With an involuntary roar, Bruce sat up in the pitch dark, brow laced with sweat.
Even through forced deep breaths, his pin-sharp hearing caught the snap of a light switch downstairs that repeated after a long pause, as if Alfred had thought twice about prying at this hour.
Alfred must be so used to this, Bruce realised. After all, the manor was hardly a stranger to bad dreams, and much of his own sleeping life had been spent reliving his very real, personal nightmare in multi-sensory, technicolour detail. But Dick's arrival all those years ago had helped blitz many dark demons, and gradually, the pain of the past lost its raw immediacy, to the extent that whenever that memory repeated in his sleep - and it still often did - it played out in sepia or monochrome, like a haunting relic.
Only, something uglier was waiting to take its place. Instead of reliving immutable events, his vivid dreams mutated into a fear of the unknown. The weight of his responsibility over his young charges - first Dick, then Jason, then afterwards Tim - manifested in his subconscious. Bruce was always wrestling with the fear of losing his boys to their vast catalogue of villains, and this grew into increasingly grotesque nightmares after every close shave.
In the past, Bruce had handled this terribly. When first faced with the very real prospect of losing his original Robin to Two-Face and later Joker, his first reaction was to remove Dick from the role entirely. A safe - albeit angry - son was worth infinitely more than a dead partner, he'd assured himself. Well, that approach never failed to end badly, and the latter time effectively spawned both his new Nightwing persona plus a smattering of still-unresolved issues with his mentor.
Since then, Bruce thought he'd become damn good at being able to tell his fears apart from the reality. Admittedly, his methods still had to undergo some fine-tuning when dealing with Jason. But now, as long as he was satisfied that he had worked and planned for every conceivable eventuality before patrol, he would let it go, hand Robin the jump-line and trust in his partner's extensive capabilities. The result was pleasing; Tim thrived in the wake of Bruce's attitudinal adjustment.
Which led right back to the matter at hand - this dream. Which was, of course, all it was. An implausible, inexplicable and silly dream that just needed compartmentalising, like all the others.
…So why did it feel so different?
Bruce was a detective who believed in utilising a heady mix of both evidence and gut instinct. He could ignore neither one, and there was definitely something pricking at the edges of his mind. Not to mention that he'd been having the same dream for the last ten nights.
He put his hands to his head in frustration. This was stupid.
And yet he would never get any rest unless he could shake his unease. He pondered his options. Contacting Dick - no way, out of the question. Last time he had visited, they hadn't parted on the best of terms, so he would probably accuse Batman of checking up on him.
Reluctantly, Bruce bit down his pride, threw off the sheets and patched himself through to Oracle. Unwilling to seem selectively overprotective, he demanded a status update on all his cohorts currently in the field.
Hardly a minute later, Oracle's avatar blinked at him from his screen.
"Oracle. Report."
"All tonight's active operatives have checked in. Robin is still patrolling, covering for you after your Wayne Enterprises charity function. He's stationed on the corner of 6th and 32nd, but all's quiet after last night's arrests, just as predicted. He's promised, again, to call if anything is needed. Batgirl is in New York - little activity at present, but she's following a lead that Nightwing passed on while he's back in Blüdhaven."
Oracle's tone turned a little more jovial. "And Nightwing muttered something about it being slow-going on some dull case he's stuck on while the Titans are on annual leave. Which, might I guess, has nothing whatsoever to do with you. He thinks you must've been real mad at him after last time."
Batman grunted. So what if he knew they were dreams - wouldn't stop him from ensuring that Nightwing wouldn't remotely be going near anything that could possibly involve any flying metal deathtraps. So yes, he might have put a little something together after the third night, just to keep his boy occupied while he worked through his… issues.
"…you know, you could call and say hi yourself, once in a while." Oh, Babs was onto him. She was one of few bold enough to offer the Bat anything even resembling personal advice, and was never afraid of pushing him.
To her surprise, instead of the expected rebuff or wall of stony displeasure, Batman huffed, "Maybe. Now is not the time."
"Right. Whatever you say, boss. Well, my cue to sign off. Goodnight to you, Batman."
Heh. Good night. Haven't had one for almost two weeks, he wanted to respond. Instead, he sighed and flicked the monitor off. Clearly, he was just a little more worked up than usual - he certainly regretted being snared with smalltalk at the cheeseboard earlier that night. In fact, he had been cajoled into sampling the entire selection of cheeses - yes, that must be it...
Forcibly pushing all thoughts to the back of his mind, Bruce returned to bed and tapped his old meditation techniques, vying to rest before his full schedule of board meetings in the morning.
As he sank into fitful slumber, his consciousness was plunged back into a haze of choking smoke, screeching metal and that shaky sensation of upward propulsion…
"Bruce, let go..."
"I said NO..."
"DICK!"
Bruce's dream had always ended at that point - with loss of control, and accelerated somersaulting into the sky.
But it was almost as if, by taking that unprecedented step of contacting Oracle that night, he had somehow unlocked the next level. The dream played out just as before, but as the seconds stretched into minutes and the wind roared in his ears, the clouds started to part, revealing a familiar cityscape below…
Whuumf. -The wind was knocked out of him; it felt like a compacter had slammed into his right side. Something solid encircled his waist, and instead of careening downwards, he was shunted horizontally, and slowing down - stopping now, hovering...
"Batman?"
The voice had a strange echo, as if it didn't quite belong in the fabric of the dream. Then Batman found himself being grasped at arms length, staring into an equally shell-shocked face.
It belonged to Superman.
