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“I simply don’t understand why I was forbidden from assisting,” Damian says, in a voice that’s definitely composed and not seething.
Father does not reply right away. Nor does he look at Damian. His gaze remains fixed on the burning warehouse across the street. Ash and scraps of building adorn his cape; undeniable evidence of how close a call it was. How Father barely made it clear when a suspected cursed object turned out to be a mundane but deadly bomb.
“If you cannot identify the variables I assessed to make my decision, it is more proof that I was right to have you stay back,” Father finally says.
“It is not the variables that are the problem, but the conclusion!” Damian hisses. “A high level of danger due to unknown variables necessitates working as a team, not trying to handle it alone. There was no reason to leave me outside beyond a belief that I would suddenly prove myself a liability. Which I am not. If I had been there, perhaps there wouldn’t have been an explosion at all!”
“...we should return to the cave,” Father says, as if Damian said nothing at all. “It is nearly dawn, and you need to write your report.”
Whatever problem Father has with him, it’s not so dire that he forbids Damian from driving. And in the car, Damian takes great care to hold his tongue. The ability to follow orders and to drop a contentious matter while in the field is a common test of patience that his father likes to employ. Arguing will just worsen Father’s apparent already sour opinion of him–
“I expect a lot of you, Damian,” says Father. An end to the stony silence so abrupt as to be startling. “And one of the main things I expect is that you learn from your mistakes. Learn, correct, change, and grow.”
“I know that, Father,” Damian grits out. “I–,”
“But I also expect you to learn from my example. And I have not been setting a good one.”
An even more startling statement. “...Father?”
“As Robin, as my partner, you should have entered the building with me,” Batman continues. In a level tone too soft for a mission debrief. “As my son, I did not want you to. Unknowns are our biggest enemy, as foresight and pre-planning are our greatest weapon. An alleged magical artefact of unknown origin and purpose housed in a sealed-in building without cameras thwarts all attempts to plan ahead. No way to do surveillance, no way to predict what it might do. I did not want to take you into a situation where I couldn't even pretend to have a measure of control.”
Father has been staring straight ahead as he speaks, through the tinted windows, out to the streets racing by. But he turns to face Damian know. Still cowled, and yet disconcertingly unmasked.
“I let emotion and sentiment rule my head over my knowledge of your competency,” he says, serious. “And for that, I apologize.”
“Ah.” Damian swallows. The words, strange and foreign enough on their own, are overwhelming when paired with Father’s direct attention. He keeps his eyes on the road. “Well. I am glad you understand that I am more than capable of handling such a situation, Father.”
“You are. You’re capable of so much, Damian.”
Damian swallows again. For some strange reason, his eyes begin to burn.
“And you never stop learning. Which is an example that I have failed to set for you. I expect you to grow and change, while I never do the same.”
Father’s head turns again. Gaze back out towards the city, to the darkness. “There are nights like this. Nights where something happens. A moment that makes me realize that I can lose you. And sometimes, it makes me change for awhile. Makes me remember to tell you that I cherish you, that I’m proud of you. And then time passes, and I return to my old, practised ways. My silences. But not this time. I am telling you now, that I am going to change.”
“I. You." Maybe the bomb was a magical artefact, and this is all some...some strange side effect. Damian needs to...needs to get Father tested, needs to ensure he's not been compromised. "We need to return the cave.”
But even so, Damian stops the Batmobile. Turns in his seat.
Father meets him halfway, leaning across the console to accept and reciprocate the hug. Pulls Damian in close, breathing in deeply as his son sags against his chest.
“I need to stop pushing you all away, I need to be different,” Father murmurs into his hair. “I will be different.”
The desperate slamming of fists against windows goes unacknowledged.
Tim is halfway through his progress report on the newest Wayne-funded community centre when Bruce interrupts him. Which isn’t unusual in and of itself; it’s the words he interrupts with that are baffling.
“I– what?” Tim asks, befuddled.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce repeats. “I don’t know that I’ve ever said that to you, for anything. I know it seems a bit out of the blue, but I didn’t want to deny you it any longer. So I’m saying it now. I’m sorry. For everything.”
“…”
Right. Right. Bruce had some kind of near-death experience with ‘cursed’ object that just turned out to be a backyard built bomb and has been doing his best ‘post-come-to-Jesus-moment’ impression ever since. Damian claimed that he’d run every possible test on the Batcomputer and Bruce came up as Bruce. But…
“Just the act of me apologizing makes you want to run tests, right?” Bruce continues, quiet. And not his usual gruff, heavy quiet. A subdued kind of quiet. A chagrined kind of quiet.
“You want to check that it’s really me, not Clayface, or a shapeshifter.” And now Bruce sounds sad. What the fuck. “Because I taught you that anyone can turn from an ally to an enemy in a moment. Taught you to believe nothing but your own paranoia.”
“Which isn’t wrong,” Tim cuts in sharply. “Bruce, whatever this is– look, I don’t know what parenting books you’ve been reading, but you don’t need to apologize to me. You didn’t raise me, you trained me. You taught me what I needed to know to survive.”
“Survive. That’s exactly right. I taught you how to survive, not how to–,”
"Don't you dare end that sentence with 'not how to live''. Tim drags a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ. Are you dying?”
Bruce looks pained, in a long-suffering adult kind of way. And then he looks pained in a soul-deep wound kind of way.
“In a month it will be…it will be a year since we lost Alfred,” Bruce says. And the resulting wave of grief is enough to wipe the half-sarcastic skepticism off Tim’s face. “He…he’s been on my mind. Namely, the many times I disappointed him. And one of those times was your 16th birthday.”
Tim shuts his eyes. He wants to think about that even less. “Bruce–,”
“And when I thought about apologizing to you for that, I realized how much more there is to apologize for. What I’ve done to you, and what you’ve done for me. All the things I’ve expected from you. All the times I’ve expected you to be me.”
“I– just– stop.” It's hard for Bruce's words to hurt him anymore. Tim's walls are well-built and and well-established. But this is– different. This is outside expected parameters and is finding chinks in the brickwork of Tim's emotional defences. If this is some kind of test, I'm definitely failing. “Look. I don’t. I’m not talking about this with you until–,”
“–we go down to the cave and run more tests?” Bruce doesn’t quite sigh, but his exhale is heavy. “I’d expect nothing less.”
They end up going to the Nest instead. Bruce, after all, has had access to the Batcave. And it’s possible that if there was some fuckery with an actual magical artefact, then Damian being nearby meant he was affected to. Which would mean the tests he ran weren't viable. The Nest, on the other hand, is completely uncompromised.
Tim runs every blood and saliva test, every brain-scan and biometric read, as well as the preset magic-detecting rune that Raven set up for him. Each test repeats the results that Damian reported. Each confirm that, somehow, this is Bruce. Like, actually Bruce. With no trace of pollen, drug, compulsion, or magical influence detected.
The last batch of test results sit starkly on his monitor screen. It takes Tim a long time to look away. A long time to turn towards the man sitting patiently on a stool nearby. A long time to actually look at him. At his sad, regretful expression.
“You still don’t have to apologize,” Tim says, voice rough.
“I do,” replies Bruce solemnly. “I do.”
Bruce rises, crosses the floor. His next movement is tentative and slow, invites Tim to stop it, rebuff it, at any time. But Tim doesn't move, allowing Bruce to pull him into a one-armed hug. Not fully reciprocated, but not pushed away either. Quiet falling over the lab, except for Bruce’s deep, grateful inhales.
Any reflections captured in the surface of the computer screens are obscured behind the lines of data. No one sees the hands pressing against the other side of the glass. Frantic. Trying, failing, to be found once again.
Against all odds, Bruce doesn’t drop his ‘absent-father-suddenly-diagnosed-with-a-terminal-illness-in-a-Lifetime-movie’ routine over the next week.
He has a deep conversation with Duke about his parents, about We are Robin, about the weight of leadership and the responsibility of the Bat symbol. Apologizes, sincerely, for failing to truly appreciate how differently all of that weighed on Duke as a Black boy continually failed by all of Gotham’s institutions and systems. Puts an arm around his shoulder and leans in close as Duke gives voice to lost friends and lost innocence and feeling lost in his own life.
He speaks to Cass, with words and gentle movements, about how it wasn’t right that he actively chose to keep violence as the language they shared. It was easier for both of them, it was simple and what they knew, but that didn’t make it right. He tells her, pulling her in close with her forehead pressed to his shoulder, that he loves the woman she’s become, but hates that he never once gave her the option of a different path.
He tells Jason that he’s done letting anger rule his relationships with his children. Maybe it will still rule his relationship with Gotham and the world, but not his children. Never again his children. Jason has done so much to align with Bruce’s rules and morals, and Bruce is done refusing to see Jason’s worth. He gets the honour of closing the gap between them, permitted to step in close enough to ruffle his son’s hair for the first time in almost a decade.
Dick is out of the country on a mission. And so he misses the first true, real, Wayne family dinner.
He misses Jason and Cass sitting across from each other without fighting. Glaring, but wanting the same thing; wanting this peaceful moment to last. He misses the tension bleeding out of Duke’s shoulders as a sense of real belonging settles over him. He misses the quiet but noticeable wonder in Tim's eyes as he looks around at a scene he never thought possible. He misses the air of happiness and excitement radiating off of Damian in waves.
He misses Bruce at the head of the table, smile small, but genuine and warm.
And he misses the horrified face reflected in the drinking glasses and silverware. Unseen and unheard.
The house is quiet.
Damian has a test tomorrow and didn't go out as Robin. Tim stayed over to help him study and spent the night. Both are asleep when Bruce returns from patrol. When he stops by their rooms.
Even his highly trained children cannot beat Bruce's mastery of absolute stealth. And so, Damian's face stays soft with slumber as Bruce crouches over his bed.
As Bruce breathes in.
Life streams out of the boy, wispy but rich with the years of potential that youth brings. A taste Bruce can savour now, an energy he can enjoy more freely. When the children are awake, hugging him or letting him lean in close, he can only take what they won’t notice. Can only take a little, so they don’t feel the drain on their life-force. Asleep, it is so much easier to take more, to drink deeper, to feed.
Even so, Bruce mustn’t take too much. Can't give Damian reason to wake up tomorrow suspecting his fatigue is anything more than sleep-bleariness.
Tim, on the other hand.
Bruce shows considerably less moderation during his next meal. Leaning over the Tim’s face and sucking, a thicker stream flowing from the young man into him. Drinking for longer, drinking deeper, gulping down his son's energy and life.
Tim is always tired. Tim has strange sleeping habits. No one will bat an eye if he sleeps straight through the next day. And a constantly fatigued Tim is in Bruce's best interests. Tim was wonder-struck during dinner, but the scene of previously impossible family unity seems to have reignited his suspicions. This, rather than Damian's homework, is likely the real reason Tim decided to spend the night: the return of his concern that Bruce is not Bruce. Keeping Tim tired, making it hard for him to use that brain of his, is therefore for the best.
And so Bruce drinks deeply, until Tim’s breathing gets heavy and laboured, until his face loses colour and creases with discomfort.
All the while, behind the screen of the phone in his pocket, a figure throws itself uselessly against the glass.
They attract stares as they walk through the halls of Gotham Academy.
Damian is quietly pleased by it, walking close to his Father. Bruce keeps his smile congenial. Less over the top than his Brucie smile, and so, genuine. Real. A hand on his son's shoulder, and weathering the shocked stares of all the parents and teachers who never had their presence graced by Damian’s actual father before.
There is, however, someone already standing at the door to Damian’s classroom.
“Richard?” Damian’s brow furrows. “I messaged you and informed you that Father was attending.”
Dick blinks, looking between them. He’s dressed nice, presentable, but looks a little tousled, like he rushed here. His expression is somehow both blank and sharp for a moment, before it breaks open with a sheepish laugh.
“Uh, yeah, but I thought you were just saying that so I wouldn’t feel bad if I couldn’t make it back in time,” Dick admits. His eyes flick to Bruce. “You’ve literally...never attended anything at Damian’s school?”
“I’ve been trying a different approach to parenting. Well, to living, really.” Bruce doesn’t smile, because Dick isn’t used to that yet. It would just further fuel the suspicion blaring out of every line of his body.
“Drake and I have already run every test conceivable,” Damian says quietly. “I told you.”
“Yeah.” Dick doesn’t look away from Bruce. “Guess I didn’t believe it.”
The classroom door swings open. A peer of Damian's exits with their parent, the latter greeting Dick with a smile. “Nice to see you again, Ri– Mr. Wayne?!”
The sentiment is echoed by Damian’s teacher, whose mouth gapes openly.
Now, Bruce pulls the smile back up. “Richard and I will be attending Damian’s meeting together. Obviously, I’ve been pretty out of the loop, so this is more me sitting on the sidelines playing catch-up while you and Richard talk things through the way you normally do.”
Damian looks at him with a small smile of his own. Fond, appreciative. Gratitude for this new tactful, emotionally intelligent Bruce. Who had jumped at the chance to finally step up as Damian’s parent, but is now stepping back to avoid treading on the toes of the parent Dick has already been.
“Aha, yup.” Dick’s lopsided grin is only strained to the untrained eye. “It’s like an internship!”
Everyone laughs politely, irrespective of the furious face reflected in the sunglasses clipped to the front of Dick’s shirt.
“I did read the messages,” says Nightwing, one foot on the roof ledge. Not facing Bruce, but not giving his back either. “I just didn’t fully absorb how…dramatic a change it actually was.”
“A gradual change is the luxury of those who have been putting work into themselves over time,” Bruce replies. The gravel in his voice is not the one used to strike fear, but the rough tone of raw emotion. “I have been failing you all for years. There was a lot of ground to cover.”
“Is that how personality changes work?” Nightwing sounds amused, though it is obvious he is not.
The conversation - argument? - is put on hold as the drug shipment they were waiting for arrives. Bruce and Nightwing leap down into the operation-turned-fight as a seamless blend of blue and black. Working together as effortlessly as they have since Dick was nine years old; a synchronicity as easy to slip into as breathing.
And yet.
Dick’s suspicion remains. Despite the familiarity, despite the synergy. His doubt is more intense than Tim's every was. Inflamed, Bruce suspects, by guilt and protectiveness. By the fear that for over two weeks, he's left his younger siblings alone with something that is not Bruce. An elder sibling sense of responsibility, which has led Dick to feel like he can't afford to let his guard down, to be wrong. It will be much, much harder to convince Dick that Bruce is Bruce. That there is nothing to fear from him.
Hard, but not impossible.
“If you’ve spoken to your siblings, I’m sure you’ve realized that there is a lot I want to say to you,” Bruce says, when the drug runners have been taken down and the night below is alight with red and blue cop lights. “Would you consider staying in Gotham tonight, so that we can sit down together in the morning?”
“I was planning on crashing at the manor anymore,” Nightwing replies without looking at him. “Sure B, we can chat.”
It is not quite dawn when Bruce moves down the hall to Dick's room.
The house remains still with sleep as he opens the door and enters, silence broken only by the sound of soft breathing.
“I know you’re awake, Chum,” says Bruce quietly. “Or are you waiting for me to bellyflop onto you the way you used to do to me?”
A pause. Then a snort, as Dick sits up in bed. "Can't get anything past you, can I, B?"
Bruce stays in the doorway, expression soft, but stopping short of a smile. “I couldn’t shake the feeling you’d be gone in the morning. That after nearly two-decades of being let down by me, you were tired of my worthless words and wouldn't stick around to hear them. And that's alright, Dick. I understand. But before you go, I want to promise you an action: From now on, I am going to be there for Damian. For Tim. For Duke and Jason and Cass. And for you. Not empty words quickly forgotten, but an action that you will see me commit to every day. I will be there for you, Dick. If you'll allow me."
“Well, I’m a bit too old for parent-teacher conferences,” Dick replies. And his voice is neither biting or accepting. Purposefully flat, as if stuck balancing on the knife edge between disbelief and hope.
“I know. So when you're ready to talk to me, you'll have to tell me exactly what you need from me. And I will listen.”
Dick says nothing to that. And it is a long, stretching nothing. Which leaves Bruce hesitating in the doorway, hand tightening around the polished wooden frame.
"I...I am aware that despite the touch-averse robot who raised you, you are a...hugger," he finally says. "It is a small action to start, but..."
Bruce trails off. The room returns to that heavy silence, hanging like a shroud over them both.
Then Dick snorts again. “I guess I shouldn't bet on Hell freezing over twice. Sure. Why not."
Dick opens his arms.
Bruce smiles gratefully. Approaches. Leans in.
Holds his breath.
On the surface, Tim is the child who is most like Bruce. He certainly seems to have inherited most of Bruce's idiosyncrasies and a good chunk of his personality flaws. But Dick was raised by Bruce from childhood to adulthood, something none of his siblings can say. And it shows, in those rare moments where Dick lets the show-stopping circus smile slip away. Tim is very like Bruce, but Dick is Bruce at the core of him. A brighter Bruce, certainly. But Bruce nonetheless. And there is no doubt that Dick has come to the manor tonight with some hidden contingency. A tripwire that Bruce can't let his foot catch on.
So he hugs Dick, and does not breathe in.
"Dick may never come around," Bruce admits. "But the tests will continue to show that I am Bruce. And so, he will have nothing to act on."
Clothing removed and inspected for bugs, then tucked away at the back of a drawer. Redressed in pyjamas Dick wouldn't have had a chance to slip a wire into. Bruce stands in the bathroom of the Master Bedroom, facing the mirror with a smile.
The Bruce on the other side of the glass snarls. He pounds his fists. Shoves a shoulder against the barrier between them. Useless. Pointless. Hypocritical.
"You wanted this," Bruce reminds him. "You couldn't look away from the life that could be, if I was the Bruce of this world. And you weren't wrong for that. The reactions I received must have shown you how right you were to make that decision. Confirmed how horrible a life you lived before. Showing interest in your children, supporting them, being a good parent has raised alarm bells within everyone who's ever met you. Because you were never a good parent, and no one can quite believe you've become one now. No Bruce, you were not wrong to realize, to understand, that I am the better choice."
The worse Bruce snaps out something foul and furious and almost childishly defensive. Bruce reads the words on his lips, and doesn't drop his smile.
"They cannot disagree if they don't know that this has happened," Bruce reminds him, gently. "And they never will. I am Bruce, and there is no test that will say otherwise. Jason's magic never sensed anything off, Cass watched me move and was assured of my identity. I am you. Simply a better one. The children are so much happier now, and you know it. You've seen it. This is better."
Fists pound against the glass again. Desperation in the other man's eyes. But while the anger is still there, there is now also a heaviness. The weight of all that the worse Bruce has seen from behind the mirror. And still, stubbornly, he argues.
"Feeding from them doesn't have anything to do with me being a better parent," Bruce dismisses. "They don't notice. And I need their energy and life and vitality to keep being here, to keep being the better you, the better father– of course I won't kill them! I don't kill. I am you. And they are my children and I love them. Love them enough to do anything to stay with them. I– yes, I am aware that I take a lot from Tim. But I always stop when his heart starts to stutter." Tim's increasingly frequent naps at his WE office have made it easy to feed without him knowing, keeping him at a constant level of mind-fogging fatigue.
"Your anger is understandable, but your fear is not necessary," Bruce continues, sympathetic but firm. "I will take care of our family. I will say all the sorries you didn't, give all the praise you withheld, and hold them close, taking only as much as is needed to ensure I can stay with them forev–,"
The wall explodes.
Bruce is on the ground, pinned and immobilized, in less than a blink. The solid, immovable weight above him is unmistakably Superman, which is more annoying than anything else. Really Dick?
"I presume Nightwing shared his suspicions?" Bruce growls, barely holding back an exasperated sigh. "Though I don't know that they warrant this. I'm happy to submit to any Justice League testing–,”
“Save it,” Superman snaps. And there’s something in his tone, a complete lack of doubt and uncertainty, that makes Bruce’s stomach twist.
Approaching footsteps. Small and quick. Damian, not visible from Bruce's position on the floor, but audible. His voice high, panicked and confused.
“This is not your father,” Superman says. And before Bruce can counter, he hears Dick's voice, asking: "What did you hear?"
“A whole villainous monologue,” Superman grinds out. “I think the real Bruce might be trapped in a mirror dimension, based on the way it was talking.”
The worse Bruce, not the real Bruce. Bruce thinks. But says nothing. Somehow, he doubts that they'll believe him.
The room in the warehouse had been filled with mirrors.
Wall to wall and across the ceiling. Pristine unobstructed glass, each holding a different reflection. Of a Bruce who was not him.
A Bruce helping Damian with his homework. A Bruce convincing Tim to move back into the manor. A Bruce joining Cass's dance lessons. A Bruce helping Jason sign up for college classes. A Bruce listening to Duke do a poetry reading. A Bruce that could talk to Dick without slipping in a reproach or reprimand.
Batman had not let the unnerving sight drive him from the room. Because there had to be a source. Something hidden in the floor, warping the room into this space of...of false images. He'd stared down at the ground, searching.
But his eyes kept being drawn to the mirrors.
The Bruce who smiled without being Brucie. The Bruce who had his children beam at him, grateful and loving. The Bruce in the mirrors that Batman couldn't seem to keep his eyes away from. Not a compulsion drawing him in, just...
Regret.
Longing.
Jealousy.
Want.
A desire that felt cavernous in its hunger. Like nothing in the world could compare to what Batman saw in the mirrors, the him that stood there, smiling. Like nothing could compare to that man. Like nothing was better than that man. Like all Batman could ever want was the person he was in that world.
And then–
Batman does not remember touching a mirror.
And he does not remember, exactly, what happened in that room after he did.
A splitting, is how Zatanna described it. Not a changeling or a shapeshifter or a bodysnatcher or a possession. A magic that took Batman, shucked him like a nut, and tossed the soft center out into the world.
Batman remembers both.
He remembers being behind glass. Him and whole, but trapped. Horrified. Not able to interact with the world, only able to stare out from reflective surfaces.
And he remembers being...better.
He remembers being a version of himself with all those hard-built walls stripped away. All the priorities he had as Batman suddenly shoved to the back. All of the locks on his emotions, on his ability to communicate, on his ability to bend, finally undone. Batman is a phenomenal actor and a genius, has mastery of his body and mental defences, but he's never been able to take down his own walls. Trauma, Dinah would say, is not something you can genius your way out of. You can't outsmart it. You have to treat it. And Batman never has.
But then he was a Bruce without it. He was a Bruce for who expressing emotions was as easy as breathing. He was a Bruce who could be Batman, not a Batman that was forced to pretend to be Bruce, pretend to be a parent, pretend to be a person and not a soldier.
It had not been a monster. It had been him.
Except for the hunger.
The magic that split them apart, that pulled this reflection into the world and locked the flawed Batman away, required power to sustain itself. It's similar to ghosts, Zatanna had explained. They are still themselves, but also something...else. And that something else requires energy to sustain itself.
Even as a better, best version. Even as a loving, perfect parent. Batman could not help but take from his children. Drain them.
In the end, starving it -him– was all that was required to undo the magic. Preventing feeding for three days returned the whole, flawed Batman to the world and caused the other him to fade. Whatever artefact had caused it was a one-use thing, hence the warehouse explosion that occurred after Batman touched that mirror. It is not an event that should have a possibility of repeating.
But the harm has already been done.
The Batcave is empty of all save Batman. The screens of the Batcomputer are filled with reports detailing the events of the last two weeks. His children's accounts.
Cass’s report is technically incomplete. Says only, Should have noticed, and nothing else. Black Bat has dropped off the radar; guilt might have driven her from Gotham entirely.
Jason’s report is nearly identical to Cass's. Just, Should have known better. Red Hood is still active on the streets. Still holding to the Bat code of no-killing, though the whisper networks report that all of Crime Alley can tell he’s in a foul mood.
Damian and Duke’s are both professional to an almost painful degree. Duke’s professionalism only falters in the section where he notes that the auras were the same. An apology in his written commitment to train more with his powers. A hint of bitterness, internal blame. Damian’s report is short, staccato statements. As if he couldn’t make himself write more than the bare minimum of what happened. He doesn’t blame himself anywhere explicitly, but comments that this was a ‘valuable learning experience’ that showed the ‘considerable gaps in his knowledge and deductive capabilities’.
Tim’s report is detail-heavy, thorough, long, and dripping with self-loathing. He outlines all the tests that were run, all the procedures they followed, everything they did that should have caught the doppelgänger. Ends with an assertion that intuition had failed in the face of a fantasy. You trained me better than to believe something just because I wanted it to be true. This won’t happen again. And then, a postscript. If this was a test, don’t tell me. I should be able to figure out that much on my own.
Batman has not spoken to him, to any of them, about what he saw trapped behind mirrors. Of what he heard. Of how before Dick returned, Tim was the one the other Bruce was most worried about. That he nearly killed Tim trying to keep him functioning sub-optimally.
But we're trained to function on no sleep. It shouldn't have made a difference. It is what Batman would say, if someone came to him with that excuse. And Tim is so very much like him.
Dick’s report is long too, despite only being in Gotham for a day. It reports how he’d received his siblings' messages about the new and improved Bruce and trusted none of it. That he’d actually gone to see Superman before heading to Gotham, had double-checked if there was any known entity or mind-control ability that could pass all their tests. That Superman had said, There has to be, the universe is infinite after all, but couldn't identify exactly what it could be in the specific instance
And so, Dick had asked Superman to listen. To listen for Dick’s voice, Dick’s heartbeat, and Bruce’s voice and heartbeat once Dick was back in Gotham. To listen in and try and catch anything that could prove conclusively that this was not Bruce.
I will admit. I wasn’t expecting a monologue, Dick's report reads. More like a weird quirk in the heartbeat or something. But the monologue certainly was helpful!
From there, he details calling Zatanna, containing the 'false' Bruce, and calling his siblings to the Batcave. And any glibness disappears from Dick's writing as he summarizes the magical check-up. Duke, Jason, and Cass are mostly fine, but Damian has lost a year or two off of his natural lifespan. Tim has lost about five.
The Batcave is empty. There is no one to see Batman put his head in his hands.
He is who he is. It is something that all who work with him, who know him, who love and are loved by him, know. They know him. What kind of man he is, what kind of mentor he is. And they know they can leave. Have left. Tim has left. Cass has left. Jason has left. Dick has left. But they came back. They came back, understanding who Batman is.
But Batman underestimated how much they would prefer it if he was someone else.
Once upon a time, he made the mistake of getting into an argument with Lois Lane. About how she seemed to have lost some of her edge to motherhood. Her response had been sharp, and unapologetic.
“You get to ask your friends and romantic partners to take you as you are,” she’d said. “To accept your flaws, your hangups, your damage, and meet you where you’re at. Not your kids. You have to be better for your kids. You can’t expect them to swallow down all your faults and flaws. You can’t ask them to take you as you are if who you are could hurt them. You have to be better.”
Batman became who is because it was what Gotham needed. Because it was what was needed to make Gotham what he’d needed as a child. But Gotham has changed. And he is not a sole knight, any longer. The hard man he needed to be as a one-man army. There are so many of them now. So many knights. That is the logical argument; that he can afford to be softer, because there are enough warriors on the ground to make up the difference.
And then there is the illogical argument, born from nothing but emotion. That his children deserve better.
There is only one child whose needs Batman has truly taken into account the past twenty years: the boy standing with blood-stained socks in an alley filled with gunsmoke. The boy ruled by fear. The boy who was ashamed of that fear, who wanted to be strong enough to overcome it. The boy who looked into a mirror and hated what he saw. The boy with a butler who stood at his side and assured him this feeling did not have to last forever. Not if he didn't want it to.
“If you don’t like who you see in the mirror, Master Bruce, all you need to do is change.”
Batman stares at his reflection in the computer screens.
Change.
Bruce takes off the cowl.