Guardian of Bats
Dick
Dick slammed the door of the apartment behind him, carefully set the containers of food that Alfred had sent home with him on the counter, and proceeded to harshly open and close all of the cabinet doors, not really looking for anything, just needing an outlet for his anger.
"Stupid, arrogant, stuck up, son of a…"
"Wow pretty harsh language for the so-called Golden Boy Wonder. I wonder who you could be talking about."
Dick spun around, cursing in his head that his escrima sticks were 'safely' locked away in his room with his costume. After nine years working with the Bat, attempting to analyze the person hidden in the shadows of his apartment came just as naturally as settling into a balanced fight stance.
"I don't know who you are, or who you think you are talking to, but I suggest you leave," drawled Dick.
"Richard Grayson, nineteen year old ward of Bruce Wayne, at least during the day. At night it's a much different story, less Hallmark greeting and more Stephen King Novel. At night you were previously Robin, or the Boy Wonder, working alongside the Batman of Gotham City. Now you are working as Nightwing in this lovely city of crime, Bludhaven."
"Did I miss anything?" mocked the voice in the same drawling tone that Dick had used previously.
Grit teeth and a tightening of his fighting stance were the only answer to the voice's mocking. Dick had faced down Joker at twelve years old; he could handle a mysterious voice that knew more than it should.
The next moment had him rethinking that assessment as a person of similar height to Dick, lean with broad shoulders, stepped out of the shadows and into the pale moonlight streaming through the skylight.
The bright red bat symbol spread across the man's, for that voice was most assuredly male-although Dick questioned the man part, chest was the first part to catch Dick's eye. The second was the long pointy ears atop his head.
"Why are your ears so pointy and long?"queried Dick, head tilted to the side as he attempted to get a better look at the top of the cowl.
The man threw his hands in the air and spun, stalking off to the back of the apartment, "Always with the ears, why does every always feel the need to comment on the ears. It's not like they were my decision," spinning back around he pointed at Dick, "We aren't here to discuss me, we're here to discuss your relationship with Bruce."
"I do not have a relationship with that backstabbing…" interrupted Dick.
He was cut off before he could really get into his rant, as the man took a step toward him and slashed a hand down, "Yes you do. You are both so stubborn and neither of you know how to talk about your feelings. Instead you both just argue like that's any way to actually try and understand each other," his voice dropped into an ardent whisper, "Bruce cares about you, he just doesn't know how to say it, but he does show it. Think about it, when has he ever messed up a gift for a birthday, or when have you ever mentioned wanting something and it shown up within the next few days."
Dick could grudgingly admit that the mysterious interloper had a point, ever since moving in with Bruce and Alfred he had not wanted for anything. Even since moving to Bludhaven and saying he would make it on his own, he knew that Bruce still kept an eye on him and made sure that he had everything he needed.
So deep was he in his thoughts that he did not notice that the man had drawn closer until a hand landed on his shoulder.
"As annoying as it is, you are going to have to be the one who does the talking in any conversation with Bruce. And don't listen to his words, watch his body language and what he does after you argue. Don't give up on him; he'll never not need his firstborn son."
Dick was shocked into stillness by that last part, to frozen to notice when, or how, the stranger disappeared from his apartment.
A month later, Dick was once again in Gotham, riled up and ready to start arguing with Bruce when the strange nighttime visitor and conversation came back to him. Taking a deep breath, Dick decided that maybe following the advice, just this once, would not be a bad thing.
Years down the road, when Dick was once again confronted with that obnoxiously red bat symbol and ridiculously long ears, he would laugh that the best psychological advice he had ever gotten came from a fifteen year old kid.
Jason
Jason used the majority of the curse words he had learned in his early life as he looked around at the empty, locked room. Two years working alongside the Batman should have meant he knew better than to get himself locked into a room while looking for a suspected drug runner.
The smell of gasoline and smoke prompted him to use the rest of the words that he had previously been holding back as he semi-frantically began looking around for an alternate route out of the room. As smoke began seeping under the door his search of the vacant room became more frantic as he failed to find any windows, doors, or other means of exiting the room.
"This is what I get for running into a warehouse without looking around first," he grumbled approaching the door. The smoke was liberally pouring into the room now from the crack at the floor, and the wood was hot when Jason laid a hand on it.
He cursed again when his questing fingers found the empty compartment on his belt where his respirator should have been. Last week when he was helping capture an escaped Poison Ivy, a stray vine had cracked it and he had not had a chance to replace it yet. Without the respirator, getting out of the smoke filled building was going to be extra difficult.
"Shit."
Jason was just drawing back his leg to kick the door down when the outer wall behind him collapsed in a small explosion. The first thing Jason noticed as the dust settled and the accumulated smoke began drifting out of the hole was the bright red bat symbol across his rescuer's chest. The next thing he noticed was the extremely long ears on the man's cowl.
He must have inhaled more smoke than he realized, "What's up with your ears?"
"Really," growled the man, "you are about to burn to death inside a warehouse and the first thing you want to talk about is my ears? What is wrong with you kids?"
"Their effing long, of course I'm going to comment on them," groused Jason, making the executive decision that the weird man and his hole to the outside world was a much better position than over by the rapidly burning door.
A growl answered him as black clad hands latched onto his upper arms and they toppled out of the hole in the wall and toward the ground two stories down. Before Jason could panic that his rescuer was actually suicidal and looking for a partner, red 'wings' sprouted from his back and allowed the two to glide down to the ground.
"Thanks for the save," mumbled Jason, uncomfortable with having to be saved now that they were safely back on the ground.
"No problem, just promise me you'll remember one thing, saving people is why we do this and you don't have to be strong all the time."
"That's two things," a boom from the warehouse interrupted Jason before he could go on. When he turned back the man had vanished back into the surrounding shadows and Batman was there looking over Jason in that hidden mother hen mode of his.
Years later, Jason would look down into defiant piercing blue eyes, valiantly holding back tears, and remember the advice that his one-time rescuer had given him decades ago. Pulling the boy into his chest, Jason would repeat that advice that he had carried with him since he was ten.
"You don't have to be strong all the time."
Tim
Tim growled as the automatic door of Titan's Tower prevented him from slamming it closed. If he were back at the manor, then he could slam the door to his heart's content, but he would also be subject to Alfred's compassionate looks and subtle attempts at getting him to talk and Bruce's weird version of a hovering mother hen. At least here at the Tower the others were still in too much shock to bother him.
However, the inability to slam the door had ticked him off and he had to find some way to release the anger boiling inside his veins. Unfortunately for the contents of his desk, that was the next thing to catch his eye.
Books, pens, case files, anything and everything he could get his hands on was flung against the walls. The solid thumps and the weak fluttering of scattered papers to the floor did not feel like enough destruction, if anything the pathetic attempt of destruction only added more fuel to the fire.
The laptop on his bed was the next thing to catch his eye and the next thing to fall victim to his rampage. However the expected crash when he flung it over his shoulder never occurred. This illogical occurrence succeeded in breaking him from his rage state enough to wonder why.
When he turned it was to find a man, taller than him, dressed head to toe in skin tight black with a red bat symbol splashed across his chest, and the longest ears Tim had ever seen on a cowl. In his hand was the computer that Tim had thrown, explaining why he had not heard a crash.
He felt his eyes narrow at this person who had dared to invade his private space and grief. Before he could open his mouth to start berating who he could only assume was either Todd or another new brat Bruce had picked up, a dark chuckle filled the room as the stranger slipped from the room, stolen laptop still help in his hand.
Oh no you don't, with that Tim gave chase to the intruder, no one took off with his laptop and lived.
Several hours of the most bizarre game of cat-and-mouse Tim had ever been a part of later, Tim finally corned the suspect in an empty room.
"Give…me back…my computer…" huffed Tim, attempting to block the door while surreptitiously trying to catch his breath.
"Hmmm… I don't think so twerp. You and I need to talk and something tells me holding your computer hostage is the best way to do that."
"What could we possibly have to talk about?"
"Take a look around and tell me what you think we might have to talk about?"
Tim looked around the room and froze when he realized that where, exactly, their strange game of chase had ended.
"Why are we in Kon's room, what could you possibly have to talk to me about Kon? You have no right to be here! This is Kon's room!" Tim was yelling by the end, the anger from before bubbling up and turning into a raging inferno.
"But it's not Kon's room any more, after all, a dead man doesn't really need a room," came the calm rejoinder.
"NO!" screamed Tim, "no, Kon is NOT dead. He's not. He's… he's…GIVE HIM BACK! He can't be gone! He's coming back! He…"
Warm hands settled with a reassuring weight on his shoulders, and gently coaxed an increasingly frantic Tim against a solid chest. There surrounded by black clad arms, standing in the middle of his dead best friend's bed room, Tim finally allowed the tears to flow. Through it all, the great hiccupping sobs that dissolved into quiet sniffles and full body shudders, those arms held him, contained and shielded, no judgment, no need to be a leader.
When the brunt of his grief had passed, Tim found himself sitting on Kon's bed held securely, but not caged in.
"Breathe deep…hold it…again. Good job," rumbled that voice that Tim felt more than heard as it vibrated through the chest he was pressed against, "There we go, let it out, don't let the grief bottle up in you."
Tim followed the instructions as best he could, but the overwhelming release of emotion had quickly worn him out and he could feel his lids becoming harder and harder to keep open. By the time his breathing was close to under control, it was impossible to open his eyes again and he could feel himself slipping under and into sleep.
When he woke the next morning, he was alone, tucked into Kon's bed with his laptop left under his hand. Later on in his room, he discovered a note left on the keyboard of his laptop.
No one ever really dies, they always come back, either in our hearts…or in other ways.
Tim would frame that note and give it to Kon at his welcome back party.
He would also remember the strength in arms that allowed him to break down, when he would one day wrap a dark haired child in his arms and attempt to return the favor.
Damian
Damian seethed as he threw himself face down on his bed. He was not pouting or sulking, he was simply relaxing on his bed. Yes that is all, he was coming up here to relax after having to deal with his mother.
A huff and a warm, heavy weight settling across his legs let him know that Titus had joined him on the bed.
"Titus, why is mother always like this? Why is nothing I do good enough for her?"
"Because she was raised to be perfect and she doesn't see that being perfect is over rated."
Damian attempted to rise from his bed, but was unable to get any further than being propped up on his elbows as Titus still had his legs trapped and refused to move In the doorway stood a young man wearing dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and a brown leather jacket with black tousled hair and blue eyes, the same blue that he saw every morning in the mirror.
"Who are you," he growled, knowing that he did not cut a very intimidating figure on a good day, being pinned to the bed by a giant Great Dane was certainly not helping his image.
"No one you need to know about yet, you just need to know that Bruce knows I'm here and I'm not an enemy," smirking the stranger sat on the end of the bed, reaching out to scratch Titus ears.
"Some guard dog you are," grumbled Damian burying his face back in the bed ignoring the obnoxious stranger.
They stayed in silence for several long moments, Damian face down on the bed with Titus draped across his legs and the stranger sitting at the end of the bed gently scratching Titus' ears.
"What did you mean earlier…about Mother?"
"She was raised as the daughter of Ra's al'Ghul, his 'heir' in word only. Everyone in the League of Assassins knows that Ra's will never die, the Lazarus Pools make sure of that. But she is still expected to act as though she will one day have the same power as her father."
A hand drifted into Damian's hair, "Now you're here, with everyone looking to you as the heir for leadership of the League. She is starting to feel pushed to the side and so she is pushing her insecurities onto you, that's why she pushes you so hard."
They lapsed again into silence as Damian attempted to process what he had heard and the man continued to slowly run his hand through Damian's hair.
"You know," mused the voice, "one day, she won't attempt to make you perfect, she'll see you. Until that day comes though, you have a father, grandfather, and brothers who don't expect you to be perfect."
Damian would have argued that he did not have brothers and his father did expect him to be perfect, but the steady rhythm of the hand stroking his hair had made him too comfortable to argue. He was floating on the cusp of sleep when the hand left his hair and he felt the bed dip as the man left the bed. Damian cracked his eyes open in time to catch a glimpse of blue light before he was left alone in the room to contemplate what the man had told him.
When Damian would once again look into those matching blue eyes, he would make a vow to never have this child believe that he had to be perfect.
Terry
"Bruce knows I'm here," the deep rumble greeted Terry as he stepped through the blue swirling portal and into the Batcave.
Terry laughed as he ambled from the upper level and down to the Old Man where he was sitting in front of the Bat computer, "I never said which Bruce knew I was there. How goes the observations?"
"Hmph, same as always. Idiot children doing idiot things," grumbled the old man as he turned back to the super computer.
Terry snorted and scratched the ears of the black Great Dane sitting at Bruce's feet as he leaned against the edge of the consol.
Each of the screens showed a different scene. One showed a young Dick Grayson cart wheeling down the main hallway as Alfred carried a tray of tea and coffee into the study. Another showed Jason as the Red Hood on a mission with Starfire and Red Arrow. One screen off to the side showed a middle aged Damian being trailed by a large red demon as he wandered the mountain base of the League of Assassins. A screen towards the top showed Tim and Dick on patrol in Gotham with Batgirl. The middle screen switched from a scene of Tim and Jason teasing a grumpy Damian, to a scene of an eight year old Dick Grayson climbing up to the top rigging with his parents for the opening performance in Gotham City.
"Get to work."
"You got it boss," Terry bounded across the cave to the glass costume cases and grabbed his black and red suit, easily ignoring the swirling white vortex that surround their small island that used to be the cave. Dressed in his costume, Terry sprung easily up the stairs to the swirling blue portal that was beginning to open.
"Let's go Ace."
A.N.-I know it's a little vague, but the Terry that has been helping each of the boys came from a dimension where some sort of apocalyptic event resulting in the Batcave being hidden in a sort of 'pocket' dimension where they can observe the other dimensions on the computer. Terry and Bruce have discovered ways to open temporary portals into these other dimensions and have decided to change events as they see fit. You can decide if the first four boy's stories are all from the same dimension or different ones.