down for good if things didn’t change were as empty as the pockets of his bosses were filled; from defense lawyers paid by upper middle-class families who had enough money to hire assistance, but not enough to make the charges disappear; from Gordon, Bullock, Montoya, and other police officers; from politicians of all ranks and positions eager to keep the entire place hidden from public knowledge; from exhausted social workers who had long stopped seeing the children in their care as anything other than a case number.
Dick had only been in this office once before. His visit had been brief while also being one of the longest events of his life. Everything had been so… So big. Too big. The sloped glass ceiling was as tall as a big top, the floorboards were long and wonky, like tight ropes. Looking at them had made Dick dizzy, but the headache and nausea from staring at them had been preferable to looking outside. In the entire facility, Mr. Taylor’s office was the only one with exterior facing windows that had no bars or screen. Tall and wide, they framed the scenery — Gotham River and the tall skyscrapers of the city beyond it — as if it were as real and attainable as a Monet painting. The blinds and the muntins holding the panes of glass were as welcoming as sharp teeth eager to tear through the flesh of any child put before its open mouth. The chair Dick had sat on — unbalanced and so hard that it gave the back of his thighs a dull, aching pain — was clearly made for people much bigger than him; his still blood-stained feet dangled from it, never touching the ground.
Not once did Mr. Taylor or the social worker who had brought Dick there — Mrs. Didio — looked at him as they talked. They acknowledged Dick the same way two people discussing the weather acknowledge the coffee table in between them, each casual word exchanged over his head further making Dick shrink into his chair. Despite always being tiny for his age, that was the first time in his life in which Dick truly feel small. Insignificant. Invisible. His parents had died on a late spring afternoon, yet the air around him was cold.
Seeing this room now as an adult and in such devastation was… Unsettling. The desk that in his memory was the size of a mountain barely reached his waist. Scratches, a broken travel mug with “See Me in Star City” written in bold letters, and a couple of paper clips littered its surface. The walls that had threatened to squash him like a bug were silenced by more of those neon sprayed-on swear words. The floorboards, now loose and broken into pieces, felt oddly grounding, and the view of Gotham under moonlight called to Dick’s heart like a circus tune.
The dissonance should have been comforting. It should have been liberating. To see the place that still haunted him reduced to such a pathetic state should have stolen any power this room — the entire Gotham City Youth Center — still had over him. And yet, it was exactly because reality and memory were so contradicting that Dick found his teeth locking together painfully. Displacement pulled him by the ankles, knocking all of the air out of his lungs as he desperately scrambled for Batman’s safety and comfort.
He could not be Dick Grayson right now. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to be Dick Grayson anymore. Or ever again. He needed non-existence. He needed numbness. He needed Batman and his embrace and his mercy and his darkness. He needed his fa—
“It’s a lot like I remember,” in the silence of the room, Bruce’s voice was as loud as thunder. He took in their surroundings as studiously as Dick, though the turmoil Dick felt was absent from his person. “I did not expect it to be so much like the one in my world.”
That, Dick wanted to say, did not sound like the beginnings of a plan. Without realizing, he found himself wandering around the office, his mind doing it’s best to not focus on any single thing for long.
“You’ve been here before?”
“Many times,” Bruce said. While Dick let his gaze rest on the moonlit Gotham River, Bruce’s own eyes followed him around the room. They were like ropes preventing him from sinking into the darkness, holding him up even as Dick wanted nothing more than to fall. “It took me a month to locate you— my Dick — after he went into the system. Then another two months to secure custody. I came into this — my universe’s version of this office — nearly every day during that time. It was only when the paperwork was finalized that they let me see you—him.”
Dick opened one of desk’s drawers. There were a couple of blue uncapped Bic pens and a single post-it with a reminder for a 6PM coffee date with Lucy. It was unnerving to be the focus of attention in a room where he had once been so readily overlook. It made his skin tight, the cowl too heavy. It reminded him too cruelly that he was still Dick Grayson.
“We met in the Visitor’s Halls,” Dick said. “Then, a week later, I was moving into the Manor. You met me every day, though… And every night.”
“Yes,” Bruce agreed. “Did I — he — never tell you that we came here before that?”
Dick closed the drawer.
“Did you ever tell him?”
Bruce was quiet for long enough that Dick thought the subject dropped. But it seemed as if that man, regardless of which universe he hailed from, always had a way of surprising him.
“I always assumed he knew,” Bruce said. “He knows I searched for him. And he knows I only discovered where he was after I found him that night. He must know I was doing everything I could to get him out of here.”
Dick leaned against the window and turned his attention back to the moonlit Gotham River.
Was it strange that Dick had never wondered about that? After he was taken from Haly’s side that day, it was as if he had been completely forgotten, thrown into society’s dumpster. He was a small, insignificant, invisible. Even now, knowing Bruce, sharing a history together, the idea of anyone even being aware of his existence while he was contained within this facility seemed impossible.
A month. That’s how long it took Dick to finally escape the youth center for the first time. As he roamed the streets of Gotham searching for Zucco, barefooted, he ran into Batman. As he was not a Gothamite at the time, Dick had not known about the urban legend of the Dark Knight, but when Batman heard what Dick planned to do, and when he heard where Dick was staying, he promised in one breath to bring justice to his parents while he used the other one to ask him to return to the detention center.
They met numerous times in the following two months. Nearly every night, in fact. And so, promises of justice also became promises of aid.
Help will come.
It won’t be long.
Be strong.
Batman, Dick had thought back then, was a strange man. Not an unkind one, but a strange man nonetheless. His few words were always arranged in short sentences, and the gravel of his voice carried a sincerity most grownups were incapable of. He wore armor all around his body, yet when they talked, Dick could see that his heart was always on his sleeves. He cared for Dick’s injuries and he taught him how to protect himself so the other kids and the staff could not land as many blows when confronting him. Sometimes, he even brought Dick food, and occasionally Dick found that he actually had the will to eat it.
Hope for justice. Freedom from abuse. A way to keep going even as his world was shattered. Batman openly and firmly promised too many grand things to Dick, yet none of that mattered nearly as much as what he provided unknowingly. During those two months, it was only when Dick was in the Dark Knight’s presence that he was able to be Richard John Grayson, the son of John and Mary Grayson. It was only with him that Dick could be the last of the Flying Graysons, and not Juvenile Inmate #381940.
All of it changed one morning, though. While not having breakfast, he’d been informed he had a visitor. For a moment, Dick thought Haly had finally returned for him. But instead of his circus family, the first friendly face to greet Dick at Gotham City’s Youth Center belonged to none other than Bruce Thomas Wayne.
As Dick shuffled to the chair across from Bruce and the two were formally introduced for the first time, Dick was grateful that pride and suspicion — two sentiments until recently utterly foreign to him — had been beaten into person. Otherwise, he would have not had the strength to hold back his tears.
He’s just like me, Dick had thought, not realizing just how right he was. Just as Bruce recognized his own tragedy in Dick, Dick, too, saw too much of himself in that solemn man who had come to his rescue. For the first time in months Dick felt seen during the light of day, and though the feeling had been uncomfortable, it had also pulled Dick to Bruce like a magnet.
Dick’s memories from the moment his parents’ bodies hit the floor to the moment he found the Batcave had long been twisted until they were emotion primarily, and faithful visual recreations last. They were a monster of grief, created from bruises and loneliness melted together. Everything was hazy and abstract, time itself difficult to pick apart. The one exception to it all was Bruce.
Like a lighthouse in an otherwise remote coast, Bruce was the one thing that remained sharp and clear in his mind. His icy blue eyes, his square jaw, his broad shoulders, his tall frame, his deep voice… Everything cut through the mist of grief and gave Dick a solitary point of guidance.
The moment Dick discovered the two men who had offered him compassion and understanding when the entire world was shattered was the moment when reality finally began to make sense again. Bruce Wayne was Batman, and Batman was Bruce Wayne. They were both Dick’s saviors. They would both eventually become his father.
And now that Bruce Wayne was gone, Dick couldn’t let Batman go with him. He needed his Batman, even if that meant giving up on everything he was.
Still staring out the window, Dick spoke up.
“How long would you say it’s been since we faced that… That first creature?”
The change of subject was not subtle, but thankfully, Bruce didn’t comment on it.
“Thirty to forty minutes,” Bruce said. “At most.”
Dick nodded, eyes still focused outside.
“And I had been in here for another thirty minutes. The computers at the Cave picked up the strange readings about twenty minutes prior to that,” Dick recited. He turned to look at Bruce. “Which means that the moon,” Dick tapped on the window glass with gently with his knuckles. “Should have noticeably shifted positions. But it hasn’t.”
There was a minuscule, almost imperceivable change in the way Bruce held himself.
“A little over an hour, and yet when you look outside, it’s as if no time has passed at all,” Dick said. “Is that one of the anomalies we’ve been waiting on, or…?”
“The amulet,” Bruce said. “It’s not enough to keep us walking in circles, but now it’s affecting time as well.”
“How much of the surrounding area do you think it’s affected?” Dick crossed his arms.
“Hard to say. Given past experiences, it should still be limited to the confines of the connected buildings,” Bruce said. “But it won’t be for long.”
It won’t be long.
How was it that his voice still sounded so much like it did back then? This Bruce was not his Bruce, but he still… He still sounded so much like him.
“That’s… Not helpful,” Dick said.
“It’s possible that the amulet created a separate pocket of reality,” Bruce elaborated. “We exist currently apart from Gotham. Time flows differently out there. But eventually—”
“Yes, eventually the affected area will expand and more of Gotham will be subjected to all of these distortions in time, space, and… And to those monsters, too,” Dick said. “But ‘eventually’ and ‘not long’ doesn’t give us a good time frame for how long it will take before other people are at risk.”
For Dick, he’d only been gone for a little over an hour, but how long had it been for the outside world? Barely a second? A few minutes? Had it been days or weeks? Had Dick once more gone into this building just to disappear within its confines for an unknown length of time?
No matter what evil they faced the night prior, Bruce always made sure to take Dick to school the next morning and to pick him up when class was over. They would then play outside together for an hour or two so all the restless energy and triggered stress that had been piling up throughout the day could be released before Dick had to sit down once more to do for his homework.
Right after patrol finished, Dick promised he would be taking Damian to school in the morning. He also promised that if the boy managed to stick with it for the entire day, he would be teaching Damian how to do a triple back salto.
Bruce never let Dick down. Dick refused to let Damian down.
“We’re racing against a clock we can’t see,” Bruce said. “Which is all the more reason why we need to be strategic once we leave this room.”
“So what’s our plan?”
Bruce was silent for only a moment.
“I can still detect the amulet’s magic. We’ll use it as a point of reference.”
“Like a compass,” Dick said. “The amulet is our north, the cowl’s scanner is our needle.”
“We ignore the building layout. We ignore where the basement is meant to be. No matter where it takes us, we head ‘north’ while avoiding as many closed doors and low visibility corridors as possible.”
Despite the certainty with which he spoke his plan, there was a small amount of unsatisfied tension in Bruce’s stiff straight fingers.
“Listen, it’s not a great plan, but it’s our best shot,” Dick said. “If we think of something better along the way, we’ll adapt. But without being able to measure time properly, we can’t afford to keep waiting while this magical nonsense threatens Gotham. The nearest civilian house is five kilometers away. What are they going to do once the first one of those monsters comes knocking on their door?”
That seemed to do the trick.
“You’re right,” he said. “But I want to establish one rule before we go.”
Dick bristled. There was a part of him — a juvenile and entirely too Dick Grayson part of him — that wanted to argue merely on principle.
“Why?”
“Because our comms are not connected. If we get separated, our chances of finding each other again are slim to none. That makes us easy prey.”
Dick squared his shoulders.
“You think the amulet knows that? That it will try to separate us?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “But even if it doesn’t, we need to have this rule: we don’t leave each other’s sight.”
It was both the easiest and the hardest thing this Bruce could have asked of him.
Dick nodded all the same.
After the darkness cleared out, they found themselves walking through the doors of the cafeteria, coming from the east side entrance. Their footsteps sounded hollow as they maneuvered around the long plastic tables that were bolted to the floor. The air was cold — colder than it should be — and that nauseating smell of urine and fresh paint hung heavily in the air all around them.
Located closer to the center of the Main Hall, in its regular state the cafeteria was a simple square room with low ceilings and no windows. Back when it was still in operation, guards were stationed at each of the four corners, and other staff walked around the perimeter, chastising their charges with insults spoken out of tired tongues. Back then, the room provided very few places to hide.
Now, though… Now the distortions to the space were more obvious. The right angles of the once perfect square were too narrow or too wide to line up correctly, the low walls tilting in every so slight degrees that added to the feeling of disorientation. As they walked further into the room Bruce had to duck his head to avoid a broken light fixture hanging from the ceiling.
Out of curiosity, Dick made his way towards the only closed door they could see in the cafeteria — the one that led to the kitchen — and opened it. That same impenetrable darkness from the basement greeted him, obscuring the other side.
“Gonna wager that if we step through here, we’re not going to end up in the kitchen,” Dick said.
“Which is why we’ll stick to open doors and corridors where we can see what lies ahead.”
Dick closed the door.
“Might mean it will take us longer to get where we need to go,” Dick said. “Where is our north anyway?”
“Still below ground, but further east” Bruce said.
Dick pointed at the only other set of open doors available to them.
“Those will take us south.”
Bruce was about to respond, but as he opened his mouth, that frightening laughter turned cry rang in the distance. The distinct sound of a bat swinging followed. Each bang made Dick hold his breath, his inner lip catching between his locked teeth. It was almost as if he could feel the impact in his body, the phantom pain of his bones breaking and shattering momentarily taking hold of his limbs.
Then, there was something new. Heavy pounds were heard above them. The ceiling shook with each thump. A long ear-piercing scratch came next, like nails slowly being dragged across a chalkboard. One look at Bruce was all Dick needed to know that he did not recognize the sound either. Possibly another monster. Possibly something wost than what they’ve already encountered so far.
They waited, stances ready. As they paid closer attention to their surroundings, their ears pick up on the tell-tale signs of others monsters inside the building. Were more of them being created? Did they come from where the amulet was, or did they just… Appeared out of thin air? Or did they multiply, like those teeth-like creatures that sprung from blood drops? Was the answer all of the above?
“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Dick said, his voice now more like a whisper.
“No,” Bruce agreed.
“Assuming we don’t get deviated along the way, those doors will send us on our way to the public parts of the center,” Dick said. “The ones that were accessible to visitors.”
Bruce nodded, “I remember it.”
“Right. Lots of open spaces there,” as he said that another thump resounded just above his head. “Not as many open doors.”
Another thump. A long scratch. Wind that should not exist gushed around their ankles.
“It’s what we have.”
They walked side-by-side through the derelict corridors, their shadows melting into one. The route was winding, needlessly complicated, but it led them through no closed doors.
It started slowly. Just a shift in the scent at first. Blood replaced urine, Gotham’s distinctive sewage odor replaced that of fresh paint. The occasional sound of dripping water were, at first, dismissed as ambient noise. That became harder to do once it acquired a far too loud resonance, the timing of each drip perfectly synchronized with their breathing.
Bruce fingers flexed. Though Dick could not see them behind the cowls’ white lenses, he was certain his eyes were constantly darting towards him. By the time they arrived at the lobby, a thin layer of liquid covered the entirety of the floor. It’s dark color created a reflective facade, making their vast surroundings appear dizzyingly larger.
“Blood,” Bruce said. “Or something meant to mimic it.”
When compared to the spaces in the youth center the lobby had always been too open. Now, that unusual vastness magnified the the melancholic and yet macabre solitude that drenched the atmosphere. Though signs of age marred every surface, the neglect somehow healed the damages caused by age, as if by becoming a ruin, the entire facility had also become immune to the hands of time.
Was it self-aggrandizing of Dick to feel a hollowness in his chest when he saw no signs of his own existence etched in the walls around him? Every part of the facility had left an impression on Dick’s soul, like a brand being scorched onto his being. Even now, as an adult with a boy of his own to care for and a city full of people who were dependent on him, Dick could still not purge the traces of this place from his essence. Yet there was no proof that he had ever lived inside these walls. There were none at all. This place would forever haunt Dick’s nightmares, but to it, Juvenile Inmate #381940 was no different than countless other boys who came before or after.
The detention center still stood, immortalized as a ruin, but Juvenile Inmate #381940 had been completely forgotten, as if he had never mattered at all.
“There,” Dick pointed towards the grand spiraling staircase that went all the way up to the third floor. The iron rails were rusted, broken apart and bent out of shape. From the broken marble steps rushed the dark colored liquid, no longer just dripping, but flowing with the steadiness of a small stream one might find in a suburban backyard. “Do you think it will try to flood us in?”
Bruce took a moment to think.
“Unlikely,” he said. Then, after a moment, added, “But not impossible.”
“Great,” Dick said. “And no open doors as far as the eyes can see either. Should we take our chances with one of them, or should we go up the stairs and then try to make our way down again?”
Before Bruce could answer him they heard the sounds of steps on water coming from behind them.
They turned around. Dick’s cowl picked up no signs of life, but by that point in the night, it would have been a surprise if it did. That impenetrable darkness now shrouded the path from which they had come. The scent of blood and sewage grew so potent that it nauseating. There was a sound of cracking bones and a gurgle that was between a crow’s cry and a strangled scream.
Bruce grabbed his batrangs while Dick reached for his bolas. Their stances were ready. They waited. They watched. Blood-like liquid now came not only from the spiraling staircase but from the ceiling itself, drops dripping as if they were rain. It was quickly reaching up to their ankles.
Another scream. Loud like a banshee, it carried with it the type of pain that gripped you by the throat and clenched your windpipes until you choked on its despair. It lasted for longer than any scream should ever last. During its length, Bruce and Dick remained frozen in place. Whether that was due to some magic keeping them there or due to the sound’s agony, it was impossible to tell. They simply found themselves incapable of moving as they waited. As they watched.
Nothing came out from the darkness.
Nothing at all.
Instead, something came running down the steps behind them.
Dick turned again and threw bolas low on the ground before even registering the appearance of the enemy. The weapon wrapped around the creature’s legs — thin, long — causing it to fall on the floor, bloody water splashing everywhere. Whatever it was, it was big, with horns that sprouted from its head like tree branches. Bruce quickly followed Dick’s suit with the batrangs. They hit the target with a wet sound and another cry.
It was only then that the owl-like monsters came from the darkness. There were three of them, and one was already dripping black blood. As it hit the flooded ground, more of those teeth like creatures were formed. As if out of instinct, they dragged themselves towards Bruce and Dick at a disturbing speed, their approach creating long and flowing ripples in the bloody water.
Back-to-back, Bruce and Dick ducked out of the way of the swing of the bat. Dick by dropping to the ground, Bruce by taking just enough of a step back. Dick swiped a kick, knocking the closest of them down, and Bruce jumped over Dick’s body, arm swinging into punch that perfectly hit it’s target. Bruce tossed stunning darts on the last one, and as they convulsed, Dick leaped at it, kicking it in the chest.
They moved with an ease that should not exist. They danced to rhythm that Dick had only shared with his Batman. Without a spoken word or meaningful gesture, they knew to turn their attention to the other creature behind them, who was untangling its feet to come at them once more. Dick went high, Bruce went low. Charged battrangs. More stunning darts. Their steps were coordinated, perfectly synchronized even as they were forced to adapt. The creature charged at Dick, its flesh the texture of a gushing wound as it tried to impale him with his horns. Bruce charged at it, deviating its course of attack. Dick used momentum to grab one of its horns and knock it to the ground.
Where Bruce led, Dick followed. When Dick leaped, Bruce dove right after him. They knew what the other would do before instinct shaped their movements. A bond that transcended universes giving life to the shadows, a song to the night. They were one being in two bodies. They were the Dynamic Duo. They were Batman.
But Batman was not invincible. Bruce’s movements lagged for fractions of seconds, his earlier injury — which Dick failed to check on and now jeopardized his life because of it — was clearly more than a mere inconvenience now that they were in a fight. The enemies cries were deafening, their attacks wild slashes that cut through armor. The darkness pressed down on them, suffocating. It was impossible to tell how long this could go on for, all the while the amulet’s influence threatened to expand beyond the confines of the youth center.
They needed a tactical escape.
One of the owl-like monsters grabbed Dick by the ankles, it’s bat lost beneath the bloody water, which now reached mid-calf. A second one swung at Bruce with the bat. The third still bled, still bred teeth shaped creatures that clawed their way towards Bruce and Dick as soon as they came to existence.
Dick grabbed his grapple. Bruce grabbed his. They both aimed at the spiraling staircase, on the third floor. Then, they were flying.
Midair, Dick kicked the monster still hanging on to his foot down. The sound of splashing water did little to drown out the sound of cracking bones. Bile rose up Dick’s throat, and it did not ease even as he listened to the laughter-turned cry echo all around him, proving that the monster had not been killed by its fall.
Dick landed on the hand rail and quickly hopped to the other side. Water cascaded around his ankles, down the steps below with such a force it nearly knocked him off his feet. He was ready to take off running except…
Except Bruce was not beside him.
He was alone.
Panic gripped Dick’s heart in a merciless squeeze. All at once his lungs felt hollow. His hands shook, his teeth grinding together.
Bruce was not there. Bruce was not there. Bruce was not there.
“Go!” Bruce cried from below.
A wave of relief. The hook was still firmly gripping the handrail. Dick’s eyes followed the line down below where Bruce was on the floor, being piled on by at least thirty of those teeth like creatures. Some held him down, trying to force his head below the shallow water. Others dragged him by his feet, by the cape, pulling him towards the darkness. One kept ponding down on the cowl with clenched first, each bang resonating with the intensity of a military drum. More and more were coming from all around, ready to chew Bruce whole.
Go, he had said, as if it hadn’t been him who said they should not be separated.
Go, he said, as if he didn’t know Dick Grayson at all.
Go, he said, as if there was any chance Dick would let another Bruce Wayne die.
Cape sprawling behind him, Dick jumped back down.
It was the monster with the horns that first noticed Dick’s descent and readied an attack. It’s hairs was long and slick, covering the location where one would assume its eyes to be. It’s fangs, Dick could now see, were long and thin like curved needles protruding from sewn-shut lips. Yet it still managed to somehow let that paralyzing scream as it opened its arms, almost as if seeking to receive Dick with a hug.
Dick threw five batraangs. Three hit its long — too long — throat, while the other two nailed it in the chest. Black blood oozed from it, and the creature stumbled backwards, letting out another cry.
Dick paid it no mind. He landed on the floor, his cape settling around him like tendrils. The cowl was heavy, but not enough to stop him.
He grabbed one of the bats that the owl-like creatures had dropped. Holding it tightly with both his hands, he charged forward, swinging and kicking whatever stood between him and Bruce.
The one beating Bruce’s head was the first to batted out of the way. Heaving, Bruce lifted his head out of the water. Dick kicked with his heel, and two others were rolling off Bruce’s back. Dick swung the bat again, and the three of the ones dragging Bruce to the darkness by cape were pushed aside. Another kick, and two other monsters were pushed back, freeing Bruce’s right arm. Bruce could now move enough to free himself.
Bruce got up to his feet, fist curled. Still, it was hard for both of them to stay upright. They were surrounded, everywhere Dick looked more and more of them coming their way, moving like piranhas swimming to their prey. Their capes were being pulled, the monsters trying to climb up their bodies, their weight combined overwhelming.
For a moment, everything seemed hopeless.
Then, Dick felt Bruce’s arm wrap tightly around his waist. For the second time that night, instinct took over. Dick reached for the grapple gun and once more aimed at the third floor handrail, and together they were able to fly from the mount that had been forming around them.
As soon as their feet touched floor once more, they took off running. They didn’t look back once. Not when they heard more cries. Not when they heard footsteps racing up the stairs. Not when they heard the sound of bats hitting walls.
“There!” Bruce said, pointing to the first closed door the came into view, one that was not too far from their right.
And so, together they ran towards the door and passed through the darkness.
As soon as they could see, Dick used his grapple gun yet again and aimed for the crossbeams in the ceiling. Bruce’s arms looped around him once more, and soon they were soaring. Five feet. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty-five. Sixty. The ceiling should not have been this tall but even vertical measurements mattered little now.
Nothing followed them, and they could hear nothing in the distance. The ground below them was dry. Even the smell of blood and sewage was gone, replaced by the now sickly familiar urine and fresh paint stench.
Minutes passed before adrenaline ceased pumping. Yet Dick’s teeth were still locked together, grinding even as tension left the rest of his body. They didn’t lower themselves to the ground, deciding together and without words that it would be best to remain up there until they knew how to progress forward.
“We’re in one of the unfinished rooms,” Dick whispered. Only then the he realize that one of Bruce’s arms was still wrapped around his waist. “They never developed certain parts of the facility. Officially, it was so the center could expand without needing to buy new land or spend tax-payer money on expensive construction projects. Unofficially, though…”
Dick trailed off. Shouts, threats, insults, and slurs played in his mind as his wrists and the back of his hair remembered the pain of being pulled by cruel hands. Walls that were too close, a shelf pressing against his back, a broken mirror by his feet. Dick was left breathless with the memory of his first fractured rib.
“Where is the amulet now?” he asked instead.
Bruce was quiet. Far too quiet.
“B?”
A long pause.
“B, where’s the—”
“I don’t know.”
Beneath the cowl, Dick blinked.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce repeated. There was something strange in his voice. Not surrender, no. Bruce never surrendered. But something adjacent to it. Something filled with regret. Guilt… Worry. “The sensor is broken.”
“What?”
“During the attack. My head, it…” Bruce’s lips thinned. “All of the lens settings… They managed to break it.”
“What about the cowl’s night vision?”
Bruce shook his head.
“Broken as well,” a minuscule smile. “I’m as blind as a bat.”
Despite himself, despite everything, Dick snorted. By his side, Bruce’s smile soften, his hold on Dick tightening.
“And hurt like the devil, too, I bet,” Dick said. Bruce opened his mouth in protest, but Dick continued, “Nope. No. Don’t even bother. You’re in pain. A lot of pain and it shows.”
Bruce was silent. A victory, if victories could exist when talking about injuries.
On the ground far below them, the broken tiles looked as stable as the sea, with tiny pieces and scratches coming together to form those number.
3
8
1
9
4
0
No matter how many times Dick blinked, it would not go away.
They needed a new plan.
“How bad are they?”
“Nothing is broken,” Bruce admitted with some reluctance. “Some bleeding—”
“Which means open wounds, which means possible infection and—”
“—but no need for stitches.”
“So you say.”
“So I know.”
“Yeah, well, forgive me for not trusting you with your own well-being,” Dick said. Then, quieter. “Just… Just let me look you over. I should have done it before, when we were at the classroom or at the warden’s office. Let me do it now.”
There was a slight hesitation.
“Please, Bruce.”
Bruce conceded.
Still atop of the crossbeam, Dick went through the practice motions that been instilled in him by both Bruce and Alfred when he was still training to be Robin. It was practically second nature.
Bruce talked before and as far as Dick could see, though his lips were split, the mouth-guard had done its job in protecting Bruce’s teeth. Blood stained his upper lip, and as Dick cleaned it gently with dabs of the gauze kept in his utility belt, he also listened closely to Bruce’s breathing.
“What are the chances that we’ll end up in the basement if we just keep opening random doors?”
In…. And out… In…. And out…
Over the years, Dick performed this type of assessment more times than he cared to count, on more people than one could imagine — himself and Bruce, yes, but also the Titans; Roy especially during those early years when desire for Ollie’s attention made him too reckless; Wally and Donna, though one healed fast and few things could hurt the other; Garth, even though Dick had to learn all the small yet significant ways his biology differed from an air-breathers. It was practically second nature.
“Slim,” the distaste in Bruce’s voice was clear. “I doubt the amulet’s defense mechanism would allow for us to stumble upon it by mere chance.”
The pace of Bruce’s breathing was even — too much so? More than once Dick had seen his Bruce feign wellness by meticulously modulating his inhales and exhales down to the millisecond — and there were no strange noises — no wheezing, no rattling sound, no suppressed cough — that indicated a blockage of his airways. A close inspection of the cowl — should he ask Bruce to remove it? He he should have a closer inspection of his neck, after all. He should do it. He probably should do it — proved that the throat area of the armor was mostly intact.
Dick rested his hands atop of Bruce’s chest.
“Keep breathing,” he commanded. “Just how sentient is this thing?”
Over the years, Dick not only conducted this assessment for each of his siblings, for Babs and Steph, but he also taught them how to do it as well. It was practically second nature.
There was no flailing to the up and down motion of Bruce’s chest. With an inhale, it expanded as it should, the husk sound of lungs filling up with air deafening the quietness. The contraction of the exhale was slow and careful, gentle as a breeze.
In…. And out… In…. And out…
“It’s sentient enough to be dangerous, not enough to be reasoned with.”
“Worst of both worlds,” Dick said. “But you already have contingency plan, don’t you?”
In…. And out… In…. And out…
Dick had performed this assessment on Amy when they were partners. He’d done for Sophia after rescuing her from Bludhaven’s juvenile facility, which was so unlike yet so like this one. He done it for Rose and taught her as well, with Slade looking over his shoulder. He’d even done it for Helena once, though she had threatened to cut his tongue if he didn’t stop his chatter.
In…. And out… In…. And out…
He’d done this so many times, it was practically second nature.
So why were his hands shaking?
“Come on, Bruce,” Dick said. “Give it to me. No sugarcoating. What do we do now?”
There were no irregularities to speak of. Bruce’s breathing was normal.
Bruce’s breathing was normal.
Bruce… Breathing.
Bruce was breathing.
He was breathing and though Dick could not feel it, his heart was beating inches beneath Dick’s hand.
Bruce was breathing. His heart was beating. Bruce was alive.
“We rely on your memory.”
But he was not the right Bruce.
It took more will-power than Dick thought himself to have not to pull away his hand as if it had been scorched.
“Dick—”
“How is relying on my memory a contingency plan?” Dick was still shaking. His teeth hurt from grinding, his head was ponding. “Nothing inside this building makes any sense anymore! I tried taking us to the basement and we ended up at the warden’s office.”
“And that’s where you’ll be taking us next,” Bruce said. “We went to the basement, and we ended up at the warden’s office. Logic dictates that going to the warden’s office should take us to the basement.”
“Magic is not known for following logic, B,” Dick’s tone was harsher than he had hoped.
“I know,” Bruce said. Again, his tone carried that strange note of not-defeat. “But it’s our best shot. We’ll follow the same strategy as before — we’ll stick to as many open doors and high visibility passageways. The warden’s office is our new north. Your memory is our new compass.”
Heavy. The cowl was so heavy it felt like it would crush his skull. The cape weighted him, pulling him by the neck, choking him.
In…. And out…
But Bruce’s gaze — Batman, a different Batman but a Batman all the same — pinned him to place.
In… And out…
He felt dizzy. He didn’t want to be Dick Grayson anymore. Only Batman. But no matter how much the darkness called his name, no matter how fast he sprinted towards him, no matter how hard he tried to escape this place, this Bruce’s presence took the bliss of non-existence away from him.
In… And out…
“I would not ask you this if I thought we had another choice, Dick,” Bruce said. “I would not ask you this if I didn’t think you could do it.”
In… And out…
Bruce was breathing. This Bruce was breathing. But Dick knew how quickly that could change.
There was nothing Dick wouldn’t sacrifice for Batman. For Bruce. For both.
“You’re right. Let’s do it.”
After Bruce’s injuries were fully assessed and cared for, the two begun their journey to the warden’s office, falling into what had become a familiar silence.
There was something truly terrible about how quickly they managed to adapt to what should be inconceivable circumstances. Side-by-side, their ears were attentive to the slightest noise, every corner treated as a potential threat, their stances ready for an unexpected ambush. Yet, there was something almost soothing to the pattern — almost. In many ways, this was not that unlike a midnight patrol, though there were just enough differences and just enough wrongness in the atmosphere for every second to feel weighted. Magnified. As it undoubtedly was with Sisyphus, the repetition acclimatized them with unavoidable dread, each hard upward push and each ill-expected downward tumble chipping away their grasp on reality.
The feeling of being watched pulled at Dick’s skin, stretching it over bone and flesh until it was so tight that it was ready to rip. Dick guided them through the corridors all while his personal nightmares were transposed into the dilapidated environment that would be more at home not in the modern era, but rather in an nineteenth century etched print made of angry slashes, or perhaps in the walls of Goya’s Quinta del Sordo. With every step the weight of the cowl and cape grew heavier, the burden on his shoulders and on his head greater than that which Atlas carried. He grid his teeth with effort to keep going. Walls tilted this way and that, and whispers of cruel taunts and even crueler silences plagued Dick’s ear. Every turn brought forth sepulchered memories that crawled from the graves like dirt encrusted skeletons, every glance to the man by his side like a swing of a bat to the gut. All the while, the darkness he wished could drown him was kept at bay by tantalizing reminders of who he was and who he was not.
Luckily for them, many of the doors that were, in Dick’s days, kept lock in order to segregate different areas of the facility had long been forced open by the adventurous urban explorers or amateur ghost hunters who cared little about the integrity of the building. Claw marks on the walls and freshly spilled black blood led them to turn right instead of left, to the take the stairs instead of continuing forward, lengthening their route.
The first time Dick walked these corridors alone at night, he’d only been at the youth center for about a week. Already his skin was littered with bruises, his left eye swollen, his lip split, and his stomach turned in a hunger so great that it seemed ready to swallow him from the inside out. Never before had he been so small, and never before had he felt so many things at once, nor had he felt them so strongly. Panic was always a misstep away as he bumbled his way through the tightrope, constant alertness demanding his attention throughout every crowded hostile day and every lonely sleepless night.
Survival warred against grief. The sound of his mother voice as she called his father’s name was pit against Dan’s spit sliding down his cheek. The feel of his father’s arms around him before Dick stepped down from the trapeze could not withstand the pain of Thomas pinning him to the wall by his throat. The last glimpse he caught of his parents — his mother’s feet bent backwards, his father’s bones poking through the skin, the blood pooling beneath them and staining their green and yellow uniforms red — was sliced through by the shattered mirror in the supply closet they locked Dick inside of, hours and hours and hours and hours ticking by as his pleas for help went unheard, ignored, as the only thing that kept him company was the distorted image of his own body.
Dick needed to grieve. But grieving demanded attention that was taken away by a more pressing need — the need to survive. While in the facility, he had to choose one or the other.
Dick had to run away. If there was any hope that John and Mary Grayson’s son would survive, he had to get away from that place. He needed to, while there was still something inside of him worth saving.
Then, he met Batman. Then, he met Bruce.
Grief was paralyzing. Grief changed you, and not always for the better. Back then, Bruce helped Dick through his metamorphosis. Batman helped him find Robin. They were his father, his savior, his God. They were the only reason why Dick knew a world outside these walls, even if his mind insisted on returning to them on more occasions than Dick cared to count. Even if at times he didn’t feel as if he had changed at all. He was still an orphan whose whole world had been shattered, his skin was still painted in bruises, the insults and slurs still echoing in his mind, the spit still running down his cheek, his teeth grinding and he felt small, so small, so insignificant and unimportant and—
“How old is Damian right now?”
Dick blinked. They were still walking, but the breaking of the silence was so sudden that it was as if he’d been driving at top speed one second and then slamming his foot on break in the next. Dick was so disorientated that he could not place where, exactly, he and Bruce were. Panic rose inside of him. Had he been leading them astray? Were they any closer to the warden’s office? Was he failing them yet again?
“What?”
They were in an interior corridor. No windows. Second floor. There were few doors surrounding them, which meant they weren’t close to the classrooms.
“You’re here by yourself. Not once have you communicated with anyone else on the team, Agent A, or Oracle,” Bruce said. “Or the Batcave for that matter. You’re here by yourself, with no back-up.”
Few were the staircases in the youth center that headed to third floor. The fact that were heading east meant that, at the very least, they seemed to be going in the right direction.
“I told you they all retired for the night.”
“I know,” Bruce said. He looked at Dick with a patience that was as infuriating as it was humiliating. It was as if he knew Dick’s mind had wandered too far. Did he suspect Dick of getting lost? Did he blame him for the fact they were wandering these labyrinthine halls with unseen minotaurs chasing their every step? Did he wish it was someone else here? Would he have preferred Tim or Jean Paul had taken the cowl instead of Dick? “But I also know Damian. He is stubborn. And fond of you. In my universe, it’s been a long time since he allowed himself to retire to bed without first ensuring you were done for the night as well.”
Dick paused in his step. If he was right, at the end of this corridor — however long it took them to reach it — they would take a left. The second door on the right would take them back to the lobby, but if they continued until the end they should be faced with a set of stairs that would take them to the third floor. From there, it shouldn’t take long to get to the warden’s office, assuming they did not come across any monsters or were misdirected along the way.
“He’s ten.” Dick said. Though Bruce’s face did not change, Dick detected the surprise all the same. “I take it he is older in your universe?”
Bruce hesitated, then gave a minuscule nod.
“Ten years older.”
That…. Was unexpected. For some reason, it was almost impossible for Dick to picture his Damian — his small and grumpy little Robin, so much like a child in all the ways he wasn’t like a normal child at all — as an adult so close to Dick in age. There should have been some comfort in the knowledge that, in some universe, Damian remained on their side even a decade from now. That he didn’t go back to Talia or Ra’s, that he didn’t go off on his own. Dick should have been proud. Yet all Dick could feel was distress clawing inside his chest.
“If Robin is ten,” Bruce continued. “that means you are—”
“Twenty-two,” Dick confirmed, his voice flat.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“Young,” Bruce said, at last. “Four years younger than I was when I took on the cowl.”
Dick could not bring himself to look at Bruce.
“But far more experienced.”
“Yes,” Bruce said, his own tone a little distant. “I suppose so.”
Ten years. There was an entire decade of difference between their two universes. The clawing in Dick’s chest grew more fervent, like a trapped animal fruitlessly trying to tear himself from a cage. All the while Dick’s teeth gridded against one another.
Panic, a voice said in the back of his head. Take a deep breath and don’t panic.
What did he look like, beneath the cowl? Were there wrinkles there that Dick was unfamiliar with? Was his gray hair more easily noticeable, or did he take on to dyeing, like Dick knew his Bruce, vain in the most painfully human ways, considered?
Ten years. This man — this other Bruce — had lived to be over fifty years old. Dick’s Bruce would never see a day past 40 years, seven months, one week, and two days. And once this was all over, once this Bruce — this Bruce who was not Dick’s Bruce, could never be Dick’s Bruce — returned to his to his universe, he would also continue on living. Perhaps he would live to see fifty-one. Perhaps to sixty-one. Maybe even seventy or eighty, if the fates were merciful. He would see and experience many years that would forever be denied to Dick’s Bruce. He had already seen and experienced ten years that Dick’s Bruce was so cruelly denied.
It wasn’t fair.
The silence that fell between them was thick, their footsteps loud. The smell of paint and urine deposited itself in Dick’s lung like led. The ache in his temples was so great to the point of it being dizzying.
It wasn’t fair.
Walking down these corridors that once held him prisoner, the cowl and the cape weighted on Dick.
It.
Wasn’t.
Fair.
Batman should never be this powerless.
Then again, no matter how many times Dick sacrificed himself to the darkness in hopes of blissful nonexistence, nothing could change the fact he was a pathetic excuse for a Batman.
It took until they reached the second floor for a new twist to be thrown into their path. As they stepped out of the staircase that should have led to the third floor, they were met with a heavy barred, rusty door, long since removed from its hinges. The hallway beyond it was long, stretched to distortion as it ran north to south rather than east to west as it should. Old light fixtures creaked as they swung the rhythm of a non-existent breeze. More barred doors lined the corridor, ten on each side. Tall and slim, they were spaced close together, small numbers carved above their frame. Moonlight entered the corridor from the doors on the left — the even numbered — and little specs of dust danced to their demise in its splendor. All throughout, the uneven tiled floor was striped by slits of silver and of navy blue.
There was something entirely too still about the air, ancient and forbidden, rendering the entire corridor with the same melancholic essence of a painting or a photograph whose subject was long forgotten.
The hollow sobs, the yells, the banging… All the sounds Dick heard were entirely inside his memory.
“A dead end,” Bruce said.
Dick wanted to agree. They should have turned around and gone back down and figured another route to the warden’s office. Yet, instead of answering Bruce or leading him away from this place, Dick found himself opening the barred door, stepping into the corridor with the type of firmness that can only be summoned when one’s mind is in the clutches of a base, fearful instinct.
Bruce followed him, quietly, slowly, hesitant. He stayed a few steps behind Dick. They passed the first set of doors, then stopped. To their left was room 004.
Inside of it were two sets of bunker beds that faced each other, their wooden frames scratched, carved with initials, half devoured by termites. A single barred window split the space between them, with a dresser with four long drawers beneath it. Three of the beds still had their ratty straw-filled mattresses, while the fourth one — the mattress belonging to the upper bunk on the north wall — laid on the ground, split open with the stuffing spewing from its interior like intestines spilling from an open wound. Long ago the thin, rough blankets had been stained, with tattered edges and loose threads. Now, holes and rat droppings dotted their stretched surfaces. The pillows — shapeless, never strong enough to support the head — were far too neatly piled together on the floor.
Fourteen years ago, Dick shared this very room with three other boys, all of whom were twice his age, and none of whom were happy to wake up in the middle of the night to Dick’s screams, his sobs, his cries for his mom and dad. Every night for three months, this was the room which Dick escaped from to meet with Batman, and this was the room to which Dick returned to. In the lower bunk south bunk, Dick would sometimes try to catch at least some sleep, but more often than not he would find himself staring out the window. Silently he watched the pale twilight transform the night sky as dread bubbled inside his stomach, forcefully confronted with the reality of another day without his parents, another day without the circus, and another day at Gotham City’s Youth Center.
Dick didn’t see it at first. That should have been the first sign that there was something wrong. No matter how incompetent of a Batman he was, he should have been alerted to its presence before he stepped into the small room, putting more space between himself and Bruce, who stayed by the door. His sensors, which were still fully functioning, registered no sign of life. Yet, when Dick saw it, curled up on the floor, hidden in the alcove between one of the beds and the dresser, its face hidden as it pressed into its knees and its body shaking in a silent whimper, the aching familiarity of the emotions was greater than common sense.
Dick took another step into the room, loud this time, so that the figure could hear his approach. It stopped shaking, it’s shoulders tensing, but it did not look up.
“Hello there,” Dick greeted in the best imitation of Bruce’s soft-voice that could manage. He knelt to the floor, trying to shed away all of Batman’s intimidation. “Do you need help?”
The figure didn’t move. Dick knew it had heard him, but it did not respond.
“Dick…” Bruce called from behind.
Dick.
Bruce used Dick’s name in the field, in front of a third party. That should have been the third warning that something was wrong.
But the entire youth center was wrong in far more ways than Dick could ever hope to understand.
“It’s okay to be scared,” Dick continued in that same soft tone. “We can get you out of here.”
“It’s okay to be scared.”
Dick froze. The thing parroted back his words to him, but it was not Dick’s voice that it mimicked.
It was Bruce’s. Not Batman’s… Bruce’s.
“It’s okay to be scared,” it said again. Slowly, it lifted its head from its knees, revealing a featureless face with empty eye sockets. From them, a dark, viscous liquid poured out. “It’s okay to be scared… Chum.”
It tilted its head, and leaned forward. When Dick got up to his feet, the creature unfolded itself and it, too, got up. It’s entire body was seemed to be made by pressing cooling melted candle wax together, with a hole in its chest where more of the black viscosity dripped. Its twisted its lip-less mouth into an upward smile, showing that it, too, was devoid of anything — no sharp teeth, no tongue, only void.
“Chum. Chum. Chum…. What’s wrong, chum?” It continued to speak in Bruce’s voice as it stumbled closer to Dick. “What’s wrong… 381940?”
“Dick!”
It was all the warning Dick got before a bataraang pierced the thing in the head. It didn’t even react, but the sight was enough to snap Dick out of whatever state of mind had kept him paralyzed.
“What’s wrong, 381940?”
Dick turned to run towards the door. The thing was still using Bruce’s voice. It was calling Dick that while using Bruce’s voice.
“381940…”
The thing followed him, though it did not rush. The batrang was still impaled into its forehead. Stumbling, it reached out it’s arms, its too long fingers flexing as if it was trying to grasp Dick.
“381940…! 381940! 381940!”
Bruce grabbed Dick by the arm and pulled him away from the creature. As he did so, the creature’s steps hurried, still reaching forward, still trying to grab Dick.
Together, Bruce and Dick rushed out of the room. Bruce slammed the barred door just as the creature, still chanting those numbers, lunged towards them.
Dick took a step back while Bruce held the door in place. The creature’s focus was entirely on Dick. The floor beneath it was sticky with its dark viscosity, its steps splashing as it continued to walk forward, as if nothing was in its path. It’s reached out from beyond the bars, it’s body body melding against the metal like hot wax.
“381940! 381940! 381940! 381940! 381940!”
It was Bruce’s voice calling him.
381940
Bruce, who was no longer here. Who could no longer save him. Who could no longer love him.
381940
It was Bruce’s voice calling him that.
381940
Bruce must hate him. Bruce must hate him so much. He took the cowl when he was not meant to. He was failing as Batman. He would never be good enough.
3
8
Bruce knew that. Damian knew that. Tim knew that. Jason knew that. Everyone knew that. Dick was not good enough, Dick would never be good enough.
1
9
4
Dick didn’t want to have be good enough. He wanted… He wanted Bruce back.
0
3
8
I secured the door
1
9
He would give anything to have Bruce back.
4
0
3
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1
Dick, let’s go!
9
4
0
3
He would give anything to have his Batman again.
8
1
9
4
0
Chum, can you hear me?
3
8
1
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4
But how could he keep Batman here when was so… Small?
0
3
8
1
Chum, I need you to breathe with me.
9
4
0
3
Insignificant.
8
1
9
4
0
You need to stop grinding your teeth, Chum.
3
8
1
Pathetic
9
4
Breathe in… Hold it… Now out, Chum
0
3
C
H
Dick needed Batman.
8
1
U
That’s it, Dickie… Just like that, Chum.
M
C
H
Dick needed…
U
M
You are doing great, Chum.
CH…
…UM
He needed…
CHUM
Though the darkness slowly bled out of his vision, Dick still saw it in front of him. It was a comforting sight, though. A familiar sight. A comforting and familiar darkness, with broad shoulders and a cape that when wrapped around him, made him feel safe.
Chum
It was a darkness he loved. A darkness that shaped him. A darkness that was kind and merciful and compassionate.
It was the darkness of his savior.
Chum…
It was Batman, with his hands on Dick’s shoulder, looking at Dick as if he were all that mattered.
Awareness came back to him like the drip of a faulty faucet. Batman first, always first, then the heart aching reminder that this was not his Batman. Dick blinked, and their surroundings became clear. They were no longer in the dormitories, but in an empty office, with ripped posters and a calendar dating back to fourteen years ago still hanging on the wall. The air filled his lungs, and the realization of just how foolish he had been dawned upon him along with a flood of shame.
Dick opened his mouth, ready to apologize, but Bruce spoke first.
“Wish I had ice with me.”
Dick blinked. He went over the words again in his mind, trying to see if perhaps he had misheard him, but nothing else made sense.
“What?”
Bruce’s surprise and relief were palpable in his small smile.
“Ice,” he repeated. “Maybe he didn’t do it with you, but… You grind your teeth. When stressed, anxious, or afraid. And you — my Dick — does that too. Since he was little. Sometimes it used to be very bad, and his entire body would tense up. And I—”
“You’d give me ice to hold,” Dick completed. A small smile of his own found its way into his lips.
Bruce nodded.
“It’s a grounding technique. It jolts the system. Forces your mind to focus on the physical sensation rather than the source of panic,” Bruce said. “My father taught it to me when I was little.”
And Bruce taught it to Dick. The first time it happened, Dick was not yet Robin. He’d woken from a nightmare about his parents, screaming and crying. Bruce ran into his room and tried to comfort him to the best of his abilities, but Dick’s panic only increased by the moment. No matter what Bruce did, no matter how hard Dick tried, the downward spiral taking hold of his mind and grinding his teeth into chalk would not ease its grip on him.
Dick did not remember the walk from his bedroom to the kitchen. He did not remember whether Bruce led him by the hand or carried him in his arms. What was engraved in his mind, however, was the shock of suddenly having ice thrust upon his hand. Bruce’s own large hands kept Dick’s fist closed, preventing him from letting go of the ice even as his nervous system screamed at him.
It took a few moments, but soon Dick found that he could breathe again. The tension that had seized his body and caused him to grind his teeth had been exorcised, and the ice slowly melting in his hand would not allow it to return.
It became something Bruce would often do for Dick. Before patrol, after a bad case, when the pressure of leading the Titans got too much. It was the reason why there was a freezer installed down in every single one of the Caves, why there was a cooler inside the Batmobile. When Dick’s stress and anxiety got so bad that he started to grind his teeth, Bruce would always grab some ice to help ground Dick in the present and relieve him of tension.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” Dick said, his voice still a bit distant. His smile was soft and melancholic, a warmth in his chest as he thought of his Bruce.
“It’s a father’s job to know how his children respond to stress,” Bruce said. “Jason fidgets in place. Tim picks his cuticles until they bleed. Damian—”
“Goes all stiff and holds his breath,” Dick said. “Steph plays with her hair. And Cass—”
“Closes her fists so tight that her nails dig into her palms,” Bruce nodded.
“You do that as well. Well, you try not to do it, so your hand goes all rigid,” Dick pointed out. “And you bite your inner lip. You try not to show any signs, but when you’re upset, you press your lips together and your neck and shoulders go all stiff with tension. Like you’re trying to hold everything inside.”
Bruce seemed genuinely surprised by Dick’s words.
“I didn’t realize I had such obvious tells,” Bruce said, at last. “Is that how you always know?”
“Sort of?” Dick shrugged. “I’ve known you practically my whole life. You weren’t an easy man to get close to in the beginning, and… I love Alfie, I do, but he didn’t help much in the beginning. Kind had to get fluent in B. It’s nice to know that there’s a universality to it. Or multi-universality, I guess.”
Bruce’s lips were now curved into a fond smile of his own.
“You’re probably the only one who is fluent in B,” he said. “Can probably speak it better than I can.”
“Probably?” Dick snorted. “I most definitely speak it better than you. I got phDs on it. I’m the number one expert in the field.”
Bruce chuckled. The sound of it — a sound Dick thought he would never hear again — was so beautiful that Dick thought he was going to cry.
“And who is the expert on Dick? Damian? Donna?”
Dick shook his head.
“Isn’t it obvious, Bruce? Of course it’s you!” Dick said. “God, the ice thing… I had completely forgotten about it. I haven’t done that in years.”
“It still works with my Dick,” Bruce said. “Though he needs to be reminded of it on occasion.”
“He’s lucky,” Dick said. “In more ways than he can ever imagine.”
Bruce said nothing, and Dick didn’t expect him too. He didn’t press Dick any farther, and as Dick recovered, he imagined himself holding ice cubes, and he pretended that Batman’s gauntlets were the two familiar hands that held his once tiny finger shut.
“We… need a new strategy,” Dick said, after enough time had passed. “Just wandering around trying to find our ways to the warden’s office is not going to work. Especially not if the amulet’s powers are getting stronger with time.”
Bruce nodded, but didn’t add anything. A sure sign that he, too, was at a loss at what they could do.
They remained quiet for a while longer. Dick was all too conscious of how he grid his teeth. As the silence between them extended, Dick fond his eyes drawn to the window. The bars were rusty, and all he could see was the starless sky outside. Though its light illuminated both their figures, the moon itself was not visible from the angle in which Bruce and Dick found themselves in.
How far had the amulet’s influence expanded by this point? Was it still confined to the walls of the detention center, or was it—
Wait.
Maybe that was it.
Dick walked towards window in long, hurried strides. The part of Dick that would always be aware of Bruce could feel his eyes on the back of his head, but he paid him little mind. He grabbed a small cutting disk from his tool belt and held his breath as he waited to see if it would cut.
The cutting disk was quiet, yet in that moment it was the loudest sound in the room.
Dick felt the resistance give way. Just a little. But it was enough. He let out a triumphant smile.
“We’ll go through the outside.”
“The outside?” Bruce asked.
Dick nodded, turning to face Bruce..
“The windows are just big enough for you to squeeze through. We can cut the bars and the climb our way to the roof. If the amulet’s power is still contained by the walls, then by navigating the building through the exterior we should be able to avoid any monsters. And we won’t have to deal with rooms changing order,” Dick explained. “Once we’re on the roof, we should easily find the glass ceilings from the warden’s office on the third floor. We’ll crash back inside from there, and if your theory is right, then we’ll end up in the basement.”
Bruce took a moment to consider what Dick was saying. He walked to where Dick was standing and examined the bars.
“You don’t think we’ll face obstacles outside?”
“We might. But not like the ones we are facing right now. Not rooms changing positions and doors that don’t lead to where they’re supposed to,” Dick said. “We might still have some monsters to fight, but at least out there we will be more free than in here.”
Dick felt a rush inside. Not euphoria, but something similar to it. Something akin to the excitement of hope. Looking at Bruce he felt like the young Robin who had just cracked a case before his Batman.
Finally, Bruce gave a nod, and the small proud smile on his lips gripped Dick’s heart in a nostalgic squeeze.
“Let’s do it.”
It didn’t take them long to cut the metal bars and lay them aside. Like Dick, Bruce’s tool belt was equipped with a small but efficient cutting disk, and together they worked on opposite ends meeting towards the middle.
The last of the metal bars fell into Dick’s hand as it was finally sliced through. It was heavier than it should be, the grainy rust blooming across its surface like watercolor stains. It took every ounce of will power Dick had to not remove one of his gauntlets so that he could its texture beneath his naked fingertips.
How… Odd, that it could fit so well in his hand. A small piece of the youth center, and it yielded to the power of Batman’s tools with so much ease. Now it almost looked inoffensive, completely divorced from the thing that had caged Dick during what now was the second worst period of his life.
He could make it into something. This scrap of metal. It wouldn’t take a lot to craft it into a very inefficient batarang. One to always keep in his person and never to use. A reminder of what he wished he could always forget, a vestige of the past rendered powerless by who he had become.
Just as the idea entered his mind, something deep in Dick’s core recoiled at it with disgust. Whether the action would have been masochistic or empowering, Dick could not tell, but he knew it was not something he could attain. Not something he was ready to attain.
He let the piece of metal go, letting out a small sigh as it hit the floor with a clank.
Luckily, Bruce had chosen not to take notice of the seconds of hesitation. After putting away his cutting disk, he reached for the rope, tying one end securely around this waist and giving Dick the other end. After Dick looped it around himself and secured the hold with a bowline knot.
Bruce broke the glass of window with ease, then cleaned it of any shards. With some difficulty, he squeezed his upper body outside and reached for his grapple gun, aiming it at the roof. Once the hold was secure, he jumped the rest of the way outside.
Then, it was Dick’s turn.
The first thing that hit Dick when he leaned to the outside was the air. Heavy and humid, it immediately sank into his lungs with the weight of pollution and of dirt. It was, quite obviously, very different from the smell of urine and paint.
The second thing was the moon. Full, bright right above him, it’s silver light was spread through the sky with a strength that should not be possible in an urban environment such as Gotham. Yet, there it was. No longer constrained by the detention center’s windows and bars, it moved freely and out of its own accord, dancing with night’s darkness like old lovers retracing their wedding waltz.
Then…. Then there was Bruce. Batman. Feet planted on the wall, the wind and gravity swaying its cape so it spread like wings. He looked down at Dick, eyes unreadable, the silver light’s embrace crafting a halo out of his broad figure. A dark angel, one hand held on to the grapple gun while the other… The other was extended. Extended to Dick.
Throughout that entire night, Dick had felt small again. Insignificant. Forgotten. Now, he felt small yet again. He felt small and… And Safe. Loved.
He almost felt like Robin.
A deep breath. Dick shot his own grapple and once it was secured on the roof, he thought of ice cubes as he took Bruce’s hand.
The peace of the moment was broken by the sound of a screech. Bruce and Dick turned their heads to the right just in time to see the glass of a window shattering as several pairs of hands — two? No, three, now four — tried to reach out into the open air. They were dark, hairy, with sharp claws and fingers that resembled talons.
“Nothing is ever easy, is it?” Bruce asked.
“Wouldn’t be so much fun if it was.”
Quickly, Dick jumped out of the window. He landed so that his feet were just below the windowsill, his cape falling behind. Heavier than ever before with weight of a thousand watching, judging eyes, it pulled him down by throat. But Bruce’s hand held on to him. It held on to him tightly.
Another screech, and another window broke. Bars were being bent as a chorus of ear-piercing cries filled the night. Coming from the room where they had just been in was the sound of a bat hitting a closed door.
There was no more time to waste. Still holding on to each other, Bruce and Dick pressed the button in the grapple guns that pulled them up towards the roof. It was by a hair that Dick’s cape managed to escape the grasp of one of the owl-like creatures.
They landed on the roof. Dick looked down and felt nausea hit him as one after another one of those owl-like creatures, in an attempt to follow them, jumped out of the second-story window only to fall to the ground. The moonlight provided enough illumination for him to see those teeth monsters forming from the ever growing pool of black blood. They crawled to the building and using their arms, began climbing up the wall.
Though Dick was not looking at him, he still perceived the direction which Bruce took off to. He followed his steps, only seconds later seeing their destination.
The glass sloped roof from the warden’s office was not difficult to locate. The triangular structure stuck out quite literally from amongst the rest of the flat roof. Getting there, luckily, had been as easy as Dick predicted.
Standing side-by-side, they took in the sight in front of them. Their reflections were barely visible — two phantom Batmen transposed upon a cracked surface, with sharp shards covered in grime and earth that robbed the glass of its shimmering transparency.
Dick switched between the different lenses of the cowl. With a shake of the head, he let Bruce know the obvious — none of the settings could penetrate the darkness that obscured the room below.
Bruce kicked the glass that still hung to the frames. It shattered beneath the weight of his boots, raining down in the room below. They did not hear the sound of it hitting the ground.
If it was one of them who moved first, Dick would never be able to tell. One moment they were standing side-by-side, the next they were hand-in-hand. It was only when the grip tightened that Dick realized he had been grinding his teeth again.
He couldn’t help himself. He let out an amused snort, then a smile. His own grip on Bruce’s hand tightened. In his head, he imagined those fingers were as cold as ice.
Together, they leaped forward. Together, the two Batmen fell.
It was dark.
It was so dark.
He couldn’t see anything.
He couldn’t hear anything.
Could anybody hear him?
Someone?
Please?
His head hurt. It hurt too much. His ribs hurt, too. They made it hard for him to breathe. And the smell… God, the smell. The smell of fresh paint was so strong that it was making Dick sick.
Dick didn’t want to be sick.
He didn’t want to throw up.
He felt nauseous.
He felt dizzy.
He was scared.
Someone… Someone, please…
He didn’t do anything wrong.
How long had he been stuck in here? How long since they shoved him inside this place? Can they hear him screaming? Are they just ignoring him?
Please…! Please, someone…!!
He was tired. He was hungry. He was hurting. Please, please, please, someone… Please, help…!
His hands were hurting from banging on the door. His throat was hurting. It was dry. So dry. It felt raw. Every scream for help ripped through him and it felt it was slicing him from the inside.
Could throats bleed?
God, the smell…. The smell, the smell, the smell. Dick couldn’t stay up anymore. Shelves were pressing against his back. He fell to his knees and they hurt, but they didn’t hurt more than his hands or his ribs or his eyes or head or—
Please, someone…! Please! Help!
How long had he been there? Dick tried holding, but he couldn’t anymore, and now his pants were wet, and his legs were wet too, and the entire closet smelled like pee.
He was crying. He couldn’t stop crying.
Please….!
Mom…
Dad…
Please, someone…!
Anyone…!
It hurts. Everything hurts. But at least he was not hungry anymore. That’s good, right?
It’s dark… So dark… He couldn’t see a thing. He couldn’t see…
No. No that wasn’t true. Not anymore. There was something there. Not too far ahead.
Dick got up with some difficulty. His legs and pants felt stick, even though they had dried by now. The smell was too strong and Dick’s head was spinning but there was something there.
A light. A small, small flame.
He took a shaky step forward.
Then another.
Another.
The flame was getting closer. It hovered just below his eyesight.
It came from a candle. A small, simple white candle that was being held by…
“Bruce.”
Dick’s voice was wrong. It was raspy and shaky, and his throat still hurt. But it didn’t matter. Bruce looked at him, his features illuminated by the candle. He had a small smile on his lips, pleased and proud.
No, wait. Not Bruce. He was wearing the cowl. He was Batman now.
“There you are, Chum,” God, that voice. Why did Dick want to cry just hearing that voice? “I was looking for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Dick said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I… I was—”
Where was he? He couldn’t remember. But it had been dark and scary and lonely and it had hurt and—
“It’s okay, Chum. You’re grinding your teeth again,” Batman’s voice was so kind. It sounded just like home. “Whatever happened, it’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t, but Dick couldn’t remember why. Why couldn’t he remember?
Batman — no, Bruce, he was not wearing the cowl, he was in civilian clothes — extended his free hand.
“Dick, you’re having a panic attack,” Was he? That… Was that what was happening? It seemed right but there was more to it. There was. Wasn’t there? “Take my hand, Chum. Take my hand and breathe in with me.”
Dick reached out to him, and though some relief flooded him when, beneath the candle light, he saw his green gloved hands take Bruce’s — Batman’s, he was wearing the gauntlet — the panic continue to rise inside of him.
Something wasn’t right.
“Where… Where are we?”
Dick gripped Batman’s hand tightly, but something wasn’t right. His glove didn’t feel right. The texture. It was… It was off. It was different.
“We’re home, Chum. Here, come closer,” Bruce said. They were now facing each other, the candle in between them. “Can you breathe in with me?”
A deep breath in….
Bruce looked so young with his features illuminated from below like that.
Hold it.
God, how Dick missed him. He missed him, he missed him so much.
A deep breath out…
Dick could stare at him forever. He wanted to stay in this moment forever. Just him and Bruce. Bruce and Dick. Batman and Robin. Forever and always.
Deep breath in…
Dick wanted that so badly that his heart ached. It longed for it more than anything else in the world.
Hold it.
More than it did for mom and dad.
Deep breath out….
But something still wasn’t right.
Deep breath in….
It was… It was his cape.
Hold it.
His cape was too heavy.
Deep breath out…
He was wearing Batman’s cape.
He was Batman.
That’s when it all comes back to him. Not just the memories of where he was and the specifics of his mission, but everything else as well. As the darkness surrounds him, it was the weight of the cowl and cape that grounded him like ice cubes in his hands.
They were heavy, yes — heavy with the weight of a thousand expectations, including his own; heavy with the life of every Gothamite who looks upon Batman for safety; heavy with the disapproval of the Justice League; heavy with the doubt of Gordon and the GCPD; heavy with Tim’s disappointment, with Jason’s disdain; heavy with Steph’s admiration; heavy with Damian’s love; heavy with Bruce’s legacy; heavy with Dick’s own grief. But just as Batman’s darkness comforts and soothes him in his moments of need, this heaviness that had plagued for so long now came to him as Batman’s — Bruce’s — dark embrace.
Bruce was not coming back to him. He was gone, and with him he took a piece of Dick’s soul that would forever ache in longing. The weight of the cowl and the cape would never grow lighter. No matter how hard he tried, Dick would never be able to be the Dark Knight that Bruce was. Bruce was not coming back to him, and the weight of the cowl and the cape would never grow lighter, but Batman still existed. Batman would always exist. And Batman was Bruce. Batman would always be Bruce.
But Dick was Batman too. In that moment, they were one. And though Dick had resisted, fought tooth and nail for it not to be so, Batman was now also becoming Dick. For so long Dick feared that if he allowed himself to exist while comforted by Batman’s darkness, if he allowed Batman to become his, then he would lose the only last piece of Bruce he had left. He had been so terribly afraid… And so terribly wrong.
There was no reason to fear the inevitable — Batman was Dick’s, it would be shaped by Dick, it belonged Dick. Dick Grayson was Batman, but Batman was also Dick Grayson. But he was not tainting his father’s legacy, he was not erasing Bruce’s existence. Instead, by letting Batman and Dick merge together, Dick was brining Bruce closer Under the cowl, Bruce and Dick could become one. Under its weight, embraced by its darkness, they could always be together, even as death separated them.
Curling his hands into a fist, he watched as green gloves slowly dissolved into the familiar, comforting gauntlet. The fabric was rough, the padding stiff as they embraced each finger.
Batman smiled. Then he swung his arm and punched the imposter.
The imposter’s face melted into hot wax under Batman’s fist. The only solid thing beneath his false skin were his teeth. His hands continued to grasp at the candle it had no right to hold.
“Why are you doing this, Chum?” his voice was not quite right. Now that its face was deformed, it gained an echo-like quality, as if it were speaking into a hollowed container. “Why?”
Batman went for another punch. Again, the head melded beneath his fist, the eye socket widening. Black sludge fell from its eyes like tears.
“Chum…! Chum…!” the imposter grasped at Batman’s wrist with his free hand. “381940.”
Batman tried to take a step back to free himself, but almost stumbled backwards. The floor beneath his boots was pliable, sticky and hard to maneuver. This gave the imposter just enough of an opening to lunge forward, his free hand going for Batman’s neck.
It was pure instinct that guided Batman’s next action. A decision made layers deep into his primal subconscious, or perhaps a calculated move born out of years of training. Maybe it was both. What drove him did not matter. All that matter was that when the imposter lunge, rather than protecting himself, Batman instead reached for the candle and snuffed out its light.
The hand never reached its neck. The floor was still pliable wax, but the imposter was suddenly gone. Darkness engulfed him, and Batman found himself alone.
No. Not alone.
Batman tugged at the rope tied around his waist. Relief flooded him when the felt some resistance. Grasping it in his hands, he followed it’s path, dragging his feet with difficulty.
He heard Bruce before he sensed his presence. His breathing was far to heavy, whatever illusion the amulet was serving him causing distress.
“Mom…! Dad…!”
How many times can a world be shattered, a heart be torn apart? How many times would Bruce be forced to relive the worst night of his life? When would it ever be enough? Choosing to be haunted over choosing to let go did not mean your ghosts should be weaponized against you.
Batman gave the rope another pull, dragging himself closer to Bruce.
“Bruce, snap out of it!” Batman called.
When Batman reached out, it was Bruce’s cape that he felt. He grabbed it with all his strength.
“Bruce!” Batman called, pulling the cape. It did little to move the other man. “Bruce, you are not there!”
There was no response. Behind them, Batman could hear something forming. Something approaching. It called to him… It called him by those numbers. 381940.
“Bruce!” Batman was now holding onto Bruce’s shoulder. He tried to spin the man around, but he was still unyielding. “Bruce, listen to me!”
“Mom… Mom… Get up…”
Batman’s grip on Bruce’s shoulder tightened. He could hear whatever was coming getting closer, being joined by more of its numbers. They knew what they were doing. They knew they could get to him at any moment. They were toying with him.
381940.
“Dad… Please, dad… I’m sorry…”
Through gritted teeth, Batman growled.
“Wherever you are, you have to get out of there Batman,"it was with difficulty that Batman maneuvered himself so he was now facing Bruce. He could not see him, but it didn’t matter. Both his hands were on Bruce’s shoulders now, grabbing on to him with all he had. “We do not let them win. No matter how much they hurt us, Batman, we never let them win. So pull through. I know you can do it.”
Something changed. The trembling beneath his hands subsided, even if just for a bit. The breathing wasn’t as heavy. A whimper had died on the throat before it had met the cursed air surrounding them.
“That’s right,” Batman said. “Listen to me. Follow my voice, Batman. They hurt us, but we do not let them win. We never let them win. Not just because we have something bigger to fight for, but because we know this world better than they ever will. We know darkness and we know our ghosts better than they ever could. They can hurt us, but they can never use our own power against us.”
Stillness beneath Batman’s hand. Whatever was coming towards them, though, was now moving fast.
381940381940381940381—
It almost made Batman smile.
“They can toy with us. They can hurt us. But they never win. We don’t let them win,” Batman still spoke through gritted teeth, but rather than anger, he let all of his conviction paint his next words. “So don’t let them win, Batman.”
Something pulled at Batman’s cape. It had enough strength to make him stumble, but he refused to let go of Bruce’s shoulders. The thing began to climb on his back. It had just about reached his shoulder when Bruce’s arm shot up, punching the thing away, barely missing Batman’s own head by a quarter of an inch.
This time, Batman did smile.
“Welcome back.”
He did not need to see to know Bruce — Batman — was smiling as well.
“Sorry it took so long,” he said. “Status?”
“Could be better. Could be worst. Ready to grab myself an amulet, though.”
“So am I.”
Shooting their grapple gun straight over their head, the two Batmen freed themselves from the pliable floor, which by now was up on their knees. They flew for longer than they should in the basement, but they eventually reached a ceiling from which they hung from high above.
They did not need their night lenses or an alternative light source to fight. Darkness was their element — their home and their weapon — and together in its embrace, they would secure victory.
The Batmen rained down on the creatures below them. Batrangs preceded their landing. An unspoken strategy was quickly formed, one that mimicked their fights against Basil Karlo — they remained light on their feet, relying on kicks and leaps, on slamming monsters against the wall, and when theirs bodies sunk too deep into the half-melted wax, they shot up towards the sky again, always still linked together through the rope tied around their waist.
Their attacks were so coordinated that as if they shared one mind. Their movements perfectly complimenting one another seamlessly. Where one went, the other was quick to follow. Universes may have separated them, but their connection was still strong, the bond they fought to forge transcending the veils of the multiverse, destiny bringing them together, knowing that this was how it was always meant to be.
There was no partnership like theirs. Never before and never after would two individuals come together the way they had. Never did two beings complete one another so much. No matter how much their world expanded, no matter how many were inspired by their actions, nothing could ever replace the magic that was created by their fated meeting. The origin of everything, the best of the best, the Dynamic Duo.
Two lonely souls that came together. Two lonely souls that saved each other. Two lonely souls that would always find one another. Their connection saved a thousand worlds because even in their darkest time, a small candle still shone deep in their hearts.
In the end, it was the feeling of being watched that gave the amulet’s location away. The cowl and cape would get heavier, the back of Batman’s neck would prickle, his skin would feel too tight when he moved too close to it.
The amulet was not left unguarded. After zeroing in on its location, Batman lunged towards it, only to be met by a swinging bat, aimed right at his ribs. All the air was knocked out of Batman’s lung as pain rippled through his body. That ear piercing laugh-followed-by-cry rang in his head like a chiming bell.
Batman tugged at the rope tied around his waist. It was enough for the other Batman to get the message. While the monster prepared itself for another swing, the other Batman broke the perimeter, going for the amulet. It was too late to change the course of its attack, but the creature distracted itself enough to miss.
Batman lunged. He held the creature down against the waxy-floor, careful not to draw any blood. It thrashed beneath him, crying, alerting others, but it stayed secure on the ground, the bat out of its hand.
Then, as if by snap of a finger, it was gone. Everything was gone. The waxy floors, the monsters… The darkness. They were in an abandoned basement, with low ceilings, scratched up stone walls, and layers upon layers of dust.
Neither of them moved at first. Dick was still on all fours on the floor, pressing down a figure that was no longer there. Bruce held in his hand a cone shaped container just slightly smaller than a human head. Inside floated what looked like an antique pocket mirror, with a sapphire encrusted surface that was embellished by carvings of swooping acanthus leaves.
“It’s contained,” Bruce’s voice was deeper than Dick had ever heard it before. It’s tenor bounced around the basement with slow finality and… And relief. “It’s over.”
Except it wasn’t. It would never be over. Not for Dick. The amulet and its power were contained, it’s influence over the environment gone, but Dick could still smell the fresh paint from that supply closet and his own urine. His ribs hurt just like they did back then, and the deafening sound of silence that met his pleas for help were still heard by his aching heart. The numbers — those numbers that deprived him of all his humanity when his world was still shards of glass that cut into the soles of his bare feet — were scratched into his brain, a scar that that made him empty and small and insignificant.
381940.
The amulet was contained, but this place — Gotham City’s Youth Center still stood. The monsters were gone, but the ghosts still haunted this facility. One tragedy may be over, but the trauma it caused still lingered.
It was here. It was in this place. Dick had been dragged down by his wrist, the grip on him tight that he had finger-shaped bruises for days. He slipped on those stairs, hit his back on the steps, and still they wouldn’t slow down. They continued to drag him, the kids above looking and laughing. All the while Dick cried. He cried for forgiveness and cried for help. English slipped from his tongue and Romani crawled up his throat as the tears continued to flow. He begged for mercy, but they still threw him in the closet and locked the door.
It was here. The supply closet. He could see it there, its door ajar, the shelves and the cracked mirror that distorted his image. Would there still be a paint stain from the bucket had fallen on top of Dick and splattered all around? Could it be that he did leave a mark on this place after all, or was that also erased?
It was here. It was here, it all happened here, and it happened so long ago but it still felt so fresh. It was here and it was not over, it would never be over, Dick had been alone and he was alone again and—
“Dick. Breathe.”
A touch. So gentle and so soothing that it made Dick’s eyes fill with tears. With his thumb and his forefinger, Bruce raised Dick’s chin up.
Dick gasped, then sobbed. It wasn’t white lenses that stared into him, but rather, icy blue eyes filled with open concern and immense love. Unfamiliar wrinkles graced his features with elegance and wisdom, softening the natural harshness of his high cheekbones and sharp nose. The gray that tinted his hair and his stubble was so natural that it was as if it had always been there and only now was being noticed.
But they didn’t. Though grounding, all of those unfamiliar signs of aging only brought forth a new fresh wave of grief.
This was not Dick’s Bruce.
The amulet was contained, which meant this Bruce would leave.
Dick’s Bruce was never coming back.
Dick was alone.
Before he knew it, Dick, too, was pulling down the cowl. More sobs rippled through him. He could not stop them. Bruce didn’t ask him to stop them. Instead, he simply brought Dick into his arms and allowed him to cry.
Under any other scenario, Dick would have insisted on driving. This was his Gotham, after all. His Car. It was always Batman who sat on the driver’s seat, never Robin or Nightwing. And that was who he was — Batman. Even if in that moment he didn’t feel like it anymore.
Instead, when Bruce opened the drivers seat and made himself comfortable, Dick was merely thankful that the man did not open the car door for him as well and insisted on helping him inside. Whatever pride Dick had left would not have been able to survive being treated with such frailty.
The entire drive was spent in silence, with Dick trying to squash the feeling of comforting familiarity. No need to torture himself by making their goodbyes more difficult than it was already going to be.
The nearest Cave was a small but robust one, in between the Gotham City Resevoir and the Gotham City Cemetery, tucked into rocky hills, with its entrance having a full view of the ocean. It was close enough to Arkham Asylum to be well-equipped with anything that might assist during a mass breakout, but isolated enough from the city to seldom be accessed. It would not take Dick long to alter the night’s cowl footage so that any evidence of Bruce’s presence would be destroyed.
After spending god knows how many hours in the youth center, the granite and limestone walls of the Cave were liberating. It released something inside of Dick, making his head buzz with the static of an overworked mind. The large screens with its blue lights, the gadgets laid out for easy access, and the sounds of the bats in the distance were all the comforting signs of home.
Dick was the first one to leave the car. Immediately, he opened the container with bat feed that Damian insisted they keep in every Cave and, grabbing a handful of the stuff, he wordlessly walked to its depths to give the Cave’s guardians their offering.
Bruce followed him, equally silent. His eyes bore into him, rendering Dick overly conscious of ever move he made.
Finally, he spoke up.
“I have been to three other universes in search of these amulets,” Bruce said. It never ceased to amaze Dick that when inside the Cave, the volume of his voice was always just right — never too loud, never too quiet. “And in every single one of them, a Dick Grayson was there to help me.”
Dick didn’t turn to face him, “that doesn’t surprise me.”
“It doesn’t surprise me, either.” Bruce said. “In the first universe, he was Nightwing. About the same age as my Dick. In the second, he was still Robin… Still so young, but already so eager to help. And the third… He was Robin, but he was your age, if not a bit older. He never stopped being Robin, and Jason, Tim, Steph, and Damian all had other names.”
Dick sucked in a breath. It had been many years since he allowed himself to think of how different things would have been had he been allowed to keep his mother’s name. How could he not resent this other him who still flew the skies proudly wearing his family’s colors? How could he not long for the same freedom? How could he not compare their two universes and find his own wanting?
Throughout the silence, Bruce walked around the Cave while Dick threw more feed for the bats. That wasn’t all of it, was it? It wasn’t just Robin that Dick envied. It was all of them. All these other versions of him that still had their Bruce by their side. Dick Graysons whose faiths were not required to keep going even at the knowledge that their god was dead.
Having found what he was looking for, Bruce approached Dick.
“You were all different from one another, but you also…. You also had so many things in common,” Bruce put a hand on Dick’s shoulder and slowly spun him around. “Like grinding your teeth when you’re stressed.”
Dick smiled when he saw ice cubes on Bruce’s other hand.
Dutifully, he removed his gauntlets and held out both of his own hands, palms up. The cold hit him suddenly, causing him to shudder. He closed his fingers, forming a fist, and as the pain attacked his nerves, his jaw slowly relaxed.
“All of you immediately demanded to help. All of you reminded me of what was at stake and why I needed to keep fighting,” Bruce went on. He held on to Dick’s hand, the rough texture of the gauntlet almost overshadowed by by the ice’s freezing pain. “All of you inspired me, and every version of me out there, to be better and to try harder. All of you gave me hope. And I know every version of me is honored to have met you and proud of the hero you’ve become.”
Dick closed his eyes as tears filled his eyes. Bruce was not a man who was good at making himself understood, a mixture of trauma and neurodivergency making so his preferred language greatly differed from that which the rest of the world spoke. Dick never regretted becoming fluent in Bruce’s methods of communication, he took pride on the fact that he allowed Bruce to express himself in whatever way he was most comfortable — something the rest of the world and, many times, even their family and friends, denied him. So for Bruce to be speaking the truth so plainly…
It made Dick’s heart swell with love for this man. For every version of this man that had ever existed and would ever exist.
“I… Admit that I didn’t often think of what would happen to Gotham and Batman once I’m gone. For all my planning, this… This is the one thing I have difficulty preparing for,” Bruce said, carefully. “But the times I did try to picture a Batman to look over Gotham once I could not… I always…. Well… I always thought of you beneath the cowl.”
“I’m not sure my Bruce would agree,” Dick said, his eyes still closed, his mind focusing on the ice. “He told me not to do it.”
“He was afraid being Batman would kill your light,” Bruce said with so much certainty that Dick could not refute him. “But he — I — We were wrong. We should have known better than to doubt your capabilities”
In his hand, the ice was melting, water trickling between his fingers and dripping on the cave’s floor. Somewhere in the distance, Dick could hear the bats feeding.
“Being Batman… It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Dick admitted. “But without Bruce, I don’t think I can be anything but Batman. I don’t think I want to be anything else.”
Bruce’s hands squeeze his, and it’s with a smile that Dick fights the instinct to drop the melting ice.
“I need Batman,” Dick said “And I think Batman needs me.”
“He’s always needed you… Because… Because I always needed you,” Bruce said. “Batman has always been as much your creation as it is mine, Dick. He belongs to you, and nothing can change that.”
Still holding on to the ice, Dick threw his arms around Bruce and pulled him down for a hug. Bruce stumbled, but quickly he wrapped his arms around Dick waist. It was, like all hugs from Bruce, awkward yet wholly sincere.
“How long were you practicing that speech in your head?”
Bruce hummed in thought, “Since about the time we were at the warden’s office.”
Tears finally falling from his eye, Dick lets out a wet laugh. For how eloquent and earnest it had been, it was lot less time than Dick expected.
They lingered like that for another moment before pulling apart. The ice having now fully melted, Dick damped his cheeks as he tried to wipe away his tears. Bruce looked at him with a small smile, his eyes — icy blue, adorned by crowfeet Dick would never again see — gentle yet still filled with that determination that never ceased to inspire Dick.
The moment was broken by a device beeping. Dick did not need to be told that the strange gadget Bruce pulled out of his utility-belt was not only responsible for the sound, but would also be the key to Bruce’s universe.
Dick smiled even as his chest demanded him to scream. He stepped away from Bruce even as his hands itched grab his cape. He did his best to not grind his teeth again.
His mind scrambled for something — ideally witty, realistically lame and pathetic — to say. His mind was fuzzy, exhaustion finally washing over him. In the back of his mind he longed for the days when he could fall asleep in the BatCave’s floor and wake up as Bruce picked him up in his arms and took him to bed.
A portal appeared in front of them — blue, oval, with energy swirling like a whirlpool and small lightning bolts going from one side to the other in bright flashes. It, disturbingly, made no sound at all, though it emitted enough light to fully illuminate the Batcave. Wind came from it, causing both their capes to billow behind them.
Bruce walked towards the portal while Dick watched. The time to say something memorable was slipping away, yet nothing could come to Dick’s mind.
Something did come to Bruce’s, though, and the man stopped just as he was about to cross the threshold.
“You’re a good Batman, Dick.”
Dick laughed. God, how many times would this man make him cry?
“Well… I did learn from the best.”
Bruce’s eyes widened for a moment, but soon that expression soften into fondness. He pulled cowl back up, and with last nod, walked through the portal. Five seconds later, the portal disappeared, leaving Dick alone.
Well… Not truly alone. Dick pulled up his own cowl and went to sit by the Batcomputer, ready to wipe any recordings of the night.
Dick would never be alone so long as he had Batman.