Guess who really should be working on other stories but instead is posting a new one shot? XD
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I probably never will *cries* So I suppose that writing fanfiction will have to do.
"Enough!" Batman yells at the four boys in front of him. Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Robin all stop their babbling at the tone of their father's voice. It had seemed so...so...angry. They had only ever heard him use that tone on the worst of the Arkham villains, and not even then normally. He had a certain voice that only the four birds ever heard, and he rarely used any other voice with them unless he were Batman with one of his proteges, not Bruce with one of his sons.
So to say they were surprised was obvious, but they were more than surprised. They were a bit frightened. They know it's stupid, neither Bruce nor Batman would ever lay a hand any of them, but it's just that look. That look of sheer anger than makes the worst of Gotham's villains cower in fear directed at them...Anyone would be frightened by it.
It had been a rough night. Almost every Arkham inmate had managed to escape thanks to a mishap with the new security at the Asylum, and they had been tracking them down for three nights straight with no sleep at all.
And now that Joker had gotten away, thanks to the four of them not being quite as alert as usual, and Bruce's lack of sleep and just sheer frustration was enough for him to lash out at his boys who were trying their best to explain how he had managed to slip away before the Batman could get there.
"I don't want to hear another word. Do you hear me? Get changed and go to your rooms now. And none of you are to even enter the Batcave tomorrow." he says in a somewhat deadly tone before storming off to the Batcomputer.
"It's times like these I wish I had never gone to the circus that night, or parked the Batmobile in that alley, or let a complete stranger take on the Robin mantle, or even met Talia Al Ghul." he mumbles, but in the back of his mind knowing that they all heard him as if he yelled the words as loud as he could. Either way it hurt them. A lot.
But Bruce pays no mind to them as he goes to do as he just told the four birds to do before going to bed for the night. It was times like these he wished he had never become Batman in the first place. That he had just stayed the billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne and left it at that.
He gets in his bed and falls asleep his last thought being 'I wish I had never become Batman.'
Bruce awakes refreshed and feeling better than he has in a while. He gets dressed and walks downstairs not noticing the quietness of the manor. He gets down to the kitchen and sits down at the table as Alfred sets down a plate of his breakfast in front of him. He give a quick thanks to the butler before eating and finally noticing the lack of birds. He shrugs it off, figuring they're just all still in their rooms hoping not to get into more trouble.
He feels a bit guilty for yelling at them like he did, but they needed to be told what they did wrong. They'd gotten scolded before; they would get over it.
"Sir, you have an appointment at Wayne Enterprises in one hour and a date with Vicky Vale this evening." Bruce nods at the butler, but freezes. Since when does he have a date with Vicky Vale?
"Since when do I have a date with Vicky Vale, Alfred?" he asks.
"Since about two years ago, Sir, when the two of you started seeing each other." Alfred says looking a little worried. His next words cause the younger man to almost choke on his breakfast, "You do not remember? You did ask her to marry you, after all."
"I did what!?" Bruce yells standing up. He glances at the stairs. Still no little birds coming downstairs. Normally at least one of them would come down if he started yelling just to see why he was yelling in the first place. But still not one of them had made an appearance.
"Yes, you did. Master Bruce, are you feeling alright? Do I need to call a doctor for you?"
"Alfred where are the boys?" he asks ignoring the butlers question.
"What boys, may I ask, are you referring to, Master Bruce?"
Bruce glares slightly at the old man, not liking where this was going at all. "Are they down in the Batcave?"
"What is a...Batcave, Master Bruce?" Alfred asks, and Bruce can't tell if he's lying or telling the truth with that one.
"You know what the Batcave is, Alfred. HQ for the Batman."
"Would you enlighten me on who this Batman is, Sir?"
"I don't have the time for this, Alfred. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian. Where are they?"
The look of pure confusion and worry are evident on Alfred's face, "Sir, I do not know who Dick, Jason, Tim, or Damian are, but I can assure you that they do not live here. You and I are the only ones here."
After hearing this Bruce's eyes widen as he runs up the stairs straight into Dick's bedroom hoping to find his eldest son, completely ready to yell at him while hugging the life out of him for scaring him, but when he opens the door his heart sinks. It's just another guest room. Only a bed, nightstand, and desk are in the room, no personal items at all making it look as if the room belonged to anyone. He checks the other three bedrooms and gets the same result.
He sinks to his knees inside Damian's bedroom and wraps his arms around himself. A very un-Batman-like thing to do, but a perfectly okay thing for a worried parent to do when he just realized that his kids are gone.
"What is happening?" he asks grabbing at his head.
"Your wish." Bruce looks up at the strange voice to see a white glowing figure standing before him. She has light blonde hair, pale skin, and all white clothes. She holds a small silver walking stick, although it's clear she doesn't need it to stand or walk.
"Who are you?" he asks hating the slight quiver in his voice as he stands to his full height.
"I am the one who granted your wish."
"What wish?" he asks temporarily ignoring the fact that she still didn't fully answer his question.
"You said you wished you had never become Batman. You wish has been granted. Are you happy now?"
He looks at her scrambling inside his brain until he remember thinking that the night before.
"But this...Why are they gone?" He doesn't know why his voice sounds so small...so pathetic...so desperate...desperate to get his sons back, and wishing he could take back everything he had said to them the previous night.
"Come. I will show you them." She holds out her hand and Bruce hesitantly takes it as she twirls her walking stick and a bright white light surrounds them.
They are taken to a hall full of bleachers, almost like an indoor coliseum, where people in expensive suits with owl masks sit, watching the people in the center. In the center a man in an owl like suit stands before a quivering man who looks scared to death.
"You made us angry." Bruce pales at the voice behind that owl mask, "That was a very bad decision. You will pay!" the man in the owl mask slices through the man's throat with his talons and the crowd cheers. He removes the mask to reveal the face of Dick Grayson with a triumphant grin crossed with an evil smirk on his face as he bows to the audience and commands that they bring out the next one for him.
But...But Dick would never hurt anyone. When Bruce had first taken him in the nine year old had cried when his adoptive father killed a fly. Bruce had to give the fly a funeral to calm the boy down.
"Dick...What happened to you?"
"It is in his blood to be a talon. You know this."
Yes, Bruce does know this. He knows that it haunts the twenty three year old to the core that had Bruce not taken him in they would've gotten to him after his parent's murder and made him into a talon.
And then Bruce understands.
"Why would Bruce Wayne go to a circus? Batman was not keeping him here, so he was in Italy the night the Graysons fell to their deaths. The Court Of Owls snatched him up immediately." the ghost lady says.
"No." Bruce grabs at his head trying to block out the sound his his son murdering an innocent man in front of his eyes, "No. No. No, this can't be happening."
When he opens his eyes they're inside some warehouse with Black Mask, some of his goons, and...Bruce has to look a little closer at the man who Mask and his goons are currently beating senseless before his eyes widen in recognition.
"Jason."
He watches, helpless, as his second oldest son is tied up, gagged, and being beaten right before his eyes. He feels tears pricking his eyes as he recalls a video tape the Joker sent him of Jason's beating right before his death.
"JASON!"
He runs over to the men attacking his son and is both greatly surprised and greatly disappointed when he passes straight through them.
"What the...?"
"You cannot interact with anyone or anything. For you are not really here."
"How did this happen to him?" Bruce asks not caring how weak he sounds.
"Without Batman to save him from the streets, he became an apprentice of Black Mask. Being Mask's apprentice means sometimes helping with drug trades, sometimes murdering people who get in the way, sometimes running errands for the others higher than him in Mask's eyes, but most of the time...It means this. Being someone for Black Mask to take his anger out on when things don't go his way."
"Please take me somewhere else." he begs the ghost, unable to listen to his son's muffled cries of agony any longer.
When he wipes the tears from his eyes he finds himself in a bedroom...A familiar looking bedroom...Tim's old bedroom.
He looks over to the door as it's suddenly thrown open and a certain seventeen year old is literally thrown inside with one very large angry looking man standing at the door.
"I-I-I'm sorry! I was just-" Tim doesn't even get to finish the sentence before the man punches him in the face. He is roughly yanked up from the floor by his collar and promptly thrown back against the wall. Bruce involuntary flinches as the man's foot collides with Tim's back and a sickening cracking sound fills room, accompanying Tim's cries of pain.
He takes a minute to look over his second youngest son, painfully aware of how different he looks just from a glance. He's even scrawnier than the last time he got really sick and refused to eat for two weeks. He didn't even try to count all the wires and tubes the boy was attached to just to keep him alive. He's practically just skin and bones. Skin and bones and scars and bruises.
"Without identifying the identities of Batman and Robin Tim was just a normal kid. When his parents died he was put into an orphanage and adopted by an abusive man who only adopted him to kill him and steal his money when he turned twenty one and had access to it. The man bought back the Drake Mansion with some of Tim's money that he did have access to, and basically made the boy his prisoner." the ghost says to him.
"Please take me away from here." he sobs.
"There is still one last place we need to go."
Before Bruce can ask questions he's standing with the ghost lady in Ra's Al Ghul's study.
"B-B-But Damian...Damian is my blood son...I was Batman when Talia...How does he even exist?" he asks tears still streaming from his face at the thought of his youngest son not ever even being born.
"Oh, Damian exists. Just not your Damian."
"What do you..."
The door to Ra's' study opens and Talia along with a man and young boy enter the room. The man he's never seen before, but the Al Ghul is obvious just by looking at the boy's face. He has beach blonde hair and green eyes. He looks nothing like Damian, and yet...
"Talia. Hugo. Damain. What of your last mission?" Ra's asks as the three stand in front of his desk.
"The target was decapitated, Grandfather. Just as you asked." 'Damian says with as much emotion as a robot.
"Damian?"
"Yes. Talia never had a reason to meet Bruce Wayne since he was not the Batman. She and a servant of Ra's fell in love and got married. Once Talia got pregnant, Damian was grown in an artificial womb. When he was born he underwent a surgery to remove any and all emotions or feelings, making him into the perfect soldier."
"They made him into a slave!" Bruce yells, wishing more than anything to be able to punch Talia in the face.
"Maybe so. He is the heir to the League Of Assassins; the next Demon's Head. I can see the future, and I see it in flames when Damian Al Ghul takes over."
"No. This can't be happening." Bruce falls to his knees and wraps his arms around himself, "Dickie...Bluejay...Timmy...Dami...My sons...I'm sorry." he sobs, "I'm so, so, so, so, sorry."
"NO!" Bruce sits straight up in his bed panting and sweating with tears streaming down his face.
It was...just a nightmare?
"Bruce!" the door swings open and the lights turn on as four pairs of blue eyes look at him. Bruce jumps out of bed and wraps his arms around them, sobbing.
"Bruce, are you okay?" Dick asks. Bruce nods and releases them.
He turns to look at Dick and smiles, "Dickie I am so glad that I went to the circus that night. You've always been a light in my life, and I wouldn't change anything I did that night. Ever." He gives his eldest a hug who returns it, although a little confused about the whole situation.
"Uh, thanks, Bruce."
He releases Dick and turns to Jason, "Bluejay, you are not my greatest failure, and I am more than grateful that I just so happened to park the Batmobile in that certain alley on that certain night. I'm sorry I haven't always been the best father to you, but I care about to more than you know." he hugs the nineteen year old who, surprisingly, hugs back.
"Thanks, Dad."
Releasing him he turns to Tim who is refusing to meet his gaze, "Timmy," he gently lifts the boy's chin so that he's looking him in the eyes, "You saved me when you became Robin. Had I not let you, I probably wouldn't be here right now. I never expected you to become so important to me when you first started out, but now I can't imagine my life without you." he engulfs the teen in a hug that the boy gratefully returns.
Tim sniffles, "Thanks, Bruce."
Turning to his youngest and kneeling down to his height he faces Damian. He takes note of his black hair and blue eyes. He looks so much better with that combination than with blonde hair and green eyes. "Dami, you're my only blood son; that makes you special. Meeting your mother was one of the best things I've ever done because I ended up with you. No, I did not plan for you, but I wouldn't have it any other way than with you right here where you belong." he hugs the teary eyes ten year old ex-assassin who holds on for dear life.
"Thank you, Father." he whispers not letting go. He pulls the other three down and wraps his arms around the four of them.
"I regret nothing regarding taking you four boys in. Okay? I'm sorry about what I said yesterday, but-"
"Bruce. It's okay. You were mad. We get it. We all have an off day sometimes." Dick says with an understanding smile; Jason and Tim both silently agree.
This is how it should be. Dick with a genuine smile on his face, happy beyond measure about helping someone and not murdering people just for fun; Jason and Tim both safe and not being beaten every other day by their master or adoptive father; and Damian with Wayne blood running through his veins.
He knows now. It may be frustrating sometimes, but he wouldn't give up being Batman for the world. Because that would mean giving up his world. His sons. They are his entire world; he's lost without them. They are the light to the darkness that threatens to take him over. They save him from himself everyday.
His only thought as he sits there holding his boys, 'I regret nothing.'
Later an old man sits in his room and adds a new picture to his scrapbook.
So, there's that. I'm actually pretty proud of it :)
Got a little mushy at the end...Okay, a lot mushy, but...Eh, *shrugs* that was kinda the point of this whole one-shot.
And I know I've already done the whole Jason Black Mask thing, but he's sorta just my go-to villain when Jason is involved. Well, either him or Joker, but Joker didn't exactly fit into this. Originally I was gonna have Dick and Jason teamed up and become criminals together, but I decided against it and went with this.
Aaaaaaaand, now for the fun part. I'm thinking about writing a story in this universe. It would be them meeting each other and coming together but in these lives. It wouldn't be up for a while probably, I still have to write it, but I'm still working everything out for it. For one thing: The title. Anyone got any ideas? If you do just put them in a review or PM me. Or if you have any ideas for the story in general. As long as it doesn't conflict with any ideas I already have I'll probably use it.
Anyhoo, please review to tell me what you thought :)