The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 19.3 (rough draft 2)
Author's notes: In the Rebirth Batgirl and the Birds of Prey series, Gus Yale is a huge Batgirl/Oracle fanboy who "borrowed" her second alias and then, when he was caught, was allowed to keep it and work as the new Oracle for the Birds of Prey.
o.o.o
"How are things?" Bruce asked.
"Not good," Duke answered, sounding worried. "Everyone's been busier than usual, and there was an Arkham breakout."
"Who?" Bruce asked sharply. Gotham's Rogues had been pretty quiet since the apocalypse, but it had only been a matter of time.
"No official reports yet, but Red Robin says it's Poison Ivy and Two-Face."
Bruce cursed silently. "Move over." For a while, he was focused on directing multiple operations, referencing, and giving Duke instructions, so the sound of an alarm sent an unpleasant jolt through him.
"What's that?" Duke asked sharply.
Bruce's eyes shot from the alert screen to the Robin Monitor, which showed an empty bed. "The birds just left the house," he groaned. Now that they could open doors, he had programmed their trackers to alert him if they ever left the main areas of the house unaccompanied by an older family member. He couldn't bring himself to lock them in his room when their trust in him was so fragile, but this was a problem. "Dammit! Duke, do your best, I'll be right back."
"Okay, okay, okay, okay," Duke muttered nervously, adjusting his headset. His eyes flickered wildly over the computer bank. "Guys," he said into the comm, "B had to leave for a minute, he'll be back soon-"
"Why is he LEAVING?!" Red Robin bellowed. "Orphan and Batboy are up to their necks in trouble, I'M trying to find a bio-bomb, YOU still don't know how to-!"
"Certain baby chicks are trying to fly the coop."
"...DAMMIT!"
Upstairs, Bruce found the mud room door ajar. He hadn't realized that the birds could get through even locked doors now, but when the mansion wasn't on emergency lockdown (with Alfred out of commission and Bruce too preoccupied to do his routine evening checks, even the house's normal security system was still only in standby mode, dammit dammit dammit), the mechanism on the mud room door was simple. Now that he thought about it, it was similar to the one on the master bathroom door.
Bruce ignored the dark, silent garage on the right in favor of the door to the yard on the left, which was also open. Then he had to consult his tracker program. John was still in the house, but the other children were in the trees past the open yard, so Bruce had to thread his way toward them with one eye on his phone. "Jack!" he called.
"Daddy wwin!" a little voice exclaimed in good-natured disappointment, and there was an angry crow from Peter.
Bruce tried to calm himself as he hurried to reach them. Jack was pouting, and Peter looked like he hadn't quite decided not to dash away. "Boys," Bruce said as gently as he could, "I will not punish you, but this is wrong. You cannot leave the house by yourselves, do you understand? Especially at night when you're supposed to be sleeping."
"Daddy, I wwann't go ou't!" Jack protested.
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we can play outside, but right now, Cassandra and Tim and Damian are in a lot of trouble, and I can't help them if I'm trying to make you behave."
"Ccassie?! Ttimmy?!" they chorused in alarm.
"Your siblings are in danger. I need to help them, but I have to get you into the house first. Do you understand? You being outside right now is putting Cassandra and Tim and Damian in danger."
"Ohh nno! Bbad, bad bboys!"
"It's all right, let's go get your brother."
John's tracker was in Alfred's suite, which made Bruce silently groan at the prospect of trying to pry the unwilling boy away. To his horror, it was even worse than he expected - Alfred was on the floor halfway between the bed and the door, in such discomfort that he was whimpering, one hand clutched to his head as he tried to keep himself from collapsing with the other. John was crying a little as he pulled hard at his grandfather, apparently trying to get him to keep moving.
"Get away from him!"
John burst into full-blown tears and ran out of the room. Bruce carefully got Alfred back into bed, worried at the heat he could feel from the old man's body even through his clothes. "Alfred, I'm going to get you some more medicine. Will you be able to drink if I bring you water?" Alfred didn't answer, seeming nearly unconscious now that he was lying down again. In an agony of worry for his father and the vanished birds in addition to his Bats, Bruce managed to take Alfred's temperature, which was higher than before, and get some water and a fever reducer into him. He left some bland food, more water and ice chips, a bucket, and a damp washcloth beside the bed, then rushed to find the children.
They were outside again, this time tangled in a physical fight in the yard. With their sharp teeth and fingers that were still used to acting like claws, he got scratched up a bit himself when he pried John out of the midst of it. The boy went hopelessly limp in his arms, weeping against his shoulder, and the younger two stopped fighting at once. "Ttimmy Ccassie Ddami!" Jack insisted to Bruce.
"Yes, we need to go."
As soon as they got to the cave, Bruce rushed to the Batcomputer and set down John. The fact that Duke was standing up with his face close to one of the screens and one hand pressed hard against his comm did not look like a good sign. "Sitrep," Bruce demanded.
"I can't get hold of Orphan or Batkid, and Ivy ambushed Red."
"What?!"
"I think she strung him up in vines and took off again, but he stopped being coherent after that, so I don't know what's happening now."
Bruce shoved Duke aside. "Red Robin!"
"Hiiiiii, Ddaddy!" the teen slurred playfully, then burst into high-pitched giggles. "Ai ceam is BETTER than sigin- sigatures!"
'Shit.' Bruce punched open the other lines. "Orphan! Batman! Acknowledge, now."
No response. Bruce desperately checked the Bats' trackers. All of three of them were stationary, without even the slight jiggling that would indicate combat, which was not a good sign under the circumstances. Tim's vitals were abnormal, of course, indicating that he'd been drugged; Cassandra's showed that she was probably unconscious; Damian's that he was in physical distress. "DAMMIT!" He messaged the Gotham Knights, who had been scattered since the apocalypse and had never really reconvened afterward. Half of them weren't even in Gotham anymore, having been displaced and then preoccupied in their cities of refuge.
Bruce drew in a breath. "Batgirl?" he tried.
"Oh, for the love of- Kind of busy at the moment, B," she said impatiently.
"What's your-?" He was looking up the answer himself even as he asked the question, and broke off in dismay when he found Batgirl's tracker all the way in Star City. "Never mind."
She must have heard something in his tone. "What is it?"
"Nothing. I can handle it." He switched lines. "Nightwing, Red Hood, this is an emergency."
No response from Jason. Bruce hadn't heard a word from his second son in over a week. Combined with what was currently happening to his other children, he felt sick with worry.
"B," Nightwing said in a strained voice, "right now I'm tied up - literally - in a sinking ship with two freaking-out civilians and an unconscious shark-ninja to save. Can it wait?"
"Yes, yes; be safe, Dick, oh God-"
"B?!" Nightwing exclaimed in alarm at the panic in his father's voice and the uncharacteristic breach of comm protocol.
Before Bruce could even start angsting over whether to call Superman or not, one of his screens burst into static, then resolved into an image of Harvey Dent's face. "This is a message for Batman," the villain snarled. "The REAL Batman, not this punk Robin in a Batsuit." The view changed to Cassandra and Damian, still masked but both hanging in chains, unconscious and bleeding. "I have some business with you, Batman. If you don't meet me within one hour, the girl gets it. You don't make it here in two, the brat's dead as well. Don't bother sending an imposter; I'll KNOW if it's you or not, Bats."
"B, it'll be okay," Batgirl's voice chimed in urgently. Apparently she'd checked in on Gotham and was now watching the broadcast. "I'll see if Oracle can-" Bruce switched her off, desperate to catch the rest of Dent's instructions.
The instant the villain's screen went black, Bruce whirled away and stormed to suit up, burning with fury and fear for his children. He was so preoccupied that he doublechecked his equipment on complete autopilot, and had to do it over again just to make sure he'd done it properly. His children's safety and possibly their lives were at stake, he could not afford to be careless. 'You can't afford to be late, either!' the agitated voice in the back of his mind cried.
He swept back toward the Batcomputer, touching his belt to bring one of the cars to life as he did so. "Have you transferred all the data to my cowl?" he demanded, his voice already in Batman's harsh growl.
"Yeah," Duke said, jittery with tension. "No updates; still no answer from Hood; Nightwing probably won't make it in time to do any good, but he's on his way."
Batman processed the information as he stepped back to leave. "Tell them I'm coming. Keep an eye on Alfred and the-" 'Oh, God.'
He had a moment of disorientation as the Bruce part of him reared up in horror, clashing against the intensely focused Batman part. He swept his gaze frantically around the cave and forgot to breathe for a minute when he saw his youngest children, his precious little ones who'd been tortured by a man dressed like he was right now.
They were huddled against the wall, staring at him. John's face was split into a Joker smile, his arms around his terrified younger brothers as they clung to him. The look of utter betrayal on Jack's face was devastating.
'No!' "Boys, I- It's not-"
"Batmaaaa~n, the flower's EATING me!" Red Robin sing-songed, a hint of panic swimming through his giggles, "Ha ha ha~ I don't think it likes the Bat-acid..."
"I'm coming, Red Robin." There was no time to reassure the little ones. Bruce had screwed up too badly, there was no possible way to reassure them. "Duke," he snarled, "take care of my birds," then practically fled away into the Batmobile to rescue his other children.
Duke looked at the birds, his heart aching for them, but didn't time to say more than, "Guys, it's okay," before the mayhem on the computer stole his attention away.
[warble] sobbed. [chirp-chirp] had been right all along, Daddy was fake, Daddy was a lie, it was just ANOTHER GAME of Master's, such a cruel, cruel one. [warble] had thought he was safe, he'd thought he had a daddy who loved him, but it wasn't true, it wasn't true, all along they'd still been prisoners, when the game ended it would be back to the Laughing and the chains and the meat and the hurting, he couldn't do it again, he couldn't do it anymore, he wanted his daddy he wanted his daddy but THERE WAS NO DADDY, it was a lie, everything was always, always a lie...!
"NO NO NO NO," [caw] screeched, "He lost, he lost, WEAK Daddy he lost and Bat killed him; I hate Bat and Daddy! I WON'T DO IT AGAIN! YOU DIE, BAT, I'LL KILL YOU!"
[chirp-chirp] wanted to laugh. 'I told you,' he thought. 'I told you all along.' A tremor went through his body. The game was finally ending, he had been WAITING for this, it was a relief but it also hurt. He didn't think he could do it again, either. When Master came back, and strapped him down to put the collar back on him or hit him or make him Laugh...he couldn't do it again. He couldn't.
"Save us," [warble] begged. "[chirp-chirp], please. Save us."
"Keep us safe," [caw] whimpered, hiding his face against his flockmate.
[chirp-chirp] wanted to. After so, so long of watching his precious ones stray away from him, watching them give their love and trust to Master, crying at night because he couldn't hold onto them and they didn't want to be protected anymore...now, at last, they had come to hide under his wings again.
Except he couldn't keep them safe. They couldn't run away, because Master always, always, always caught them and punished them. Even when Master was pretending to be Daddy and didn't hurt them, he still caught them. They couldn't escape, they couldn't hide. No one would rescue them. Master killed everyone who tried to rescue them; all the good, stupid people here loved 'Daddy,' Master had tricked them and either they would help him or he would kill them, too. [chirp-chirp] was so alone, so helpless, and worrying about his little ones made him want to scream.
They couldn't run away, but they could run a little bit. Master was not here right now. They didn't have to run too far; this time, now that his flockmates were on his side, they might make it. He couldn't save Grandpa, but he could save his flockmates.
When [chirp-chirp] had been caught before, it was because he was young and stupid and still thought he could be free, and he'd only found the deep place by accident. Now...he knew were to go. He knew to go straight there, that freedom in this world didn't exist. He would go to the deep place on purpose, and if they were fast enough, they would reach it before Master caught up.
They would reach it, and they would jump. And then they would see Mamma and Papà again, the people who loved him so much and made him safe. [trill] would be there, too, and Zitka, and Pop Haly and everyone else. He would see them all again, they would smile good, sweet smiles and hug him so tight and say, "What took you so long, Dickiebird? We missed you so much." He would show them his little ones, and Mamma and Papà would hug them, too. They would all be together and safe, where Master could never reach them, ever. The deep place was a good way to escape, because he would be able to fly one last time before he died, the same way Mamma and Papà had flown away.
"Come with me," [chirp-chirp] said to his flockmates. They held his hands and followed him, relieved and trusting.
TBC