The Boy Wonders who Lived
A/N: This has been my first fic in a LONG while. I was motivated to write it following the death of Damian Wayne in Batman Inc # 8. As the title suggests, it deals with Dick and Tim's unspoken realization of being the two Robin's who haven't died in the line of duty.
They stood together in the darkness, in front of the marble memorial gleaming in the half-moonlight. They'd sensed each other's presence almost without looking...such was the bond they'd always shared. A bond which had only grown deeper in light of...recent events.
Dick Grayson and Tim Drake.
Nightwing and Red Robin.
They were brothers, in bond if not in blood. Fellow crusaders of justice. 'Sons' of the Batman. Robins...
But there was something else that bound these two young men together, something which made them stand apart even in that exclusive club of domino-masked sidekicks. A distinction they would perhaps never acknowledge out loud, or even consciously in their minds, but which they were aware of on some sub-conscious level...a distinction that would simultaneously fill them with gratitude and burden them with survivor's guilt.
For they were not just Boy Wonders. Not anymore.
They were the Boy Wonder's who'd lived.
Jason Todd had died a brutal death at the hands of a grinning maniac. By a miracle, or a curse, he had been returned to life...but that had done little to undo the horror of his demise, and above all, the grief. In many ways, Jason could still be considered a dead man; unable to heal spiritually and emotionally from the traumas beyond comprehension that he'd suffered.
And then there was Damian...
The only one among them who was Batman's son by blood. Raised as a killing machine by the daughter of one of the world's most dangerous terrorist masterminds. Groomed to rule the world. And redeemed when he'd put on the red and green costume to carry on the proud heroic legacy of Robin, the Boy Wonder.
Damian, the little soldier who'd stubbornly raced into battle, intent on saving his father's life from his crazed mother...and who'd been slain by a literal monster.
They were the Robins who'd died in the line of duty. The soldiers of Batman who had fallen.
Dick and Tim were the soldiers who'd lived on. Lived on to return home to their lives and the furtherance of their heroic crusades. Lived on to attend the funerals, to be consumed by the grief; and somewhere, unintentionally, guiltily, even feel relieved. Relieved that it wasn't them...
Yes, they lived to carry on the good fight. And to feel ever more keenly the spectre of death perpetually hovering over their shoulders. They were free from death, but never from its burden. Death was a constant companion; made even more painful when it took on the aspect of a Robin's corpse.
As it did tonight, at the resting place of the latest boy to die in that costume.
So they mourned him, side by side, while wordlessly acknowledging, even revelling to some extent, in the fact that they were the two survivors. In due course they would depart, each disappearing into the shadows as their 'father' had masterfully taught them to. After that, they would carry on the war, in the memory of those who'd fallen. And one day, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, they themselves might perish in the attempt.
Until that day came though, they were and would always be, the Boy Wonders who'd lived...