A/N: So I finally got around to this. Not perfect, but I think it's a fitting ending.
Review, especially if you think there must be moar.
(Oh, and there will be moar. Especially Robyn.)
Forgive
Christmas; as Dick is fond of saying to Rachel; is a time for family.
In accordance with this, he takes Rachel and Robyn to Wayne Manor every Christmas, and the proceedings are presided over by his adoptive father Bruce and his wife Selina, (and their aged butler Alfred, the man who makes crumpets into the food of the gods despite being wheelchair-bound) who adore Robyn and take great pride in spoiling her (well, Selina does; Bruce just sighs the sigh of the long-suffering and allows the six-year-old to pat their dog Ace and stroke their cat Diamond incessantly.).
The day after Robyn's meeting with Batman, she relates the story to her grandparents, embellishing such details such as the way Batman phased through the floor and had gigantic black wings. Selina laughs at the story, and Bruce develops his amused eye-twinkle and nods.
The rest of the evening passes without event: duck (Bruce hates turkey with a passion for some reason which no-one talks about) is eaten, presents are opened (Dick receives a shirt with the Batman symbol on it, which Bruce, Selina and Rachel find hilarious as he's on the squad which is supposed to be catching Batman), and Robyn is put to bed in the room which, through Bruce's rapier-sharp sense of irony, used to belong to Dick.
Sometime later, while Selina and Rachel are chatting idly under the watchful ex-MI6 eye of Alfred, Bruce takes Dick aside for a discussion beside the grandfather clock in the hallway.
"I know what this is about, Dad." Dick says. Bruce snorts.
"Of course you do. I take it your answer hasn't changed?"
"No, it hasn't. I'm not putting her in danger like that." Dick replies.
"I get it. I felt the same about Selina. And about you, come to think of it." Bruce shrugs, tapping his stick on the floor.
"No you don't. Selina was a supervillain. It's not the same."
"Selina doesn't have superpowers, though. Raven does."
"I know that. I know." Dick says softly, almost in a scared voice. "I'm just – I don't think – I don't think I could go through with telling her I've been lying to her this whole time."
"I highly doubt she would have married you if she didn't love you."
"That's the point: she loves Dick, not Robin, or Batman. Just Dick. The normal person. I don't – I can't – I don't want to lose her. Or Robyn." Dick says, his voice wavering.
"Ah."
"Yeah, "ah" is right. You don't have any ideas, do you?" Dick asks desperately.
"I always found after saving her life was usually a good time to let her know."
"You never stop, do you?"
"You are going to have to tell her, one day. Remember that." Bruce says finally, before they both turn and walk back into the living room.
It is only a few days later that the decision is taken out of Dick's hands.
Rachel lies, with Robyn at her side, along with about six other hostages, lockedin a bank inside a bulletproof glass cube, the deranged criminal Yo-Yo skipping around them, cracking her whips and waiting for Batman, her five thugs shooting any policeman within a thousand metres and threatening the other hostages.
They sit there half the night, Robyn doing her very, very best to be brave until, finally, at midnight dead, she whispers in a very small voice, "Mummy."
"Yes, Robyn?" Rachel whispers back.
"I'm scared." the tiny little girl whispers, tears starting to well up in her eyes.
"Oh, Robyn. It's okay." Rachel says, taking her little girl in her arms. "It's okay. Someone is coming to get us. Someone will come and get us."
Dick will be worrying himself sick, Rachel thinks to herself, just as the skylight smashes and a dark, malevolent shadow stands atop the bank.
And just like that, she's Raven again, and her hero has come to save her.
"You okay?"
Batman – or is he Robin? – leaps down into the foyer and lands on one of the thugs, his heavy boots landing on the man's shoulders and forcing him to the ground, then with a horrid crack, muffled by the glass, stamps on his head, and the first thug is out like a light.
"She's a person, not some time bomb!"
Yo-Yo, like all good villains, hangs back while her henchmen surround Batman. The first two goons attack together, which doesn't save them, as the black shadow simply grabs them by the collar and throws them bodily across the room and into the iron vault doors, their heads connecting with a dull thunk.
One of the goons with a pistol fires it blindly, but Batman runs straight at him and jumps into the air, his cape flaring and casting a huge, deathly shadow over the man.
He screams once, then there is a horrific sound of bone breaking and he is silent.
"He was scared he'd lose you."
The last goon falls down on his knees, begging the vengeful spectre that is Batman for mercy, before Batman fires the Batclaw at him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him over onto Batman's knee. His head goes back more that Raven thinks a human neck could stretch, before he flops down onto the floor, blood streaming from his nose.
"You. Don't. Touch. Her."
Yo-Yo is all alone now, and her laugh when Batman advances on her, blood dripping from his knuckles and his white eyes burning with fury is not an intimidating laugh.
"Just trust me and hold on!"
She swings a whip at the Dark Knight, and he catches it, pulls the whip away from her, and then throws it to the ground without a second thought.
"I am the only thing between the innocent, and the predatory."
Yo-Yo tries to swing her one remaining whip, and Batman is upon her in an instant. He grabs her arm and twists it around behind her back.
"Oh, so you like getting up close and personal, Batsy?" she mocks.
Batman breaks her arm.
"The world is not enough."
"You planned this to draw me out." It isn't a question that he asks, but a statement of cold anger. Yo-Yo doesn't respond, being too busy clutching her arm and screaming in pain.
"Do you know the only thing that keeps me going out there, night after night?"
Batman kicks the supervillain away, and she runs to stand next to the large window at the front of the bank.
Raven has the sickening realisation that this room of the bank is on the second floor.
Batman sprints at Yo-Yo, his cape flying behind him, then jumps and kicks her with both feet out of the window.
"You."
Raven suddenly feels like she's made a terrible mistake.
Batman fires his Batclaw down, grabbing the screaming and flailing Yo-Yo by the ankle, then clamps the cable down on the floor, leaving the supervillain hanging there, until she passes out.
Then Robyn's up against the glass, banging on it with her tiny hands shouting "Batman! Batman! Here! In here!"
Batman walks over to the glass box, everyone else bar Raven and Robyn shying away from him. He taps on the glass experimentally, and Robyn taps back.
Batman looks a little surprised, then takes what Raven recognises as a laser cutter (from long years of experience with Robin and his tech) from his belt. He cuts a Robyn-sized hole in the glass, then sinks his gloves' claws into the chunk of glass he's just cut.
Batman pulls the glass out and sets it aside. "You can come out now. It's safe." he says softly.
Robyn bounds out of the box, followed by Raven and the other hostages, and then everyone else takes one look at Batman and flees the room.
Robyn goes up to Batman, who gets down on one knee. The six-year-old jumps up and hugs the Dark Knight, who looks quite shell-shocked and looks up at Rachel in an odd way.
"I've got a confession to make." he says, when Robyn releases him, and steps back. "I understand if you don't want anything to do with me after this."
He pulls off his cowl, to reveal Dick.
Rachel can't speak for at least a minute. Robyn, on the other hand, recovers in seconds.
"You're Batman!"
"Yeah, I'm Batman." Dick/Batman replies (the two still not quite melding together in Rachel's head).
"But you're my daddy too?" Robyn asks, confused.
"Yes. I'm still your daddy."
"Oh. 'Kay." Robyn chirps, and just like that, everything's right in her little world.
"But you can't tell anyone!" Dick/Batman cautions.
"Not even Gwandad Bwuce and Gwanma Sewina?" Robyn asks, a worried look on her face.
"No, you can tell them. They already know."
Rachel recovers her voice and decides this man in front of her is definitely Dick. "You told them and not us?!"
"Bruce was Batman before I was. And Selina was Catwoman. I didn't tell them, they told me." Dick replies humourlessly.
"That's still – why didn't you tell us?" Rachel demands.
"I couldn't – I – I didn't want-"
"Didn't want what?" Rachel asks. "Didn't want me to find out and stop you?"
"Didn't want to lose you."
And the sight of the completely broken semblance of a man almost falling to his knees with guilt, Rachel's wounded heart softens.
She recalls a younger version of this man, bloodied, bruised, and barely conscious dropping his staff at her feet and falling into her arms, his only concern that she stay with him.
And she recalls a younger version of herself, forgiven, believed in, wanted, even when she didn't forgive herself.
"You can – you can go now. If you want. I won't stop you." Dick – her Robin – mutters sadly.
"I don't want to." she replies. "I don't know if you remember, but I seem to remember telling you something about till death do us part."
Dick looks up, incredulously.
"You don't hate me?"
"I could never hate you."
"Are you done fighting yet? Is everything okay now?" Robyn asks in her small voice.
Rachel looks at her daughter, and instantly feels horrible for having this fight with Dick right in front of her.
"Yes, everything's okay now." Dick says, and pulls his Batman cowl back up. "Nothing'll ever be wrong again." he promises, and then picks Robyn up.
"Tha's good." Robyn tells him contentedly. Rachel smiles.
Dick presses a button on his right gauntlet and the Batwing appears above the broken skylight.
"Let's go home." he says, and looks at Rachel, who's regarding the Batwing with some trepidation. "You're not scared, are you?" he asks.
Rachel shakes her head and smiles ruefully. "I stopped being scared when we were sixteen, Dick."
So maybe Rachel forgave him a little too easily, but I think that went well. Eh?