"Terry and Matty… what happened to them was my fault," Jason declared once they had all recovered from the emotional fallout of learning about Helena Wayne.

Almost immediately afterwards, he got a light, admonishing slap on the shoulder from Cass. "If what happened to them is your fault, then it is my fault as well," she countered.

Babs snorted at that, drawing everyone's attention to them. "Don't be ridiculous you two. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I'm the information broker who had ties to the US Government. It was my job to keep an ear out for stuff like this. The fact that the project slipped under our radar for so long that we had to find out about it from Talia of all people…"

"Hey, I've got my share of the blame too. I'm the one who advocated for the bitch after that mission in Chechnya, even after Waller died under 'mysterious circumstances'," Stephanie added, saying the last two words with visible air quotes.

Tim watch as his four siblings (two adoptive, two surrogate, though really all surrogate now) descended into quibbling over who's fault it was that Jason's two sons had to join the family. That really didn't bode well, though honestly, Tim would have to be an idiot to expect that all of his family's troubles would end after his death. They lived in Gotham and the Joker was still running around — until they found a way to put that clown in the ground for good, the troubles were never going to end.

Even so, it still hurt to learn how bad things had gotten after he died. Damian dead within six months, Alfred dying of old age, Jason and Cass estranged and both strongly implied to be suicidal. Because Tim knew Cass well enough to know she would have never run from Shiva if that wasn't the case. Cass was stronger than Shiva by the time he died, the greatest martial artist in the world. She could've taken her biological mother on at any time and win without killing her. The fact that she didn't bother to take a stand this time, that she ran and hid instead of accepting Shiva's implicit challenge… she had been every bit as lost as Jason had been. No wonder his brother spent months dedicated to searching for her and reconciling with her when he had the chance; he must have saw what Tim saw. He was glad they had managed to pull together, in the end.

But he wasn't blind. He could see how much the decades had changed them both, all four of them really. Last night, Jason had cornered him after the reunions were over, a few hours before dinner, and asked him if he had any dietary restrictions at this point in the timeline, pointedly reminding Tim how he had neglected to tell anyone about how he no longer had a spleen for well over a year before they found out. Stephanie had ragged on him earlier for drinking too much coffee, worried about his eating habits. During breakfast, Cass had absentmindedly wiped away leftover syrup on the corner of his mouth with a napkin before pushing over a plate of fruit for him to eat. Even Babs had gotten in on it, coordinating the sleeping arrangements just so, so he couldn't sneak off to do casework in the middle of the night like he usually did.

They weren't the only ones. This had been going on ever since they had come back. Whenever Babs and Stephanie couldn't be here, it was Alfred keeping an eye on him and his food intake. Bruce never let him go back to Drake Manor at night, like he sometimes used to do when Jack had been in a coma the first time around. He insisted that Tim sleep at Wayne Manor instead, in his room in the family wing, despite not being officially adopted yet. Dick, still commuting between Bludhaven and Gotham at night to sell the illusion that Richie Wayne wasn't Nightwing, was always dropping in so they could do casework together like the old days.

Before his death, the others had already been making more of an effort to keep him involved, to make sure he didn't allow himself to detach and do his own thing like he had been wont to do ever since he had been forced to give up the Robin mantle. Now, however, it seemed they couldn't keep him out of sight, the trauma of his demise having scarred them all greatly, even if two of his family had died long before he did. The only person who wasn't partaking in all this was Damian, probably because he was just as much as a subject for their doting and hovering as Tim was, if not more. And even Damian's usual sibling banter with him seemed half-hearted at times, lacking any real bite, more affectionate than anything else.

They were together again. Their family was whole, for the first time in so many years. But nothing would ever be the same again. For any of them.

In many ways, that was a good thing. In others… well, they would figure out. They always did, last time. Hopefully, it would be the same this time.

-DC-

It took about five minutes, four minutes more than Tim thought possible, for Bruce to finally cut into the argument. He audibly cleared his throat, silencing the four (well, one and three-fourths) adults, and gave them a level look. "Please explain what happened. Then we can decide whose… 'fault' it is."

(Clearly, he didn't believe it was anyone's fault, and Tim was inclined to agree with him. Having a guilt complex was a family-wide problem, not just a Bruce-one.)

Barbara sighed, a hand on her forehead as she leaned back into her wheelchair. It seemed she would be the one taking point on this tale. "First, you need some background. A few months after Damian's death, Amanda Waller died under 'mysterious circumstances', as Stephanie said, and was replaced by one of her more low-profile deputies, a woman by the name of Lyla Michaels. She seemed amiable enough, remarkably less amoral for the position she was supposed to fill in. It wasn't just Stephanie that had glowing reviews about her—"

"—and it later turned out she was an ambitious bitch who was planning to usurp the entire superhero community using her own personally-trained trojan horses," Stephanie interjected, arms crossed. She looked positively incandescent in her rage, for all that she was currently physically fourteen.

Everyone stared at her, mostly in disbelief. "Right," Babs slowly agreed, swallowing. "After Damian's death, the whole family was in disarray. We weren't keeping on top of a lot of things we should have. And we weren't the only ones; Talia was busy trying to consolidate control of what was left of the League of Assassins after killing Mara. Things were chaotic in our neck of the woods for a while. And Michaels took advantage of that."

"She devised a project, called Project Batman Beyond," Jason picked up where Barbara left off. "Essentially, she wanted to engineer her own Batman, down to the DNA. She wasn't going to get it from us, but Talia still had genetic samples of Bruce in one of her bases, one that she had lost control of during the Civil War. Michaels got word and stole them, and kicked off the project. She had her scientists invent a device that would allow her to overwrite the reproductive DNA of another man with Bruce's, and then searched for a couple that were a near-match for Thomas and Martha Wayne's psychological profiles so she could… well." He shrugged, supremely unhappy and furious. "Warren and Mary McGinnis were the ones who got the short end of the stick."

Tim's mouth fell open, and from the corner of his eye he could see everyone else who didn't already know the story staring at Jason in horror. Bruce in particular seemed torn between guilt, sadness, and immense anger. "So that means… your sons…"

"Are biologically yours Bruce, yes," Jason confirmed. "Terrence Warren McGinnis was born when I was thirty or so. Matthew Edward McGinnis, about six and a half years after that. They grew up normally up until Terry was about ten, when Michaels decided to initiate the next stage of her plan and hired out a hitman to kill Warren and Mary right after they had finished a night out at the theater, right in front of the boys. Unfortunately, she succeeded, leaving Terry and Matty orphans."

A sound of pain escaped Tim's adoptive father, and Bruce buried his head into one of his hands. Dick and Alfred both mirrored the gesture, while Damian snarled. Clark clenched his fists in anger, while Diana simply closed her eyes, the embodiment of sympathy. Another hard pill to swallow: Bruce had become Batman to ensure that another tragedy like that never happened again. And it turns out someone had used his legacy as an excuse to perpetuate one instead. Bitter irony didn't even begin to cover it.

Stephanie smirked bitterly. "Ironically, that's when Michaels's plan started going off the rails. She originally intended to use her connections to have the boys left in her custody, so she could have them trained and molded to her liking. Unfortunately for her, Terry ditched CPS with Matty within the week because he was scared they would separate them, and proving he really did have Wayne genes, was resourceful enough to evade all their search parties for several weeks. During that time, the other snag in her plan happened: the hitman."

"The hitman?"

"Shrike," Cass answered the question, staring directly at Dick.

Dick blinked. "You mean Boone? He was still alive at that point?" Assassins didn't have particularly long lifespans after all, unless they were genetically enhanced like Slade or had access to a Lazarus Pit.

Jason nodded. "He was, and he was one of Talia's. Ever since the Civil War, Talia kept a much closer eye on her operatives — she didn't want to risk someone betraying her, or getting into trouble that could lead back to the League. They weren't as powerful as they used to be and she knew that one misstep would lead to us and the rest of the Justice League wiping them out for good. When Shrike was hired out by one of the intermediaries of the US Government, for this seemingly one random job, it piqued her interest immediately. She did some digging, and found the boys. It only took one look at them to figure out whose blood they had."

"She hunted down Shrike and tortured him into giving up Michaels, and then went after Michaels and found out about Project Batman Beyond," Cass continued after her brother. "She killed both of them for their parts in what happened, and then arranged things so the boys would meet Jason."

"I found them trying to steal the fuel rods of the Batmobile in the middle of Crime Alley," Jason reminisced, sighing fondly. "I brought them home, fed them, let them stay the night and then dug into their backgrounds. Meeting me the same exact way I met you while looking just like you, B? Too many coincidences. Their parents dying the same way as yours only added to them. So I went to Talia to see what she knew, and she told me everything. When I got home, I had Babs confirm the information, then had M'gann scan their minds to make sure they didn't have any conditioning. Once I knew they were clean, I took them in and adopted them as my sons."

"And then you made Terry Robin, and eventually Batman."

And there was Dick again, waging that silent conversation with Jason that everyone was pretending they weren't having. Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes. To him, it was obvious what the conversation was about — Dick and Jason had made some kind of agreement to have no more Robins after Damian. It was probably Jason's suggestion, he had a much bigger grudge against that particular mantle than Dick did, so the fact that he had been the one to break whatever promise they made had made Dick feel some kind of betrayal. And of course, both being Waynes, instead of just talking about it, they were pulling this passive-aggressive bullshit. He'd give it another day or two before someone else had it and locked them in a closet so they could talk out their issues.

This family. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same.

Unlike Tim, Jason didn't show any annoyance at Dick's remark, instead coolly returning Dick's gaze. "I fought Terry even harder than I fought Helena and Carrie on being Robin. It took me six months to finally cave, and that was after he dismantled every single model of the Batmobile we had in the Cave on his own. Even then, I didn't intend for him to be Batman, especially not when he was so young, but…" He closed his eyes, inhaling a deep breath, and when he opened them again, his expression was open with bittersweet resignation.

"Well, Carrie and Helena didn't want it, and I know better than to force it on someone unless there's absolutely no choice. Cass was getting too old. I was dying and needed a successor. And Terry…" Jason trailed off, his eyes going distant. Next to him, Cass wrapped her arm around his shoulders again, and pulled him close.

"It could have only been Terry, Dick," she said quietly, in lieu of her brother. "Had you been there, when we finally made that decision… you would have agreed. And it was not because of his genetics or anything like that." Cass smiled, that small knowing smile of hers, before glancing at Jason. "Terry is every bit as strong and as stubborn and determined as his father."

(It took Tim a moment to realize she wasn't talking about Bruce.)

Jason smiled back at his sister as the compliment, as his expression turned slightly melancholic. "How mad were Matty and him when they finally found out?"

"Mad," Cass admitted. "Very mad, especially Terry. But eventually, we helped them understand that you just didn't want to hurt them. You love them."

A beat. Then, "Yeah," Jason said breathily, longingly, "I do."

And oh, that was going to be a problem too, wasn't it?

It can never be that simple, can it? Tim thought, with no small amount of irritation and sadness.


"Penelope Todd-Wayne. Or as she's also known, Penelope of Themyscira."

Damian gave his older brother a flat look. "You impregnated Artemis," he stated, distinctly unimpressed. Over on the other side, Tim could see Diana blinking, and tried not to cringe. That was not going to be fun to explain.

Jason rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah. During our last night together — I was forty at the time. We had been on-and-off for years by that point, and by then, we both knew that even though we loved each other, it just wasn't going to work out anymore."

"Why?" The question slipped from Tim's mouth before he could stop it, and he immediately stiffened. "Oh my God, that was too personal, please ignore me—"

"It's fine, Tim," Jason quickly tried to calm him, giving him a conciliatory smile. "You're just curious. I understand."

Tim swallowed, and shakily smiled back. He supposed that was another way Jason had changed as well. He was less easily offended by, well, everything.

"To answer your question… there was someone else. For me, I mean." The teen-man sounded very sheepish.

"I see," Bruce said carefully. "I guess this caused some… difficulties when Artemis revealed the pregnancy to you?"

Steph snorted. "She didn't tell Jason about Penelope until he was on his deathbed," she candidly revealed.

That got a host of stares. "Wait, what?" Dick demanded, sounding vaguely incensed on Jason's behalf.

The only exception to that seemed to be Diana. "That does sound like Artemis," she noted, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "She's a proud woman, and an even prouder Amazon. She would want to prove that she didn't need a man to help her raise her child. Though I do wonder why she never told you about Penelope either. From what I understand, you two parted on good terms."

"She admitted to me she was scared that I'd take full custody of Penelope," Jason admitted. "It was a dumb, irrational fear — Themyscira is a far safer place to raise a child than Man's World, if significantly more isolated. I'd probably just would've asked to have her for the summers, or something to that effect." He shrugged, looking a touch thoughtful.

"Truth be told, if I hadn't been dying of lung cancer at the time I would've been furious at Artemis for keeping Penelope from me for so long. But I just didn't have the energy at the time to be mad; instead, I was just happy I got to meet her before I went. Had to rewrite my will one final time so she could inherit her portion of the family fortune." The erstwhile father glanced at his sister. "How was she, after?"

Cass smiled. "She always kept you close to her heart. Carried a locket with a picture of the two of you wherever she went. When she was old enough, she became Wonder Girl, then briefly Troia, and then eventually, Wonder Woman."

Jason's expression brightened upon hearing those words. "Really?" He shook his head, a small laugh escaping him. "My son Batman, my daughter Wonder Woman. That's…"

Barbara frowned as Jason began to trail off, his expression turning into something more pensive. "Jason?"

"If Penelope became Wonder Woman, then what happened to Donna?"

At those words, the three Batgirls froze, while Diana's eyes widened, and her face slowly began to pale. Tim felt himself tense, and he could see Dick suddenly becoming much more alert, eying his best friend and three younger siblings with a desperate glint in his eyes. Jason watched the former three carefully, and when all three refused to meet his eyes, he exhaled slowly, his face falling into the lines of grief. "I see. How?"

It was Babs who bit the bullet. "Ten years after you. Alien invasion. She… she took a shot meant for Terry."

Jason closed his eyes, burying his face into one of his hands. A few tears began to stain his face, and when he spoke, his voice was haggard. "Did she…?"

"No. She didn't find anyone else," Barbara answered. She inhaled slowly before continuing to speak. "One of her last requests was that a portion of her ashes be spread over your grave. The rest were to be spread over the grave of her son."

"Ah." He didn't say anymore than that.

The room fell into silence. Everyone was either staring at Jason, or staring somewhere else, their mind elsewhere. Diana was crying quietly, Clark doing his best to comfort her. Obviously, learning her younger sister's inevitable death had gone over very poorly with the Amazon Princess, and Tim supposed he should be thankful no one had bothered to tell her that was probably the second time Donna had died. And then there was Dick, who was gritting his teeth and looking everywhere but another person, probably shedding his own tears as well. Another best friend gone, even if it had been long after his own death.

(Tim didn't dare let his mind dwell upon why it had been Jason's daughter that had ended up becoming Wonder Woman after Donna and not Cassie. Cassie, who loved being a hero and was practically immortal, being a demigoddess that was greatly favored by the Greek Pantheon. Cassie, who had not been mentioned at all, even though she would've loved being Wonder Woman, had dreamed about it for years. That was knowledge he was glad not to have, for just a little longer.)

Suddenly, Jason stood up, giving Cass's hands one last grateful squeeze. "If it's fine with you, I'd like to be excused," he said, directing his gaze towards Bruce. It was tilted ever so slightly downwards, but everyone could see the tear tracks. "I… I need some time alone."

Bruce's expression was sad, but understanding. "Of course, Jason."

Jason swallowed, giving his father a single nod. He then turned and did the same with Clark and Diana. "It was good seeing you both again," he told them.

And with that, he left.


Nobody saw Jason until dinner, which, unlike last night's, was made entirely by Alfred because Tim's big brother was in no state to be handling knives and hot water and just about all the dangerous things that were needed when cooking. Some had tried to go after him, like Dick, but Cass had stopped them. "He needs time alone. He is grieving," she told them, and refused to budge no matter how many arguments had been thrown her way. The one person she had allowed through had been Diana, because Diana could be counted on to be far more emotionally tactful than any of them could ever hope to be.

Even Dick. No, especially Dick. Because for all their oldest brother had the best EQ out of all of them, for all that was touted as the nicest guy in the superhero community, Dick could be as nasty and thoughtless as Bruce at his worst when he was in a mood like this. Tim had went through that firsthand, and it took years for their relationship to recover. His brothers already had some kind of quarrel between them over the continuation of the Robin mantle; talking about it when the open wound of Donna's death was still so fresh would be like pouring gasoline to the fire. Dick was in no state to be confronting Jason, because it was going to be a confrontation no matter what either of them wanted, and that's the last thing anyone in the Manor needed right now.

When Jason reappeared, it was with Diana. Both looked better than before, much better, but that there was cloud hanging over them both. Diana had stayed for dinner, and left afterwards, but not before sharing one last, long hug with Jason, and a kiss on the cheek. She said her farewells to them as well, promising to visit again soon, before making her departure. Clark, meanwhile, had stayed behind; Bruce had asked him to watch over Gotham for the weekend, so the rest of the Family could recover from the emotional fallout of, well, everything. And Clark, of course, had agreed.

Tim, a master at compartmentalization, instead used this time to catch up on his homework like he initially planned. It's not like he wasn't affected about all the revelations about Jason's children; on the contrary, he already found himself making several contingencies in order to ensure the tragedies the children went through didn't happen in this timeline as well. A part of him still ached about how all his efforts to help Selina had been for naught in the end, how her daughter, Bruce's daughter, had ended up an orphan anyway until she found herself into Jason's care.

But the reality was, that was in another timeline. In the past. In a past Tim wasn't a part of because he had been dead. He couldn't change the past, not without going down a dark road he had sworn off after seeing where it would lead him. There was nothing he could do about in any longer, and he was so detached to most of those events that it just didn't affect him the same way it would Jason or Cass or even Steph and Babs. It was easier for him to just… let it go. Let it go, and move on.

That's all they could do now. Move on. Make a new future. One that was, hopefully, better than the one before it.

"You know, you should probably budget your time better."

Tim snorted, briefly breaking away from his work to give his brother an unimpressed look. "You've been telling me that for years."

Jason smirked back, though there was a hint of exhaustion to his expression. He was carrying a mug of looked to be either coffee or hot cocoa with him — probably the latter, Alfred would never stand for coffee this late at night unless the people in question were in the Cave, trying to do casework or patrol. Jason was in no state to do either. "Except now, I know it works. It's basically one of the only reasons I survived being Batman with my sanity somewhat intact."

"The other being Cass?"

"Yes," the older 'boy' (seriously, they needed to figure that out) bluntly admitted. "There's no way I would've made it without Cass. For a while, she was one of the only reasons I wanted to live at all."

Tim closed his eyes. That was a loaded statement if there ever was one. "You two really have gotten close, haven't you?"

He felt Jason move closer to him, until his brother was suddenly sitting right next to him. He had been working in the library, in a secluded corner that promised some much-needed privacy. It was only now that he remembered that it had been Jason that had shown him this place, once they had been on better terms. His older brother had used it when he had been Robin for his own studies.

"We have. I'm not gonna lie Tim — we weren't in a good place after you died. Us, and Damian too. We got better, thanks to that mission you sent us on, but Damian's death sent us both over the edge." Jason exhaled deeply that, a touch ashamed, as if he had anything to be ashamed of. "Alfred was dying. Carrie… I wasn't ready to admit I cared about her like that, not yet at least. If Cass had died, I would've died along with her, and nothing in the world would've brought me back. And she said the same thing about me. That's why she ran from Shiva; she was terrified Shiva would go after me if she had stayed in Bludhaven."

Well. That answered that question. "What are you trying to say, Jason?" Tim asked, tiredly.

"I'm trying to say that just because the two of us have gotten so close, doesn't mean we ever forgot about you. Any of you. We thought of you every single day. And it never stopped hurting."

Oh. That was… "That's… good to hear," said Tim, slowly. "But that's not what's been on my brain lately. I know you both still care. You've been hovering over Damian and I ever since you first got back to the Manor."

Jason raised an eyebrow. He probably didn't consider what he was doing 'hovering'.

"I was just thinking about how this, all of this, is going to change everything," Tim admitted. "All of us… we all died at different points in our lives, Jason. For most of us, we're all different from the people we remember. I mean, you and the girls are older than Bruce now — way older. You all had kids and even grandkids of your own. And then there's Damian and I, who died in our early twenties when Bruce last remembered us as teenagers. Only Dick and Alfred haven't changed all that much, and even they have their baggage. I'm just worried about how this will affect the dynamics of our family going forward, especially since Dick is going to be Batman. Not Bruce."

Maybe it was paranoia, maybe it was cynicism, but it was a valid concern in Tim's mind. Their family was a fragile thing, held together by bonds of shared trauma and a desire to better Gotham than anything truly concrete. They loved each other, yes, but they had also hurt each other so many times that it was a miracle they had lasted as long as they did. Things had gotten better when Bruce had finally decided to hang up the cowl and get real therapy, and even after Bruce's death, but the incident with that evil version of himself from the future proved that there was still a lot of work to be done. Work that never really got the chance to be done, because fate and egomaniacal villains had decided otherwise.

Tim didn't want to see their family fall apart again. It always hurt whenever it did, that crippling loneliness, that sense of loss. He didn't think he could live through that again — especially here in the past, when he knew they could have so much more.

His older brother observed him thoughtfully. He reached forward, and tucked a stray lock of Tim's hair behind the younger boy's ear. "I can understand why you're worried," Jason finally said. "We don't really have the best track record, do we? And I'm not going to deny that there are going to be some growing pains as we try to figure out where everyone fits now. God knows Dick and I are probably going to be stepping on each other's toes before long, even though I don't intend to be putting on a cape anytime soon."

"You don't?" Tim blinked. That was news to him.

Jason shook his head, smiling softly. "I just died of lung cancer, Timbo. And I spent twenty-two years as Batman, and thirty-six years as a vigilante overall. I think I've earned myself a well-deserved break."

Well, when he put it like that… "Yeah, you probably have," Tim agreed, a chuckle chasing his words.

The smile widened a little bit, before fading away into something more firm. "Anyway, things are going to be awkward for a while. But I know we're going to figure this out. This isn't going to be like before, Tim. I promise."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because this time, we're all willing to try," Jason told him, and Tim's felt his breath hitch, because boy, wasn't that true? "We all know that this is what we want. Our family together again. No matter how many times we fall, we're going to get up and try again. Because we all know what we lost, and we aren't willing to lose it again. That's how I know."

Tim swallowed, and searched his brother's face. He felt himself overcome with a comfort he had never felt around Jason. Things had been better between them, much better, ever since Jason fully reconciled with the family, but they had never been like this. For the first time in a very long time, Tim felt completely safe. Like everything really was going to be okay.

"It's not always going to be smooth sailing. We're going to get on each other's nerves, and there are always going to be fights. That's just how family is. But if there's anything all of this has proven, it's that all of us love each other. And that we've been through too much together not to keep trying, no matter what."

Before he knew it, he found himself wrapping Jason into a hug. One that his brother didn't hesitate to return.

"When did you become so wise?" Tim found himself asking.

He could feel Jason smiling into the crook of his neck. "I raised four kids while running around as Batman for over twenty years. I had to pick up a few things."

Despite himself, Tim couldn't help but smile back. "Yeah, I guess you did."


I had lots of Tim feels. This chapter came out very unexpectedly because of that, but I like the end result all the same.

The family is moving forward, but there are still going to be issues. We'll see how that goes in the following chapters.

Next chapter: Jason's still figuring things out himself, and has his long-awaited confrontation with Dick.