If you see my Dad,
Tell him my brothers have all gone mad.
They're beating on each other.
I walked around,
Even tried to call.
Got that funny feeling
He's not there at all...
- "Had a Dad" Jane's Addiction
Dick Grayson peeled into the Batcave, using his access codes he had since he and Bruce reconciled after Tim became Robin. The tires of his bike screeched as the vehicle came to a stop and Nightwing jumped off, removing his helmet as he stormed over to the Batcomputer, where Bruce was standing. The Batman's uniform was on, but the cowl remained down.
"Dick. What are…"
He was cut off by Dick throwing his helmet towards the wall. It hit with resounding force, bouncing off and hitting a cart full of medical supplies. Normally, the light-hearted superhero would wince and immediately clean it up before Alfred had to, but as it stood, he hardly registered the mess he had just created. Instead, he glared at Bruce, ripping away his mask so the man in front of him could see the narrowed eyes beneath. His shoulders moved up and down as his anger became apparent in his breathing. Finally, he spoke, though it was low and through gritted teeth, nothing like his normal tone.
"What the hell did you do?"
Bruce opened his mouth to speak. His face was pinched, visibly angry at the outburst from his eldest. However, Dick Grayson could register the confusion and, even more so, concern that crept onto the older man's face at Dick's outburst. The softening of the lines around his eyes, the way his fingers had scarcely flexed at his side. However, before the man could even speak, Dick was shouting.
"What did you do?"
"Dick, I…"
"I just got a phone call from Kori about Jason, telling me what he did and that he did it because of you."
Bruce was sure that even with all his training, he couldn't stop his face from paling slightly. What was wrong with Jason? Had he gotten himself into trouble again? Was he hurt? Was he…was he dead? Bruce's heart constricted as his mind jumped to the worst possible conclusion. He couldn't lose another son. He couldn't lose Jason twice. He knew he had been balancing precariously between sanity and madness since Damian's death and losing yet another son would no doubt send him careening into the deep end. The Batman inside of him screamed for some sort of calm, that he had lost soldiers before and could survive that again, but the father inside him couldn't hear the Dark Knight's voice over the pulsing of blood in his ears.
"Is Jason...?" Bruce couldn't bring himself to utter the dreaded word, so instead he swallowed the lump in his throat and tried a different approach. "Is he alright? What happened?"
Dick looked at him incredulously, shaking his head in disbelief as an angry scoff and a bitter chuckle escaped his lips. "You don't even know what he did to himself, do you?"
Panic raged inside of Bruce. Jason had…had done something to himself. No, that wasn't Jason. He was a fighter, a survivor. He would never harm himself. That was too easy for Jason, and Jason never felt comfortable floating through life. He wanted to be battling uphill, letting life know it couldn't do him in. Not even death could.
"No, Jason wouldn't…he…" Bruce tried to reason aloud, trying to convince himself more than Dick, who looked on with no sympathy as the normally composed Batman fell apart. Maybe it was the even smaller amount of sleep he got since Damian's death. Or maybe it was Damian's death himself that had left wounds that his true emotions could now visibly slip through.
"You don't even deserve to know. Don't worry, I'll clean up your mess. Wouldn't be the first time." Dick turned on his heels to leave, causing Bruce to call out to him.
"Dick."
The younger man stopped at the shout of his surrogate father, still having enough respect and gratitude toward the man engrained in him to do so, but did not turn around.
"Please, Dick, just…tell me what happened to Jason." Some of the panic had receded due to Dick's choice of words. He said he would fix this, meaning Jason was still alive, still able to be saved. But, Dick's outburst and the unyielding anger told Bruce that whatever had happened was very, very bad.
"No." Dick said.
"Dick!"
"No! You don't deserve to know!" Dick said, spinning around on his heels. "You lost Damian and that has screwed you up, which is completely understandable. I even expected it after seeing how you fell apart after Jason. You didn't care about anyone's grief but your own. But that was fine, because it was just me in our little screwed up family. You pushed me away, treated me like crap, but I could handle it."
He stepped towards Bruce, hands balled into fist. "But you do not have the monopoly on grief when it comes to Damian, and he is not your only son left. Do you think this is easy for me? I raised that kid for a year while you were gone! And what about Tim? I know from experience that having a poor relationship with your dead successor brings a ton of regret and grief no one his age should have to deal with. And do you really think Jason would handle another dead Robin well?" He took a moment to inhale deeply. "But you just pushed Tim and Jason away after Damian's death and would have done the same to me had I not taken off to Chicago before you could. Hell, that's probably why I took off to Chicago!" He paused, taking a breath as he unsuccessfully tried to calm himself. "I can handle this, I'm used to it. But Tim and Jason needed you…"
"Spare me the lecture! What happened to Jason?" Bruce demanded, hating that he had snapped at Dick. He didn't want to fight with his son, not when he had lost one, pushed away one, and the other was…well, he didn't know what Jason was at the moment, but he knew it couldn't be good.
"Apparently, you did something to him. Kori and Roy aren't even sure the details but he went back to the All-Caste, where their place was. He had some guy called S'Aru wipe all his memories because he was sick of being tainted by the darkness."
Bruce's eyes grew wide as he shook his head at Dick. "No."
"Oh, yeah. Then the League of Assassins showed up and now Jason is leading them in a war against the Untitled, because he thinks they're the good guys or something. Kori and Roy were going to try to talk some sense into him, but I haven't heard from Kori. She said she'd check in twelve hours ago and hasn't. Now two of my best friends are missing and my brother is left without his memories in the middle of what will undoubtedly be one of the bloodiest battles any of us have ever seen. Care to tell me what you did to cause this?"
Bruce scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed. "I convinced him to go with me after some bounty hunters who had been targeting Damian before his death."
"I'm sensing a 'but' that I'm really not going to like."
"But, I really just needed an excuse to take him to Ethiopia."
Dick's eyes narrowed even more so than before. "Ethiopia?"
"The Magdala Valley."
Dick's fist flew on its own according, slamming into Bruce's jaw, causing the man to stagger back. When he turned to face Dick, he was met with another punch. He took a step back before facing his eldest son. When he did, he could see the snarl forming at Dick's mouth, as well as the white knuckles from how tightly his fists were clenched.
"You son of a b****." He shook his head. "You were trying to get him to help you bring Damian back by making him relieve his own death! Just when he was getting past it! Just when he was ready to come home, to be part of the family again, you made him dredge all that up!"
"I…"
"No. You're done talking. You're going to get in the plane. You're going to get whatever resources and call whomever you have to ensure that Jason is home, safe, with us by the end of the day tomorrow. I don't care what you have to do, who you have to call, what favors you have to pull. You are going to do whatever it takes – whatever it takes – to bring my brother home, memories intact. And then you are going to find a way to earn his forgiveness for all the s*** you've screwed up when it comes to him. The memorial case that's still standing, calling him a solider rather than a son, the video where you called him "your greatest failure" then had me play it for him when I had no idea what you had said to him, for locking him up in Arkham, and for finally gaining his trust back after all these years just to throw it away like it was nothing. I don't care what you have to do. I don't care if you have to grovel at his feet or, God forbid, show emotions for once! I will not lose another brother, Bruce. Get the plane ready while I go call Tim. You remember him, your adopted son, right?"
With that, Dick stormed past Bruce, knocking his shoulder hard with his own, not looking back, even as Bruce slowly sat down in the chair behind him and buried his face in his hands.
Let me know if you like the first chapter! I should have the second one up shortly! Thanks for reading! Please review!
-Casey Gillespie
*James 1:12*
