Aftermath

By Nchan

Disclaimer: The characters within belong almost entirely to entities that are not me. These include AOL TimeWarner, DC comics etc. At the moment I'm too broke to even buy a Batman T-shirt, so there's really no gain to be made by suing me.

Notes: This fic is Twenty-verse. It is the fifth in the series, and comes immediately after 'The Broken Glass Eulogy.' It may be read as a stand-alone detective story, but the character interplay will make a lot more sense to those who've read the rest of the Twenty series.

In terms of canon, that's a heck of a lot trickier; Twenty kicks off with Batman's Great Betrayal, and has been pretty divergent from there. However, some of the subsequent events in comic-dom will dovetail nicely with Twenty-verse, so I'll make some attempt to integrate in between having Huntress kick the place apart. At the moment, think pre-War Games, pre-Identity Crisis, well and truly pre-52 (since I haven't read it yet) and, obviously, pre-One Year Later. In team-up comics, that means pre-current incarnation of the Teen Titans. The other thing of canonical note is that in Twenty-verse, despite an absence of nearly a year while he was off being tortured and brainwashed, Tim has never given up the Robin mantle, and Batman has never offered it to Spoiler.

Chapter I

He awoke, again, in a medical bed in the Cave. This time, however, he was neither shackled nor watched – at least by direct human observation.

//Well, that's a pleasant enough change,// Tim thought muzzily as he sat up, sheets sliding off into a tangled debris at the foot of the bed. //And it looks like I sleep sprawling again.// Pulling down the T-shirt that had somehow ridden up in sleep until it sat somewhere north of his midriff – a smooth, unmarked expanse, he noted – Tim slipped out of the bed.

He felt. . . good. So much so that it seemed almost surprising. Gone were the agonizing holes in his psyche, the commands whispering and demanding at him. The faint tug of scar tissue was gone, too. It had never been a limit to his movement, but its presence had been a reminder all the same that he was not his own, that he belonged to someone else. Property, not person. //But maybe not anymore.//

It wasn't that the memory of the last few months was gone, or even distant. It wasn't as though it belong to someone else either, or as if his return to himself had destroyed or degraded the 'being' – for he wasn't quite generous enough to call it a 'person' – that he'd been for much of that time. It was just, he realized with no small amount of wonder, that it didn't hurt as much as it had.

And that was no small treasure indeed.

Wincing slightly at the coldness of the cave floor beneath his bare feet, he padded over towards the Crays, whose bluish-green light spattered an eerie illumination over the rest of the cave. Batman, it seemed, had a case.

On closer inspection, Batman didn't have a case so much as a fire to put out. And he was doing it in remarkably tactful Bruce Wayne form. Tim bit back a grin at the incongruity of the dapper playboy's voice coming from behind the grim pointy eared mask. Then, as he listened in to the phone conversation, his good humour faded.

"Well, for heaven's sake, Jack, I didn't even know that Tim was missing! . . . You'd moved to Metropolis and I just figured he'd gone with you . . . no, no . . . funeral? What invitation to a funeral? . . . oh, I might have been in Barbados. Or was it Paris? . . . But he's alive, you say, so it doesn't matter that I missed his funeral . . . Still in Gotham? Great! I'd love to catch up with him . . . oh, he's supposed to come to Metropolis this weekend? Well, you boys have a nice . . . didn't show up? Well then where is he? . . . No I don't know anything about a family called 'Casey'. . . 'Mireba'? Don't they own that big building downtown? I think I went to a party there a couple of months ago. Or was that the 'Manly' building. . . I'll have to ask Lucius. . . Yes, I'll do that . . . doesn't remember you? Why? . . . But how do you know that if you haven't seen him for . . . Oh. Oh, I see. . . But if that's what they told you then why would they lie? . . .Just hold on, before you panic that he might be 'wandering the streets again', he may not remember you, but there's nothing to say he doesn't know where or who he is now. Maybe something came up and he couldn't go this weekend. . . Uh huh. No, I can't think why an adolescent boy who was rescued off the streets with no memory of running away from boarding school only to be enslaved by a drug gang could possibly not want to . . . Me? Sarcastic? . . . Listen, have you rung the people, those corporate people, who first contacted you saying they'd found him and asked them? . . .Oh, Saturday, huh. Well, I'll talk to my people, Lucius and my secretary, and see if we have any contact details for any of them. . . what was their lawyer's name again?. . . No, no problem. Bye."

With a barely concealed expression of distaste, Batman slid the phone back into it's cradle. "What a mess."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Tim slid into the pool of light given off by the monitors. Only years of training kept Batman from startling at his sudden appearance. Tim politely pretended not to notice. //Well, it looks like my 'sneaky-time' skills haven't been affected by the Supercycle's healing. //

"No need. The question now is, how do you wish to deal with it?"

Only his own self control kept Tim from drawing a sharp breath at that. There it was. Right there, out and in the open. Batman – Bruce – mentor, teacher, leader, was allowing him room for independence. Some months ago he'd promised to earn the right to Robin's - at that stage, Van's - new identity rather than to simply take it. It looked like the sentiment still held, even if the conversation with Jack Drake had blown the details away. //though I'd be kidding myself if I didn't think this was also a test of sorts. Even though I know that I'm healing, that I'm me, Batman's gotta be getting sick of not being sure exactly who is going to wake up every time I pass out.//

"Dad . . ." It felt strange somehow to use the term, and Tim tasted it carefully before repeating it. "Dad's expecting to see me. Well, an amnesiac version of me. I'd hate to disappoint him. And if being with him and Dana suddenly 'jogs my memory', that's all well and good." His voice hardened. "I will not leave Gotham for this, though. We'll be too busy cleaning after the …and anyway, the city still needs patrolling." //And besides, look what happened the last time I got on a train for Metropolis.// He steeled himself for argument.

"Very well. I will arrange for him to come to Gotham."

"To do that, you will need to know my current civilian identity." //You're not the only one who can hand out tests, Batman.// He watched the older man's face closely. //Time to stay a little bit unpredictable, though.// "But you already do, don't you." It was not a question.

//The moment Jack Drake spoke the name 'Mireba' you had all the information you needed to gain my full name. Heck, when he said 'Casey' you were given the second half of it. That identity is a lost cause.// Tim found he was surprised that he couldn't quite distinguish if he was disappointed or relieved. //But it was still a good lesson in how to set up an identity. And if I play it right, both Lady Kaguya and Shishou will come out of this as nothing more than figments of imagination that exist nowhere but on scraps of paper.// He owed his adoptive parents vastly more than that, but at the very least it was something he could do for them. Wherever they were.

It was, in a way, something of a revelation both to, and of, himself; he was healed and confident in his own skin again. The identity that had been so crucial, almost a crutch, had in the space of an afternoon, become almost irrelevant. //I am myself. I am Robin. I don't need to be Van Casey anymore. I know that no matter what name I wear, I will always be Kaguya and Shishou's 'Little Bird'. And I am brave enough to meet my father, and to keep lying to him about my 'extra-curricular activities'. I am brave enough to be 'Tim Drake'.//

Before him, his mentor's face was unreadable. //I guess he's realized I'm giving him a test of my own.// It took him a moment to realize the man was responding to his statement.

"That is largely true, and for both our sakes I will know the details before I speak to Jack Drake."

//Honesty. Refreshing.//

"But it is up to you how you want me to obtain those details. Tell me what I need to know, and I will noneed to know, and I will not probe further." 'Unless necessary' was the unspoken addendum, but it was not unfelt. Tim concurred; preparation spared much grief, particularly in their line of work.

So, without hesitation, without rancor, and without regret, Robin told him.

Forty-five minutes later, Jack Drake received a phone call. His son had missed the train, and without a phone or phone number, been unable to contact the older Drake. Ecstatic, Jack agreed to travel down the following day.

Despite his initial concerns, Robin's patrol that evening was largely uneventful. While a workout in the cave followed by a sparring session with Batgirl demonstrated that he'd lost none of his Vingt-given prowess and his behavior continued to be completely 'Tim', it was none the less a Batfamily in force that met upon the rooftop of a Wayne Enterprises skyscraper. Then Nightwing took the docks, Batgirl the Northside, and Batman and Robin went for Eastern.

Twenty minutes after they'd all departed, Spoiler arrived on the rooftop. She hadn't meant to be late, she really hadn't. But she'd had to see Connor off; he was going back to spend some time with Ollie and the new Speedy in Opal City and while she knew he looked on the other blonde girl as a sister, she was still going to make damned sure he didn't forget his girlfriend.

//Figures they'd be gone! Nearly a year that I've been 'in the fold' and they still don't… I bet they'd wait for Batgirl!// throttling her resentment, she stalked to the edge of the roof. //And now Robin's back and they're all over him, even though his head is totally screwed up!// grumbling, she readied her jumpline. She'd noticed a lot of traffic on the communicator the previous evening, but by the time she'd gotten to Gotham Stadium, the place had been a pile of rubble with everyone long gone. A distracted Oracle – whoever that really was behind the synthesized voice - had confirmed that no-one was hurt, exactly, that everyone was 'busy', and that she should keep watch over the city. Spoiler had hoped to get the details that night, but it looked like it would have to wait until after patrol. //Patrol, patrol, patrol. I'm better than this! I know I am! One day, I'll do something really big, something to really make them stand up and take notice!// It was a favorite fantasy, one that Conner Hawke had talked her out of exploring further on a fairly regular basis.

But maybe not this time.

Then the irritation was gone with a leap from the roof, the rush of air, the thrill of the swing to the next roof obliterating it. With a silent chortle, Spoiler sped west, skirting Catwoman's turf. It would keep. If just for a little while, it would keep.

End Notes: Liked it? Hated it? please C+C. Commentary isn't why I write, but it is why I post.

For those who were hanging out for 'Partial Pressure of Oxygen', yes, it is coming. I have one more reference I'm trying to locate so I can check a particular argument, and then, when I'm happy it's sound, I'll post.