He stumbled into the loft, tired and worn. The world had gone mad and Bart, Tim and Kon were busier than ever. Tim waited for this moment, the one they agreed upon where they would snatch a moment for themselves. But no one was home, not even Impulse. A tall lean figure steps from the shadows in the dark corner of the loft. Only one man could have sat unseen by Robin.
"Come here Son." Batman speaks ominously as he draws Robin into his arms from the shadows of the room.
"What is it, Father?" The handsome young vigilante asks. The shadows had taken form as Batman as he encompassed his son into a protective cover, his cape wrapping itself around his beloved adopted son.
"This… I don't know… Conner…" He gasped, looking for a reason. Batman was never without an answer… but he could not answer his own son.
"What! Father?" Robin gasped in desperation, hearing the fear in Batman's voice that none had ever heard.
"This."… and Batman placed a simple platinum band in Robin's smaller hand with his own shaking hand.
"No!..." Robin whispered almost to himself, before he fell in grief on the floor of the home he had shared with Conner since Bart came home after his injury from the battle with Match. This was the same platinum band that Kon had placed on his finger on their wedding day.
"NO!" The denial became a cry of rage… the refusal of all wrongs that could ever encompass them.
Batman gently set the gleaming ring in Robin's hand and held it for as long as he dared.
"How Dad?"
"Superman sent him on a mission…. he didn't come back. I am so very sorry son."
Only those who knew them both would recognize the tears quietly streaming over Batman's cowl. Batman was the first to stand up for the boy when the young heroes found him, and had ever pushed Superman to accept him. Batman would have liked to think that he hurt as much as his son… but they had just married. No pain could compare with the pain in Robin's heart.
May 2016
Four days later, an empty casket is lowered into the ground on the north side of Wayne Manor.
"Maybe you'll love again." Damian says trying to be supportive. The look Tim gives him is so deadly that even he keeps silent and holds his peace. Looking up from the fresh grave as the empty casket is lowered, Tim takes in the new statue erected in his husband's honor. Six feet of granite speak of the honest purity of his lost love. The sculptor must have known him, or at least met him… and then Brian fell to his knees and cried with Tim at the loss.
"Brian. Did you…?" Tim asked softly as he looked up at the statue of his beloved.
"Sorry Tim… but he saved my life. He was my friend too. I HAD to. Your dad said it would be okay."
The beautiful statue was Brian's silent tribute.
The boy who was saved from rape and murder by Superboy wrapped his arms around the Teen Wonder… wondering if anything could ever be made right again. Bart can't decide if it's right to hold Tim or run away crying… so he does both. His loss is no less.
While Tim sobs in his pain, Brian and Bart cry with him, looking up at the granite image of a young man in his strength wearing a plaid shirt like a warrior's hauberk.
To their credit, though their hearts cry for Robin, Wally and Dick are constantly on the prowl for anything that might harm Tim. They're almost asking for it, they want the release of battle to match the pain in their hearts.
Tim is… bereft.
June 2016
10 Minutes to minimum safe distance." The young vigilante hears with satisfaction.
"You sent him there didn't you?" He asks.
"Of course, he was the only one that could." Superman responds calmly, not knowing his peril.
"He can't forgive you… And I never will. You sent him on that mission. You sent him away to die." Tim states coldly.
"He was made to be a weapon. I used him as such… there was no other way. You simply got to play with him for a time."
Tim barely held back his rage at the arrogance. Conner wasn't a plaything to be toyed with. He was a young man who made his own choices and decided his own fate and had chosen to make that fate with Robin at his side.
"Thank you for your honesty. I see now your arrogance for what it is. You have been more powerful than humans for so long that you now see yourself above them. The only difference between you and Lex Luthor is that you already have what he wants. Power."
"Listen young man, your mortal mind cannot comprehend what I am and what I have done to protect…"
"SILENCE! Your words convict you. You should have listened more to your human father Jonathan than the voices in that damnable crystal. Pa Kent would be shamed by you now."
"How dare you!"
"I can dare anything now. You have already destroyed everything I loved in life."
His arrogance overriding his sense, Superman launches forward into a devastating punch with his right fist. No human would ever survive it… if it landed. But Robin was no normal human.
"You saved me the trouble of rationalizing. You attacked me." Tim casts aside his cape as he dodged to the side and instead of the red and green garb he had always worn at Superboy's side, he is covered in tight scaled armour of black and red; and ready for battle.
With a flick of his wrist, the small metal tube in his hand extends to the staff he is known for wielding with such success… the gift from Huntress that he had used to great effect for these few years of his young life.
For a moment, Superman laughs at Robin's posture. No human can harm him, and never had… until he sees the green glowing tips of the staff. He had capped his weapon with kryptonite. The Kryptonian pauses in uncertainty and fear. That pause is more than Robin needs. Superman had never known fear at the hands of a human before.
Leaping forward and swinging his staff from his right hand, he lands his blow solidly on Superman's face, knocking him back onto the floor. Robin was right… once you evened the odds, he wasn't that intimidating. The young vigilante then saw something no one had ever seen… Superman bleed.
Robin struck again and again. He was not as fast as Superman, but far smarter, and anticipated every move he might make and the kryptonite more than evened the scales. With each blow Superman felt his strength ebb away.
"But I saved Earth by using him. He was just a weapon." Superman pleaded as Robin continued to beat him.
By pleading, Superman misjudged his antagonist. By minimizing the young half-Kryptonian clone and his role in life, he only enraged Robin further as his staff struck again and again.
"So, in your cowardice you chose another to take the fall? My friend? My husband? My life? My beloved? And yet you wonder at my anger. Maybe Jason was right all along."
Five minutes to minimum safe distance.
The computer continues to call out the timeline. There is no one left on the WatchTower, as Robin had wished. His anger is for Superman alone. He had contrived false emergencies all over the world, and other worlds, to send everyone else away. Robin was after vengeance but he was no murderer. 220 miles below, another personal drama was taking place.
Batman finally returns to the Cave. Days on end of fighting across Gotham and the world have kept him busy as more and more of the Justice League has gone missing on their own personal emergencies. As he sits at his computer console, and Alfred step forward to his side with a cup of tea and lays a heavy envelope before him.
"This came for you sir." Alfred's voice tries to mask his grief… and fails.
Ripping open the envelope, Batman swiftly reads:
Father,
I'm sorry to leave this way… but there is no other way. If I had spoken to you before this time, you would have held me back. This needed to happen. I know why I lost what I did. I owe him an answer. We made such as life as only poets dream of and one man took that from me. I can no longer go on.
Please Dad, take care of Bart. He won't understand. I beg you to help him and keep him strong. He has such a kind and loving heart. Don't let it perish in grief as mine has. I do not know how to explain, but to say that the loss of Kon is a loss to the world; and damn the world. The loss to me is something that maybe you alone can comprehend.
Remember me well and remember Kon well. We lived, we loved, and I hope we made you proud.
Your Loving Son,
Timothy Wayne
"Alfred!" Bruce calls out in anguish.
"Alfred!" He cries to the only man who he has ever bared his soul to. His tears stain the fine parchment paper as he falls to his knees in pain. As he collapses, his hand drags the envelope to the floor with him and three small items fall with him. Two gleaming platinum bands… and a simple rough-hewn steel band.
"No… my sons… NNNOOOO!" Batman cries echo upward to the roof of the Batcave.
Somehow Superman is able to withstand some of the beating Robin lays upon him. But Robin relishes the moment. He is able to vent his rage and loss on the man who has taken everything from him. His voice chokes in gasping sobs as he strikes again and again with his kryptonite staff. His only comfort is that Ma and Pa Kent have passed on and will not know this moment. But the staff is not enough. Casting it aside, he peels away his right gauntlet and strikes Superman with his bare fist, adorned with the kryptonite ring that Batman had given him several years before. Batman had feared for his son loving a Kryptonian, never knowing that the singular weapon would be used against that Kryptonian's father.
Weakened, beaten, and barely conscious, Superman is dragged by his cape to the depths of the WatchTower. Robin's rage and anguish give him the strength for this final act.
"You should have been a father to Kon. You could have been a father-in-law for me to love and respect. You were none of these things." Tim said as he pulled the cable loose from his ascension line and tied the "Man of Steel" to a plasma conduit running from the reactor core of the WatchTower.
"You cannot make that mistake again."
"You can't do this Robin the world needs me." Superman gasps through broken teeth and split lips.
"Its still about you, isn't it? Don't you understand that without love and respect, which you tore from us, nothing else is of consequence?"
"It was for the greater good!" Superman chokes through the blood filling his mouth.
"What greater good is there than the love we shared… or the love you should have shown your son but denied him?"
Three minutes to critical mass. Three minutes to achieve minimum safe distance. The computer calls out.
"You still have time to escape, Robin." Superman says, trying his last ploy. If Robin escapes he takes the kryptonite with him.
"No. We'll go to see your son and my husband together."
Robin pulls away his mask and looks at Superman with his own eyes. The Kryptonian sees the beautiful blue eyes clouded by grief and steeled in determination. The eyes that should have only known joy are dimmed by pain and anguish, such that even Superman can feel it in the look of the hopelessly bereft young man.
Lowering his head and spitting out the blood of a broken mouth Kal-El learns the error he has made and accepts his fate… if only to late.
Critical mass achieved. All personnel evacuate.
Batman looks up from his grief to the computer's summons. The WatchTower was calling for help. Having read the letter from his son… he knew now what was happening.
The great Detective ran from his computer and out of the Cave entrance and looked up to the sky.
"Goodbye Superman. Your son was a better man than you. But at least I can say I avenged him."
Robin places his last explosive charge on the cooling duct of the reactor core.
"You'll die too." Superman says, appealing to Robin's sense of reason.
"Yes… I know."
Three… Two… One
As the computer of the Monitor Womb counted down, Robin relaxed and in his last moments he felt as much as heard Conner's voice:
"You look tired, my love. Come home and rest."
Tim's mind played back every moment in the span of a second. The first date, the first kiss, the battles fought side by side, the family they had built; the times they had made love together. He felt the sensation of Kon's arms around him and he knew peace.
The WatchTower erupted into a thermonuclear reaction… and Timothy was once again with his beloved Conner.
Miles below on the surface, Batman still looks up to the sky and sees an almost supernova like effect in the sky… witnessing the loss of his son. Even Alfred could barely stand to see the pain. Batman didn't cry nor sob. He fell to his knees gasping for breath and wished for oblivion.
A week later another empty casket is lowered into the ground next to Conner's. The memorial is private… only the family is present. Dick, Jason, and Damian all pay their respects. Bart and Jamie are near barely holding themselves together. Brian had come too, adding another statue to the grounds, next to Kon's.
After the memorial, Bruce walks back into the house feeling very old and weary. The trials of many years taking their toll on the man. A goateed man meets him in the shadows of the entry of the manor. Ra's al'Ghul awaits his longtime foe.
"I would never have wished this upon you, my friend."
"Friend? How can you call me that?"
"Do you think I can know you as I do without appreciating and respecting you? It was out of respect that I returned Jason to you. I was wrong in that decision. I regret it immeasurably. But your son Tim… he was a young man worthy of all you have to offer.
"He would have surpassed me, Ra's." Bruce manages to choke out in honesty.
"Yes, my friend. He was already your equal."
Bart and Jamie returned to Mount Justice, and to the final remembrance. At the heart of the mountain, holographic statues were erected of the two heroic lovers. The Team of young heroes stood in a circle around their images hand in hand, trying to find strength and hope in one another. Releasing hands, Kaldur'ahm stepped forward and placed a leather jacket at the pedestal of Superboy; and Wally snapped open Robin's staff and reverently set it at the holographic feet of his best friend Robin.
Moments passed as they quietly shared moments of their friends lost to them; then quietly drifted away to make new lives for themselves.
Red Tornado, having been the mentor of the Team and their sponsor, felt the loss no less than any other. Maybe he was right. He had a heart, memory, and maybe a soul. He laid himself down on the slab in the medical bay and let his systems go into a dormant status. The red glow of his eyes dimmed as he slowly shut down. The Mountain stood dark and silent but for the glow of the holographic memorial… and the two young heroic lovers holding hands. Red Tornado would be ready should others come one day; and these young men would be an inspiration to them all.
A month later, Bart is still adjusting to a new life without his big brothers: Tim and Kon. They had left him everything, and Bruce Wayne visited often and saw that he had all his needs met, insofar as he could. But loneliness is a terrible burden and Jamie finally decided to move in and maybe build a better life together.
As they went through the house boxing up some things, weeping over other things, they finally managed to clear out Conner's study. Just before disconnecting the computer, the monitor displayed a message screen and the speaker intoned:
Message for Bart Allen
Bart ran to the computer in desperate anxiety and replayed the message three times, not daring to hope any further. He had lost too much for him to have that much hope, but the message was the same each time. Following the instructions, he typed in a code when prompted and a hidden panel opened in the desk and he found three very cold items: a research journal and two small labelled vials holding a murky fluid.
"Jamie!" Bart screams in hope. "JAMIE!" He shrieks in that same hope rekindled.S
Before he has a chance to arrive, Bart is already dialing the phone.
"Jim?... Yeah, it's Bart." Impulse asks Guardian on the phone.
"Can you get me into CADMUS?... yeah… tonight!" Bart demands. "Thanks. You will never regret it. I promise."
Bart never makes promises. He's learned better over two ages to do so, but this was far different.
Jamie comes running in feeling the sense of hope from Bart.
"We have to go out tonight." Impulse tells Blue Beetle, and then shows him the two vials in his hand… marked: "Tim-Ell" and "Rob-Ell."
Hope is kindled in the hearts of those who remember Tim and Kon.