Author's Note: Here is the belated update to Shattered. Bruce's POV. After light-hearted fare at the manor, Bruce is all business when trying to acquire the materials to finally chart a course home. However, a mysterious individual makes their presence known in a big way, prompting Bruce to proceed with caution as he and the boys attempt to restore time.

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Shattered 10

Bruce

I remember watching the film and beginning to nod. The next thing I remember is waking up and being used as a make-shift pillow by all four of the boys. Dick is asleep with his head on my right side, Damian on my left. Jason has his head on my right thigh, with Dick's feet jammed under his back. Tim mirrors him with Damian's feet trapped under his side. All of them are asleep and, despite their bizarre arrangement of tangled limbs, appear to be sleeping well. How this phenomenon occurred is still something of a mystery to me.

I recall watching Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood alone. Damian wished to join me, so I invited him to sit on the vacant side of the bed. Less than ten minutes later, Dick invited himself to sit on the small sliver of space on my opposite side. I moved so he was not hanging off the bed and found myself sandwiched between them. This was awkward, and unexpected, but not overly so. But then both Jason and Tim decided to join the viewing gallery and installed themselves at the foot of the bed on their stomachs. Having just returned from a void of non-existence, I was looking forward to spending the evening alone. I was going to inform them of this desire, only for Alfred to make turning them away impossible.

He brought popcorn. Enough to sustain everybody, including himself, for the duration of the picture. He invited himself to sit in the armchair off to one side of the bed. All of them – four fifteen-year-old boys and the old man – turned my bedroom into a movie theatre and did so right in front of my eyes. I don't think I had words to explain my feelings at that time, so I continued to watch the film, despite the high level of chatter and chewing.

Evidently, at some point, the movie theatre became a kind of slumber party. All four boys are covered by blankets. I look around for the old man and find him slumped back in the armchair also covered in a blanket. I have no doubt he has provided the blankets too. Alfred likely orchestrated this entire event like the master puppeteer he is. I want to be surprised by their collective scheme to trap me in a group activity and situation I cannot escape. But, at some point or another, all of them have done so. Insofar as I can remember, Alfred is the only one who has not slept in my bed with me at least once. Wait...no, when I was seven years old and scared of monsters under my bed...so, all of them then.

I suppose I should be thankful Alfred has not taken up residence on my bed as well. That would definitely have tipped me over the edge. As it is, I am merely irritated none of them took my feelings into account. I am a heterosexual man, one who has never erred in my preference for the company of women. I do not particularly want to sleep surrounded by a veritable avalanche of male adolescence, especially the four boys I consider to all be my sons. One of them is acceptable, given the right extraneous circumstances. All four of them simultaneously is too much for me to handle.

And they got popcorn all over my bed. It is literally everywhere I look.

I sit up. Both Dick and Damian drop onto the mattress and wake up in bleary-eyed confusion. I have to lift both my legs and shake them to dislodge Jason and Tim. They also awake disorientated by the sudden change. The collective noise the quartet make stirs the old man back to consciousness too. Once they have all gathered their wits, they look at me in silence. I run my gaze over each of them in turn and hope my displeasure with this situation is palpable.

"That is not how I wanted to wake up." I tell them all sternly.

"We're not letting you out of our sight now, big guy." Dick replies. "Until this is fixed, we all agreed that we should all have eyes on you. Tim and Dami have made it really clear we can't restore time without you."

"Yeah, plus, Al thought it would help us all sleep better if we bedded down with you." Jason adds stifling a yawn. "I don't know if you could tell, but we were all...kind of fucked where sleep was concerned. We needed a really good snooze to get up for what's ahead."

"I am forty-one years old. I do not need chaperoning, not by adolescents and an old man." I say picking up half-a-dozen pieces of popcorn, "not if this is the end-product."

They all grin sheepishly. Alfred ventures to open his mouth. "Sir, if I may interject for a moment..."

"No, you have already been outed as the ringleader of this circus. I don't want an explanation for how my bedroom has become a youth hostel. I want you all to get off my bed, or out of my chair, and tidy up this mess." I say with enough firmness to rouse all of them to action. The boys begin to forage the sheets for popcorn whilst the old man gathers and folds the blankets. Their willingness to do as instructed is strange, considering how easily they flouted all known rules of etiquette and civility last night.

Five minutes later finds them all stood opposite me, apparently waiting to see if my mood has improved. It has, now the room is clean and I am no longer a novelty prop. I offer up a tired sigh.

"I am not ignorant of why you all felt the need to be in my company last night. I understand this situation is stressful for everyone, myself and Alfred included. However, in future, please do me the common courtesy of asking if such behaviours are acceptable before engaging in them. I do not like being ganged-up on in this fashion. It is more than unfair."

"You would've said 'no', Father." Damian says with a wistful smile. "We could not have you say 'no' to us, not last night."

"Stuff is scary here, Bruce." Tim adds. "And we're all scared. The only person who isn't scared is you. I literally don't know how you can't be afraid of what's going on here, but we're all glad you're not. Otherwise, we'd all be major insomniacs by now."

"I would not have said 'no' to everyone sleeping in one room." I tell them to prompt a smattering of raised eyebrows. "I only thing I protest about such sleeping arrangements, besides the popcorn, is the fact that I do not wish to share my bed with four fifteen-year-old boys." I say shoving my hands into the pockets of my dressing gown. "If you all wish to sleep in my room, you can sleep on the floor. However, when there are good beds going to waste, it seems absurd to not sleep in them." I look at Jason. "Thank you for wearing clothes. I know it isn't an easy feat for you to manage."

"You know I'd do anything for you, big guy, even sleep funny." Jason replies with his usual lopsided grin. That cheers me up somewhat, as the gesture always does. I smile.

"It must've felt strange for you, trying to sleep fully-clothed with your head on my thigh."

"I'm just really glad you shower so much." Jason retorts to yield chuckles from everyone present, including myself. Everyone bar Damian looks astonished by my levity in the matter.

"You really are more chilled, aren't you?" Dick says before looking at Damian. "Is he like this with you?"

"Father...likes to laugh more than I would have imagined. It used to annoy me." My youngest son remarks to encourage Dick to offer yet another terrible joke.

"What do you call a pile of cats?" The first Robin says as if it is the first time he has ever told this tired anecdote.

I sigh. "A...meowtain. None of your jokes are funny though, Dick. They never have been."

"You say that like I should believe you. I bet I still tell them in the future. Hey Damian, what kind of underwear do..."

"Thunderwear. Clouds wear Thunderwear. I am fully acquainted with your repertoire, Dick. Far more than I would like." Damian says to cut him off with his usual grace. I am glad to see the boy can still be rude when I need him to be.

"Yes, well, we are all acquainted with his jokes, Son."

After breakfast, we elected to begin gathering the necessary materials and information to finally construct Clock King's time dilation matrix. This meant that I had to again don a special belt in order to interact with the native environment. This time however, everyone will wear such devices, to avoid any repeat trips to the void. I make my orders very clear and concise. Track down Fugit as a student and graduate student, and then acquire all blueprints and designs pertaining to his time-altering device. Once in our possession and analysed, we then need to gather the necessary materials to begin construction.

From what I have gleaned in past encounters with Clock King's technology, the only vital component required for the time-altering devices to function is what is known as the Chronosphere. Used as a prism to harness the dilation abilities, the Chronosphere must be acquired if we ever hope to replicate the accident that brought us here. For years, it was housed in the Teem Institute's precursor, the Dauntless Research Group under the watchful eye of its creator, Professor Carter Nichols. Clock King stole the device five years ago to fund his criminal enterprises and has successfully held onto it ever since.

My hope now is that, by using the prediction algorithm, we can intercept the Chronosphere prior to its theft by Fugit. Once we have it in our possession, the remainder of building the device will be child's play by comparison. To accomplish our goals in the quickest time possible, I have dispatched Jason and Tim to Gotham University and Dick and Damian to what I have determined was Fugit's apartment whilst a graduate student in Park Row. I am left with the task of securing the Chronosphere from DRG.

Alfred is remaining behind to conduct a supporting role. The boys did not want me to go on a solo venture, but our predicament and the unique nature of the building I am trying to navigate means they had little choice but to let me proceed. This is a one-man operation, for reasons that will become clear once I breach DRG's initial defences.

The algorithm has predicted both time periods required for the teams to obtain the relevant documents are to occur within fifty minutes of one another. Since the DRG building did not get repurposed until recently, I have just enough time to infiltrate the compound and steal the Chronosphere before the city shifts to a period after the research group's dissolution two years ago. With that in mind, I act fast.

Even with the fractured and broken nature of time all around us, artificial security systems and devices appear unaffected. The Dauntless Research Group complex could once boast to having the most frustrating and impregnable security grids in the world. The Clock King took the easy route to obtaining the Chronosphere by entering the laboratory in broad daylight and snatching it when Nichols was occupied elsewhere. I have no such luxury. Since it is always the anniversary and time of my parents' deaths, the building is fully locked-down for the evening. Time aberrations swarm the perimeter fence of the compound, obviously drawn here by my abnormal presence. I will require all my skills and tools to breach such staunch defences. My only comfort stems from the fact that, if I fail in this venture, I will undoubtedly receive a second chance when the city time shifts back to this moment in roughly twenty-four hours. I will not fail though. The system may have been state-of-the-art when it was built, but it is already showing its age. What was once impossible is now only unlikely. I glide from a neighbouring roof to land inside the perimeter fence and brace myself for what comes next.

DRG was authorised by the city council to use lethal force to protect its property, should the ten-foot high fence and razor wire not prove enough of a deterrent to would-be thieves. As a consequence, CCTV cameras distributed around the immediate area are synced to automatically operated fifty-calibre machine guns that have a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree swivel capability. There are four fifty-calibre guns currently trained on my position, patiently awaiting movement from myself to launch their opening volleys. One round is sufficient to break my bones, but not punch through my suit. However, since each gun is capable of firing between four-hundred and five-hundred-and-seventy-five rounds per minute, I will be cut to shreds in a matter of seconds once they commence their attack.

Of course, I have a strategy for avoiding such a gruesome end.

I shift an inch and then drop to the ground as my current position lets them blast one another to smithereens without my body to act as a buffer. It takes less than ten seconds to ensure all four are wholly inoperable. I slowly get back to my feet and check my surroundings. Excellent. The first line of defence has been surmounted. Moving on...

During the next thirty minutes, both my hacking ability and physical prowess are tested to their limit, despite my efforts to conserve energy. The security grids are too tight to allow more than one person to bypass them undetected and require reflexes and timing beyond the capabilities of most Olympic gymnasts in conjunction with a faultless memory of this building's layout and design. At their present stages of development, none of the boys are viable candidates. Although their reflexes are excellent and their memories even more so, I have the advantage of having infiltrated this building before and nearly fifteen years of studying its security to improve the cave's own grid system against intruders.

In reaching the final door, I have negotiated twelve magnetically locked doors, avoided the gaze of nearly three-dozen cameras and their associated motion sensors and trembler devices, and either crawled or vaulted myself over eight infrared laser fields. This does not include bypassing the keypad codes required to open the doors and tricking the system into accepting my forged identity chip as that of Professor Nichols, the only man with access to the Chronosphere lab. Regardless of my difficulties, I am right where I want to be, given time constraints.

The last door barring me from the lab is a simple four-digit alpha-numeric code, entered on a standard keypad. I enter the day and month of Nichols's birthday and am greeted with a confirmatory ping of acceptance. The other doors required encryption software and patience to unlock – this is a welcome change. I step inside the lab and move towards the chamber the Chronosphere is housed in at night.

I would radio the other teams and tell them of my progress, but the system jams all unauthorised communication channels as another layer of security against co-ordinated thefts. No matter. They know that in twenty minutes, the city will experience a time shift and it will be their turn to act, whether I am successful or not. However, I am fairly confident I will leave here with the Chronosphere. All that is left is to open the chamber and take the mechanism.

The chamber will open to a palm-print from Nichols and Nichols alone. I reach into my utility belt and retrieve the latex hand mould I crafted prior to leaving the cave. Once it is slipped over my own hand, the system reads it as the professor's without hesitation. The door hisses open and I move to collect the Chronosphere…

Only to find it missing. This doesn't make sense…I check my wrist communicator to verify this is the correct time period. It reads as correct, approximately nine months before Clock King stole the mechanism for his own purposes. It should be here. Professor Nichols would have never taken such a device home with him…

"Looking for something, Bruce?"

I turn around to find an impossibility staring me in the face. Clock King. Alive. I glance down at his hands. One of them is holding a time-dilation device I recognise from the night this whole mess began. It looks newly-constructed. I gesture to it.

"If you are foolish enough to activate that device inside a time bubble…"

"Oh, I'm not. I'm the Clock King, remember? I know all about the dangers of time." He informs me with what I perceive to be only a trace of his usual sarcasm and arrogance. He seems oddly subdued. I frown.

"How did you survive the flashpoint of that explosion?"

"Not important at this very moment, Bruce. Suffice to say, I've learned a lot about you since getting stuck here. I don't know why I didn't guess who you were before. It all makes sense now."

I shake my head. "There is no conceivable method you could have infiltrated this laboratory ahead of me. How did you get in and steal the Chronosphere?"

He shrugs. "Does it matter? I know for a fact you need the Chronosphere to construct my time-dilation device, so you can then replicate the accident and restore time. If anything, I've done you a favour." Fugit tosses me the device. I catch it handily enough, suspecting sabotage. "You're not the only one who wants to go back to the real world. Shall we leave?"

"It would be prudent to wait for the time shift. It will make escape far simpler."

"Yes, or…" I watch as the Clock King destabilises the outer wall of the lab with nothing but a wave of his hand. Before I can begin to fathom what this ability could mean, an arch has been created. "We could take a shortcut, my treat."

"I am not stepping into any foreign realm with you. You can go, but I am staying until the time shift occurs."

"Suit yourself. You've got what you need now, after all."

"Have I?" I check before carefully opening the device. The Chronosphere is housed inside the dilation chamber, as it ought to be. I snap the device shut again. I look at him and notice for the first time how worn and grey he looks. I can pick out veins etching their way across any visible skin. They are green instead of blue. Evidently, something is very wrong with him. "We need to talk, Fugit." I say, already sensing I will not get my answers tonight.

He smiles. "And we will. When the time is right." He informs me before disappearing into the archway which seals up behind him as if it were never there. I blink twice before confirming that I am indeed holding both a working time dilation device and the Nichols Chronosphere. Both are still present. I am uncertain whether this development is troubling or not, given our plan centres wholly around replicating Fugit's technology. Despite his apparent co-operation, I still suspect an ulterior motive for such generosity beyond escape from this place.

It is also clear he has learned my identity, and possibly, the identities of both Damian and Alfred as well during his incarceration here. If so, he must understand my presence as integral to correcting our mutual mistake and restoring the timeline. But there are millions of questions to pose to him. Until he reappears, I must focus on the plan. The teams will still gather blueprints and documentation on the time-dilation devices. It will allow us to see whether the device given to me has been booby-trapped or tampered with in any way. Once back at the cave, the Infinity Engine can be perfected, and, within a matter of hours, we should be able to return home.

In theory…