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I am very bad at summaries. Glad you stopped by anyways 😁
He feels the panic swell up.
Suddenly everything is too loud, too bright, too much.
Bruce still has enough wherewithal to scold himself. He knows better than to go in blindly like he just did. Especially when he has back up with him on site and there's minimal risk to everyone.
He thinks he can hear Red Hood shouting a few meters away, but he can't pull himself together fast enough.
He can't get his bearings
The Red Hood is here. Joker. The Joker killed his son.
Bruce forces himself to look up.
It looks just like him and at the same time doesn't. He wants to move. To take care of this issue before Joker does something else. Before he hurts more people. Before he kills Jason.
Why can't he move?
His limbs feel like lead. He folds back into himself. Is he vulnerable? Maybe… no. Yes he is very vulnerable right now. He needs to get a more secure spot to get his head on straight.
There's a flash of movement to his left.
He moves to grab at it but it's gone before Bruce could even stretch out his arm.
Everything goes silent. Why on earth is everything still so loud and bright and overwhelming? Why can't he think? Where are the boys? They were right behind him.
The glint of the blood red helmet is clear. He doesn't know where the boys have gone, but he can take care of this.
He lunges. There's no finesse. He wants this taken care of quickly. Why is the Joker moving like that? He's dodging but not like he usually does. Bruce moves like that.
Bruce feels something wrap around his wrist. He moves to swipe at, take it out of the equation. It's too fast.
Drugged. Bruce has been drugged. He can tell now. It's completely disoriented him. He has no idea where he is, or why he's here. He doesn't know who these goons are that are with the Red Hood. It doesn't matter. Drugged or not he needs to fight. He needs to find the boys. If they're not here then they're hurt, and if they're hurt they're dead. He doesn't want to bury anymore kids.
The individual moves, ducking under his arm but not letting go of the other wrist. Allowing the momentum of his movement to pin Bruce's arm to his back and force him to the ground.
Bruce is pinned. He's a little surprised at how effective they're being. He struggles against it. They're talking to him. It sounds like he's underwater.
Why can he not figure out what's going on?
Another person steps into view.
A child. He stops struggling slightly. Something's wrong.
At first he thinks it's Damian. Very clearly concerned but stoic, like in the field. But then it's Dick, nine years old. That bright smile gone, his face filled with fear and determination. Then… then it's himself as a ten year old. He's angry? Sad? Bruce isn't sure.
This child can't be Damian, he left Damian at the Manor, Dick is an adult and in Blüdhaven, and Bruce still feels like himself.
The Red Hood steps back into view, crouching down, as if speaking to him. His head moves up talking to whoever is restraining Bruce at the moment.
Bruce begins to thrash. He has no idea what is going on. His kids might be in danger and this child definitely is in danger. He needs to get out of here. He has an idea. His other arm is still free. He reaches down to his belt to grab a flash bang.
Not exactly clean but it will disorient the attackers and give him a chance to escape.
He feels it, wraps his fingers tightly around the object.
He tenses ready to throw it.
3…
2…
1
He moves his arm forcing him to sit upright in the cot.
Cot?
When had he ended up on a cot?
"Whoa easy." There's a hand that grips his arm and the other presses against his shoulder. "You're fine. You're safe"
Bruce turns slightly to look at him.
"Tim?"
He seems worse for wear. Clearly exhausted, fresh stitches on his face near his eye. Someone got a good hit in.
"You got a pretty lethal dose. I'm not entirely sure if the cure worked completely." Tim continues. He's speaking clearly, like he would to a victim that he's concerned will go into shock and panic. "Do you know where you are?"
Bruce glances around slightly. "The cave." He can hear his voice, his hoarse, like he'd been gargling glass.
"Do you remember what happened?" Another voice asks from behind him. Duke, he realizes.
He's standing at the ready on the other side of the cot. This is all still pretty new to him. He's clearly trying to keep his cool.
Bruce can't remember what happened. He's silent, racking his brain for straws. Why was he there? What was he doing?
Tim takes his silence as an answer. Bruce doesn't remember. "Scarecrow was on transport back to Arkham." His tone hasn't changed. Something about it grates Bruce endlessly, he doesn't like being the victim. But he lacks the energy to do anything about it. "We'd gotten word from Jason that his van had been overturned and he'd escaped a few days ago. So you and I tracked his movement and found him upstate on some abandoned farm. We went with Jason and Damian-"
"Damian wasn't there." Bruce finds himself saying.
Tim huffs a laugh. "You told him to stay put. He didn't."
That certainly sounded like Damian
"Anyway. Damian and I went ahead to check out if there was any sort of chemical warfare that Crane had gotten a chance to work on. You and Jason were supposed to wait and burst in on either mine or Damian's signal to cause a distraction. But you didn't wait."
He's remembering more of the situation. Tim and Damian went on ahead because they would have an easier time slipping through the defenses knowing full well he and Jason would seem like the more immediate threat.
"Jason had mentioned that we may want to have rebreathers ready, just in case." Bruce continues for him.
He sees Tim glance back at Duke. "Do you remember why you went in early?"
Bruce shook his head. He couldn't.
Tim pressed his lips together and nodded. "I guess we'll see if you have a better idea later. Crane got away in all of the chaos. I'm working on finding him again."
"Let's get to work." Bruce braces himself on the side of the cot to stand up.
"Uh maybe not-" Tim begins, stepping back slightly
Duke comes to stand next to Tim. "Whoa, Bruce. Tim's got it handled. You need to go upstairs and rest."
"If I need help I know where to find you." Tim adds easily. "This was a new compound. We don't know all of the side effects. Like I said, I honestly don't know how effective the cure is or how long it will take to go into full effect. It's better for everyone if you just rest now and help later."
"I'm fine." Bruce straightens up.
Tim is obviously not convinced. "You haven't looked in the mirror yet. You look manic. I would say that you should stay here but I can't trust you down here to not do something stupid. Go get some rest upstairs away from all of this."
If Bruce were feeling more himself he could win the argument. But he knew he wasn't and Tim was not one that could be easily convinced.
"Duke, can you help Bruce upstairs? Between you and the others I'm sure you can keep him there." Tim makes sure to say the last part while looking directly at Bruce. Clearly wanting him to know this isn't a challenge and the 'others' are prepared to keep him upstairs.
"Yeah, c'mon." Duke turns slightly to begin walking towards the exit.
Bruce holds the standoff for a moment longer. Tim is unimpressed by his efforts, he steps to the side nudging Bruce's shoulder to follow Duke.
He walks past a workbench with Jason's gear on it. His helmet looks like it's been shattered. Parts of the face plate are missing completely. Bruce feels a pit grow in his stomach. What had done that?
Duke is practically glued to his side the whole trip. Keeping an arms length away, as if trying to be nonchalant. It's not working. They're going to have to work more on that at some point.
"You're sure you don't remember anything?" Duke asks outside the landing of Bruce's bedroom.
He genuinely can't, which is frustrating. He needs to remember, they all need him to remember. "I can't." He admits.
Duke's face falls slightly. "Well if you do." He doesn't move to leave. He's waiting for Bruce to step inside the room.
He resists the slight urge to roll his eyes. Why can't they trust he won't do anything?
Then again he trained them and… well… now that he thinks about it. Some of his habits have translated amongst all of them. Some more than others.
He steps inside sagging against the door once it's closed. He takes a moment carefully measuring his breaths. He feels on the verge of a panic attack.
There is no danger here, nothing to worry about.
Bruce scoffs at the thought. There was always something to worry about.
He looks down at his etire. They'd stripped him of his suit but left the under armor. He needed to change.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes he found himself laying on top of his made bed.
He continued his measured breathing. He needs to calm down. His blood pounds in his ears. Panic is setting in. There is nothing to panic about. The house is quiet. He would've been told if someone had been hurt, hell he would've seen them when he'd been in the infirmary.
They were right behind him. Jason had been right behind him.
Bruce sat up gasping like a drowning man. Where was Jason? He's hurt, his helmet was in the cave but Jason hadn't been.
No, Jason was captured. But Bruce knew where to go. He could get there in time, Jason wouldn't die again, not if he had anything to say about it.
Bruce wasn't sure when he'd made it to the stairs. The Batmobile would get him there faster but he didn't have time to argue with Tim and whoever else was down there with him. He'd need to make do with something else.
He gripped the handle to the garage, it's locked. Who locked the door? He stepped back, prepared to kick the door in.
"Hey! B stop!"
Movement down the hall caught his eye. Jason stopped a few feet away, taking stock of the scene in front of him.
"What are you doing?" Jason asks him.
He thinks for a moment. Jason is here. What is he doing? They're both in Gotham not Africa.
"The door is locked." Bruce tells him simply.
"Yeah, it gets locked every night. What are you needing from the garage at three in the morning?"
He looks Jason up and down. No visible wounds. He looks… fine Bruce realizes.
"Nothing, I guess."
"Okay, how about you head back to bed. Tonight was stressful for all of us." Jason is using that same tone Tim had been earlier.
Bruce doesn't move to leave.
"I'll walk with you." Jason adds after a moment.
Bruce must look pretty bad, Jason doesn't offer things like that unless you're in a bad state.
He remembers at one point Tim had gotten sick with the flu, it'd knocked him out for a solid week and Jason had been surprisingly nice. To Tim at least. He'd made soup and made sure he was relatively aware as to where Tim was, he hadn't even called Tim a single name like he usually would.
Jason walks with a little more distance than Duke had.
"Hey, if you need something just hollar." Jason seems to spit out before he can stop himself. "We'll hear you." He gestures behind him to the other rooms.
He actually steps into Bruce's room watching as he crosses the threshold, again.
"We're all fine." Jason tells him. "No one was hurt, no one died. We're fine."
Bruce isn't sure why Jason is telling him this. "I know."
"Of course you do." Jason closes the door behind him, leaving Bruce alone.
His words ricochet in Bruce's head. 'We're fine'. They're fine.
Not that they haven't lied to him before. Lying about injuries was a classic Robin move. They all did it, they all still do it.
No one died, they're fine. Jason wouldn't lie about that. Anymore.
His eyes feel heavy. Maybe he should rest. He can figure out what's going on after some rest. They're fine.
He can feel himself drifting. Well, almost drifting. His mind won't calm down. No one died. They're fine.
How can they be fine? He can't protect them. They're not fine.
Bruce stands up and starts pacing the room. They're not here where he can protect them. Cass and Stephanie are still in Beijing and will be for a couple more days. Maybe he can cut their mission short and get them back here where they're safe.
Jason, Duke, Tim and Damian were all here so there wasn't anything to worry about. Barbara was with Harper and Cullen, she mentioned that she was helping them out with- something Bruce couldn't remember. But they were together. He knew that much. Dick wasn't here. He posed the real problem.
Bruce couldn't think of a way to get Dick to get here. His fiercely independent eldest was unlikely to just pop by. Not without reason.
Dick, who he sent on an isolating mission after Damian…
Bruce stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn't seen Damian. They're fine, Jason had told him. But how can he be sure Jason wasn't just trying to keep Bruce out of the rescue op by lying about it?
They're fine- they're fi-, they- they are not fine.
Damian was captured. Heretic. Heretic is going to kill Damian. The clone is going to kill his son. The clone is going to force Bruce to bury another child. No more dead Robins.
He needs to help them find Damian.
They're not going to let him leave. Jason had been prepared. Jason, he was captured by the Joker. Jason is going to die too. Bruce can't save them both. The others are going to stop him from saving his boys.
Bruce glances at the window.
He has an idea.
He pulled the sheets from his bed to fashion a rope to rappel down the wall. They won't stop him. He's not burying another partner.
They need him.
They are not fine.
Bruce opens the window, securing his make-shift rope to the headboard of his bed. His boys need him.
He straddles the window seal, looking for a good spot to secure his foot and begins his descent.
"Father, what are you doing?" a small, but firm voice asks him calmly.
Damian stood in the doorway, arms crossed.
Bruce remembers. That already happened. Jason and Damian are both here. They are both safe. They're fine.
Bruce pulls himself back into the room as Damian investigates the attempted escape.
"This is the best you could think of?" Damian asks him, almost insulted at the lack of creativity.
"I, you're fine." He blurts out
Damian's head whips up to look him in the eye. "Of course I am. Why would you think otherwise? The mission, while a complete failure, didn't result in anything other than harmed pride."
Bruce can't help himself and grips Damian's shoulder.
Damian eyes the hand suspiciously. "Where were you trying to go?"
"Nowhere."
He doesn't seem entirely convinced. Continuing to glance between Bruce and the still open window.
"You tried to jump out the window and escape to get to nowhere?" Damian asks him while pulling the sheets back inside.
"Where I was planning to go isn't important. You're here, you're all here. You're all fine."
This doesn't have the reassuring effect that it should. Damian is standing in front of him and he can't shake the feeling that something really bad is going to happen and he won't be able to stop it.
"Perhaps you need a sedative. Something to help you calm down." Damian offers. "I'll go get you something if you can just sit here and not go anywhere."
Bruce glances to where Damian is instructing him to settle. He can't protect him if he leaves. He's still gripping Damian's shoulder.
Damian takes his hand placing it against his chest. Bruce can feel the steady thrumming of a heart beat, he can feel the steady rise and fall of each breath he can feel the warmth of a living body.
"I am not dead." Damian tells him simply.
"No you're not." Bruce removed his hand.
"You stay put. I will be back in a moment." Damian turns on his heel and leaves the room keeping the door open.
He isn't dead. Damian had made sure Bruce understood. None of them are dead.
Why isn't that reassuring? They weren't dead. They aren't dead. All of them are alive. They're okay.
Are they safe?
Dick. He knew Tim was in the cave working on locating Crane and Duke had most likely joined the effort, Jason was unlikely to leave the manor, and Damian would be back soon. Where was Dick? What was he doing?
Bruce can't remember the last time he'd spoken to him. Dick, an honest to god daredevil, who always took unnecessary risks.
Dick isn't here. He isn't safe.
He needs to find him. Where would he be? Bruce racks his brain.
Dick, he was patrolling solo, on his own. There was a stakeout.
Bruce felt his stomach drop. He knew exactly where Dick was. Bruce had sent him there. Dick was hurt and it was his fault. Two-Face was going to kill him if Bruce didn't stop him. Dick, he can't handle Two-Face not yet. He's only ten.
He has so much more to learn still. There's so much more life left for him to live.
There's wet beneath his feet. He's outside. When had he gotten outside? No time to worry about that. Robin needs him, it's Batman's job to protect Robin.
He won't bury anymore partners. He won't send them away when they're at their lowest and need him the most. He won't leave them alone to be beaten and bloodied by mobsters and serial killers.
He needs to protect them.
They're not okay.
Joker, he's going to kill Jason.
Heretic will kill Damian.
Bruce needs to get to Dick before Two-Face can kill him.
Oh god, Tim. Joker captured him too. Joker will kill them both.
Stephanie, he needs to get to her before Black Mask. And Cassandra, he had to save Cass from Lady Shiva.
He can't save them. Bruce can't save them. They were all going to die and he couldn't stop it.
That didn't mean he wouldn't try. He won't bury anymore partners. He can't bury anymore partners.
He glanced out at the city against the rising sun.
Where would he start?
Bruce fell to his knees. He failed them all. He can't save them. They're not fine. They were never fine. They are going to die and it's his fault.
Everything feels heavy.
His head, his limbs, his eyes. His mouth felt as if it'd been stuffed with cotton.
He can't think straight. Everything felt groggy.
Bruce forced himself to open his eyes. The morning sun peeked through his curtains. He glances at the clock on his bedside table, he can't get it to focus in his vision.
What happened?
"Was wondering when you would rejoin the land of the living?" A voice commented.
He looked towards the sound.
Dick had been lounging in an armchair on the other side of the room. He leisurely made his way before sitting on the foot of the bed, pulling a glass of water seemingly out of nowhere.
Bruce gratefully took it from him. "How long was I out?"
"Like three days."
Bruce choked. "What? Crane he-"
"Is back in Arkham. Everything is fine. We have it sorted." Dick tells him calmly.
Dick seems rather sure that everything is okay.
He studied Bruce for a moment. "Do you want the breakdown?"
He nodded slowly. "It's all…jumbled. Like loose change." Bruce tell him
Dick smiles at the comparison. "You, Damian, Tim, and Jason had tracked Scarecrow to some farm upstate. He had broken out of a prison transport with the assistance of some low level goons he had made contact with about four months ago. Apparently while incarcerated he'd had an epiphany. As opposed to having an immediate effect he re-engineered his fear-toxin to have a much slower metabolism rate. So instead of his victims dying of fright within like twenty minutes or so it drove them crazy for twenty hours. Then they would either die from the potency of the toxin or kill themselves."
Bruce remembers the raid. The information on the toxin was new. "I had a first had experience of that, didn't I?"
"Yeah," Dick sighs. "You were convinced we were dying all around you. The antidote was actually sort of effective. It kept you a little more lucid than some of the other people we found. So when you saw one of us it kind of- snapped you out of it temporarily. I mean it didn't stop you from trying to run all the way to Gotham in your bathrobe but."
"They were going to shoot Jason." Bruce realizes. "There wasn't time to warn him or come up with another viable option I could think of at the moment that would've prevented that from happening. It was easier to break our cover and deal with the fallout later. They ended up shooting me instead."
"Your initial reaction was typical. Jason hadn't been expecting it unfortunately so he got the blunt of your response. You shattered his face plate, it's ruined. He's a little upset, said that one was his favorite."
"I did that?"
Dick nodded gravely. "Amongst other things, yeah. You thought he was the Joker. I think you would've ended up killing him if Tim hadn't stepped in."
Bruce had tried to hurt Jason. He'd hurt Tim. The stitches on Tim's face had been because of Bruce. Jason's helmet had been destroyed because of Bruce.
"Don't hold this against yourself." Dick tells him. "That wasn't you. We don't hold that against you. Although Jason does expect you to get him another helmet. We're fine. It's over."
"I could've killed them."
"You didn't."
His words don't ease the guilty feeling threatening to overwhelm him. "What are you doing here?"
"You thought I had been captured by Two-Face, again. They called me. Once Damian, Jason, and Duke had coaxed you back inside you were still convinced ten year old me was stuck getting the shit beat out of him by Two-Face. You wouldn't calm down until I showed up. Honestly they're lucky I was already in Gotham."
"Why were you already here?"
"Ah, that- that doesn't matter. The point is I got here and we all took shifts in here, in that chair, reminding you we were not dead while Tim worked on the antidote. Which was successful. He gave it to you like thirty six hours ago. Once we started sitting in here you were fine. It's like you just needed to know we were okay."
They're fine. They are all fine.
"Thank you for helping them recover Crane."
"Someone's gotta pick up the slack around here."
Bruce scoffed slightly.
"C'mon," Dick takes Bruce's hand, forcing him to stand. "Alfred was hoping you'd be up in time for breakfast. I have no idea what's down there but I am starving and you haven't eaten anything in at least forty eight hours."
Bruce couldn't help the smile. One only his kids could pull out easily. "You're all still here?"
Dick thinks for a moment. "Pretty sure. Steph and Cass got back last night, Barbara's been here since yesterday doing something downstairs, I think Harper might've left though."
They're fine, they're here.
"Breakfast does sound- incredible."
Dick rolls his eyes, commenting something under his breath that Bruce is pretty sure is calling him dramatic.
He can't find it in himself to care. Most of them were here. It was a hard swing to get them all and he knows that. He can check on Harper later and make sure she's doing okay still. In the meantime he can enjoy the ones here.
They're fine. They're alive. They're here.
He can't ask for anything better than that.
Well... that's that. Back to my maladaptive daydreaming that sometimes gets written down.