Disclaimer: DC Comics owns the Batfamily and all of its connections.
Warning: major character death.
So Comes a Silent Dawn
by Sophia the Scribe
It was strange—or perhaps not so strange, after all—that Nightwing's was the first of the real deaths.
(Not to discount Jason's bomb-and-crowbar episode, of course. "Permanent" may be a more accurate adjective than "real.")
Surprising, because no one questioned Dick's skill. Some even claimed he had surpassed Batman, and could beat him in a one-on-one fight. (Dick always scoffed at this. Bruce kept his opinion to himself.)
Unsurprising, because in his death he saved his brothers. Trapped with the three of them unconscious, curled around the bomb as its timer ran out, he whispered a last, desperate prayer that his body and the armor encasing it could absorb enough of the blast for them to survive.
They did. But blood and shredded Kevlar was all they could bring back to bury.
If any had been sadistic enough to make a prediction, they would have said Oracle would follow soon after her husband's death; but Babs' unbreakable stubbornness drove her onward, and rather than she Stephanie was the next to fall.
It was strangely fitting, and quite horrible, that her last moment was one of pure joy as Tim dug the classic diamond-and-gold ring from his utility belt and knelt on the concrete with a nervous smile and hesitant proposal.
Some claim the shot was not instantly fatal, that her lips found his as she fell, as a marionette with cut strings, into his terrified arms.
Red Robin never confirmed or denied this rumor, and took the secret of his sweetheart's final moments to his grave.
(They say, though, that Steph would have been glad to die as she did, on Gotham's rooftops, wind whipping her blonde hair and bat boldly emblazoned across her chest, a smile on her lips, "yes" on her tongue, and her heart bursting with love before it was burst by a bullet.)
Jason's slow decline was in a way the most painful. Unfortunate Lazarus pit residue, too much alcohol and nicotine, and some other-worldly radiation he was exposed to off-planet made for a deadly combination, and there was little anyone could do as self-sufficient Jason Todd withered away as they watched.
To the very end he stood defiant against the city's scum, and no one dared to cross the Red Hood though his hands shook as he grasped his pistols and half his baton rounds flew wide.
The family was gifted with this consolation, as well: unlike last time, the lonely-street-boy-turned-renegade-vigilante died in his father's loving and forgiving arms, and a smile touched his lips as he closed his eyes—this time, forever.
The Oracle's last message was information to bust a new toxin-laced drug shipment and put its dealers behind bars for life.
Then the explosion split the night, and the famous once-Batgirl who overcame such challenges, along with everything she had built to house and support herself as the Justice League's information broker, was gone in a melted, smoldering pit of ash.
It may have been irreverent, and it certainly garnered him offended looks, but Damian gave a small sardonic smile at the funeral when cause-of-death was mentioned: the lovebirds would have found something intrinsically funny and privately thrilling about dying in the same way.
(Later, the other Bats found Joker DNA at the scene. No one dared to hope, at first, but years passed and he was never seen again. Eventually, it was generally accepted that, either purposefully or accidentally, he blew himself up along with Barbara.)
Robin accompanied Batman on an off-world mission and did not return.
Bruce came back inconsolable, nothing to comfort him but his son's final, loving farewell.
Red Robin insisted, however, that he make the story of the boy's end public, so that Damian would receive the praise he deserved. It ran thus:
While returning to Earth from a Justice League mission, Batman and Robin received a distress call from the inhabited moon Lys Alpha. They responded. When they arrived, they found the dying victims of a devastating globe-wide plague. They provided the locals with humanitarian aid as they searched for a cure. They discovered one and administered it, but Robin contracted the disease due to unknowing previous exposure to a catalyst that made it effective on human physiology. The cure, however, was not, and nothing could be done as Robin faced the end with honor.
The world hailed a hero. The family simply mourned.
No one truly knew what happened to Cassandra; she was simply found dead in an alley with a knife wound through her chest.
She had not called for assistance; she had not alerted her family that anything was amiss prior to that night.
The police found her with one cold hand clutched tightly around a batarang, the other scrabbling for her heart—not, as expected, towards the wound that killed her, but because next to her heart she always carried a miniaturized copy of her adoption papers—names blacked out, of course—and she died with her hand on this tangible reminder of her reality: happy, loved, wanted.
(Bruce and Tim spent years trying to discover who had killed her, and why, and how, but they never found a single clue. It was as haunting to the remaining Bats as the unsolved Wayne murder that started it all.)
Tim died saving the world, again.
Cliché, of course, and he did not do it alone, either: the Titans had managed to keep in touch through the years, and when Ra's Al Ghul challenged Red Robin to a game with Earth in the balance the young genius called his old team together for one final mission.
Tim won, of course, and of course Al Ghul tried to carry out his plans anyway; fortunately, by the time Ra's gave the order, Cassie, Bart, Kon, and Gar had taken out his ninja and disabled his infrastructure, using the time Tim had bought for them as he worked through the challenge.
Though Tim's sword defense was quite strong by this time, and though he had won the war by saving the world, he still lost the battle to Ra's Al Ghul, and, in the ultimate déjà vu moment, was kicked out of a window.
His comm was too broken to call for help; his eyes closed to unconsciousness; this time, he had no brothers left to catch him.
Can a legend live forever? Or must it die, before it can truly become one?
No one knows what became of the Batman, or if they do, they will not tell: his friends, if you ask them, simply purse their lips and shake their heads.
Perhaps in his grief for his family he destroyed himself.
Perhaps some worthless thug at last got lucky, and the Batman died in the streets where he had been born of two gunshots and a string of pearls.
Perhaps he fell in one of the end-of-the-world crises, and died saving what he had always lived to protect.
Or perhaps the rumors are right, after all, and he still guards the streets of Gotham City from the shadows on the edge of darkness.
But some say all that is left is a regretful ghost, ever wandering among so many graves, the first and last of Gotham's heroes and the savior of his city.
For the memory of Batman's legend preserves hope, even now, when all other legends have passed away.
A/N: I would like to acknowledge two fics that, together, inspired this one: Gravedigger by Haydee, and This Is How It Goes by Drag0nst0rm. Go read them!
*Baton rounds are another name for rubber bullets and other non-lethal firearm projectiles.
What did you think of each bat's death? Was everything fitting?