A/N: This started off as a Batana request from TheFutureKatana. Since I can't write something purely ship-centered to save my life, here are snippets of Bruce and Tatsu's life in the six months the series skipped (and a few after). Fair warning: Tatsu will be out of character some during the six months. I felt like that needed to happen, though. If there's anything I know about grief, it's that it makes your emotions doing weird things.
Disclaimer: I do not own Beware the Batman.
"Lifelines"
Alfred left three days after the funeral. He left before the shock could settle, before the despair could end, and before the healing process could begin. He left when demons began to rise, when inner darkness began to conquer the inner light. Alfred left at the worst possible time... And deep down, Tatsu hated him for it. She had gone from hating him to loving him many times within the past hours. But right now, she just couldn't take it. The family was a heading for a downfall and he wouldn't be there to catch them.
So when he left, her throat still raw from swallowing the tears she dared not shed, she didn't bid him farewell. How could she, when he was leaving them like this? She watched with glaring eyes as he drove away. The gate caught the moonlight as it opened to let him through, then again as it closed, seeing him out. When he came back- if he came back, as so many others in his situation did not- he had better be giving them a full explanation.
"The wrongs of your past, huh?" Tatsu thought bitterly. "How about the trials of your future?"
She didn't know if she meant the trials he would face upon returning or the trials of Bruce and herself he would miss. She didn't care. It didn't matter.
It had been years since she'd been this sick, or sick at all, for that matter. She supposed grief could do that to a person: deteriorate them through illness, from the inside as well as out. Tatsu didn't say anything to Bruce as she checked her temperature that morning in the kitchen, didn't complain when the thermometer read one hundred-and-two. Patrol kept her busy. Who cares if she gave a fever to a criminal?
Bruce didn't seem to mind either. He let her take out a few thugs, then barely batted an eye when she lost her last meal on the floor of the Cave. She didn't think much of it for several days, as she lay deliriously in her bed. It was only when her fever broke and her head began to clear did she realize something was wrong. Not about her, but about Bruce. She recalled how almost protective he'd been of her weeks ago. Where was that now?
Tatsu dragged herself out of bed a week before Christmas. Exactly one month after Alfred's departure, her subconscious told her. Her body still moved sluggishly, weather from the sickness or the lack of recent movement she didn't know. Bruce must have noticed, of course. He noticed everything. But he didn't say anything. He didn't go easy on her as he knocked her into a machine in training.
It was then Tatsu started to mentally hit herself. She had been so caught up in her own grief, in her own struggles, and in her own life that she had been blind to the obvious. Bruce was sliding. It all made sense now: all the trips to see Magpie in Blackgate, all those obsessive behaviors he had been taking on, the lack of communication, and the constant separation of his two identities. Bruce- Batman- both of them. They were sliding.
"You need help," Tatsu said before she could stop herself. Bruce, sweat glistening on his forehead, mouth fixed in a straight line, looked at her. He narrowed his eyes, as if wondering why the woman sprawled and defeated on the floor needed to help him.
"Go clean up," he told her- no, ordered her- simply. He began to step away.
Tatsu got to her feet, followed him. "Bruce, I d-"
He stopped in his tracks and, without turning around, told her with pure venom in his voice: "Bruce Wayne does not need help."
Tatsu got him a cookbook for Christmas. She had planned it months ago, when… Jason… started teaching her to make fried chicken. It had been a joke at the time between her and… Alfred… due to his lack of solid food intake. That, and what exactly do you get a billionaire for Christmas?
She put it on the keyboard of the Batcomputer on Christmas morning while he was on the other side of the Cave, then left. Later, when she returned from visiting the cemetery, she would find the gift nowhere in sight, and Bruce- no, Batman- stalking across the landing. "Pyg's out," he told her simply.
Tatsu stopped with her mouth open, the "Merry Christmas" never leaving her lips. Suddenly anger flared in her stomach. So that was how he was going to act? Fine then.
She stalked right after him, the determination like etched stone on her face as she walked into the shadows. She'd pull him back. She'd be his lifeline.
To some, rain was redemption. The cool, clear, pure water washing away their sins. For others, rain was destruction. In the eyes of those depressed and hurt, the rain was the sky crying, the world falling apart slowly through small droplets of moisture. For Batman, rain represented punishment. It showed him that goodness, like sunlight, could always be severed by darker forces.
Katana stood next to him, both of them perched on the ledge of an office building. To flirt with gravity was risky on clear nights, but in the rain was solely dangerous. Katana was no stranger to her partner's story. She had heard it twice- the summary, by Bruce, and earlier the entire novel, through Alfred. She wondered subconsciously if it had rained that night…
"So I was thinking after your speech tomorrow we could blend up some ice cream." Katana knew it sounded stupid before it even came out of her mouth. Bruce would never in a million years eat ice cream- blended or not.
The Batman fixed her with a heavy stare- not exactly his signature glare, but fierce enough to be unsettling. "Bruce Wayne will be unable to make his speech." And with that, he turned away. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. His back was like a door: closing out everything he didn't want to see, all the while being washed by that stupid, symbolic rain.
She would have to try harder.
Tatsu first realized Batman was going on patrols without her when she woke up at three one morning. She didn't sleep as much as she would have liked these days. It was as if sleep were habit: it could be broken and fallen into easily. She had fallen out habit after Jason died every time she closed her eyes. These days, however, the problem was her thoughts. She had a million different scenarios fighting for her attention. All of them were possible solutions to mending a darkening spirit. None of them worked.
Finally, she grudgingly focused what had gotten her through many of her… Rough patches. "What would Major do," she asked herself. She thought for a second, then pulled her covers tighter around her neck.
"Leave and let everyone else sort out their problems," she huffed. Her eyes were burning angry holes in the wall.
Then, after she had cooled down, she got the real answer: he would talk it out. Tatsu walked into the hallway and knocked on her partner's door. "Bruce?"
No answer. She tried again. Still no response. She walked down to the elevator.
The Cave was empty as well. The surveillance footage showed the Batman leaving on his own.
The snow crunched under her feet as she travelled up the hill to the cemetery. Walking up here every day had become like sleeping for only four hours: a habit she had fallen into. These days Tatsu didn't even think about it as she left to stare at the lot where they had buried Jason without his body.
They had the funeral early in the morning when the sun was just starting to peak over the horizon. This way very few people knew there wasn't anything to bury. This way very few knew what had occurred. Still, his family had been notified. And she had been forced to tell them the entire story. She closed her eyes, unable to think about it. That much hate and hurt coming off at her for letting him die. It was too much to think about.
"I'm out of ideas," she told the ground, as if he were really down there and could hear her. "Bruce is acting pathetic… Who goes around switching their identities like that?"
Magpie, a part of her mind told her. Someone who was insane and damaged with criminal intentions. But that wasn't Bruce… Or maybe it was. She didn't pretend to understand all that went through his mind.
She put her hand on the grave marker. "You were crazy for making that Cortex," she told it. "You had your entire life to live. Are you even sorry?"
She sat down in the snow, letting her hand fall. She hated them both- Alfred and Jason- for leaving her when she needed them most. She loved them and hated them…. And she wanted them back.
As she left the cemetery, she passed the graves of Thomas and Martha Wayne. Unable to think clearly and out of options, she sat down in front of them.
For Bruce, she told herself as she dialed his number. Major would know what to do. Major would know what to do. Please, Major, know what to do.
The air turned to concrete as the phone began to ring. For Bruce, for Batman, for Bruce. For me. For the family…
It went to voice mail.
I hate you, but I want you to come back. Please come back.
"Major…."
For Bruce, for Bruce, for Bruce.
"I'm not Bruce Wayne."
Her blood ran cold. So many times she had heard him differentiate between his two identities, but never had he just… Denied he was one or the other. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but no words came out. It wouldn't have helped. His back- his door- had closed on her.
She watched helplessly as he drove away, police cars in tow. She just stood there for what could have been several minutes or hours or many dark-swallowed days. Bruce and Batman balanced each other out. With one missing from the scale…
No.
New images haunted her when she closed her eyes. She told Alfred everything as she led him down the hall. She told him about all the commotion with Harvey Dent. She told him about his separation of identities. She told him about his run-in with Killer Croc…
Her breath caught. Her vision swam with images of Batman's hand colliding with Croc's body over and over and over again. He wouldn't have…killed him? Would he? What if she…
She stood back as Alfred began to tend to him. She loved them and hated them both.
"I'm not alone. Not anymore."
She felt like she breathed for the first time in years.
A month after Slade's attack, she found a suit where she usually kept her sword. Later she would realize how pathetic she must've looked, but in that moment all she could do was stare at the black padding, the silver belt… Her face broke out into a smile
On the chest was a bright red bat insignia.
She left Gotham with the Outsiders soon after the formation of the Justice League. It was for the best, she told herself. It was time to move on.
She saw him on television sometimes, after a victory with the League. She wandered if he ever thought about her.
Maybe it was time to go back.
She climbed back into Gotham twelve years after she first left. She had… seen too much. That was her excuse. That was the truth.
When Bruce opened the door, she wrapped her arms around his torso. To her surprise, he let her, went as far as putting a hand between her shoulder blades, as she told him everything.
He would be her lifeline now.
A/N: I have the most depressing headcanon about Tatsu's future. But that's for another story. This once I just wanted to write and let it have a bittersweet ending. I actually liked how I decided to do it. At first the moments were long and dramatic, but then they got smaller. Things became lighter and happier. I don't know, I just like symbolism. I'm not sure how much I like this as a whole though...
Anyway, sorry if you don't like it. I have something coming that I think you will like, though. I'm doing a full-blown season two story. Not the segments I usually do (reallyyyy need to stop doing these snippets), but a full, episode-based season story. For other story updates, you can see my profile! :)
Thanks for reading!:)