A/N: I do not own anything
All the Titans were too weary to patrol Jump City, hell they were even too tired to eat. So Batman decided to he would guard this city for one night while Clark and Diana watched over Gotham for him. He didn't mind one night away from his precious city, he figured a nice one day vacation was necessary every once in a while; or so he figured.
But it was just an excuse for the Dark Knight since his mind was now focused on Robin. The memory of reading a DNA test between Robin and this Baroness Lucifera was still replaying over and over again in his head.
At first his hands were trembling, his head felt light-headed, and his heart was racing. He tried his best to mask his sudden fear: what if this woman decided to try and take his ward away from him. A cold sweat slipped down his forehead but luckily his cowl prevent the sweat from completely cascading down his stoic face. He wanted to burn this file but he couldn't do it in front of everyone else. That's when he hid it in the folder to look at it further and he left to go guard the city.
He was in the comfort of the batmobile and had his computer search all databases for this woman; he was determined to find out more of this woman and he was going to anything in his power to prevent her from taking Dick Grayson from him, even if he had to threaten her with physical force.
But another part was telling him he shouldn't do that, not even to Robin's birth mother. He sighed as he park the vehicle, he activated the batmobile's hologram of a beat up sedan. He quickly exited the car and he soon found himself leaning over the edge of a building in search of any crimes. His search was cut short when he heard a woman's scream enter his ears, he scanned the surrounding area, and found the scream's owner.
Her arms and legs were held by three men who were dragging her to a random alleyway that didn't have many windows to witness the rape taking place. Batman jumped into action landing softly yet menacing in front of the would-be rapists, "Im-im-impossible!" One of the thugs shouted pointing at the Dark Knight's sudden appearance.
"This isn't your territory!"
"Justice has no boundaries." Batman replied and dashed towards the thugs without any fear of any of them possibly pulling out their weapons on the Dark Knight. He grabbed one of the thugs and threw him to the ground; another thug decided to rush Batman from behind only to receive an elbow from the dark knight.
Only one person was remaining from the original group of three, he held the helpless woman with a knife by her throat, and Batman had his eyes trained on him. It was going to be hard to get to the man without him using the woman as a human shield. Maybe he could a target-locking batarang instead and give the impression that he was testing if the man was going use her as a shield.
Batman slowly grabbed the batarang and the rapist tightened his grip on the lady. His cowl shot the target and relayed the information to the batarang.
Batman launched the batarang way over the man's head allowing the man to relax for a moment until he was hit in the back of the head with said object. After he was hit, he released the woman, and this allowed Batman to toss the villain over and lands a punch that incapacitate the final thug. Batman looked behind him and glanced at the woman to check for any damages the thugs caused, but it appeared that there wasn't much evidence of foul due to the fact that the woman was wearing denim jeans and a gray jacket. "Are you alright?" The Dark Knight said as he drew closer to her.
She was panting incredibly fast and she was hunched over on her knees, trying to regain the oxygen that was lost during her fateful encounter. She kept touching her shoulders, arms, and chest, "Uh, um, yeah. T-thanks to you." She responded very gratefully.
"Do you live in on these apartments?" Batman asked.
"Yes but I'm only renting for a week." She paused, very hesitant of her next answer, "I was told my son was seen in this city."
Bruce was intrigued by her statement, "Do you know how he looks like?" He was willing to help this mother search for her son, his heart wouldn't allow her to experience the horror of never seeing your child again.
"Here." She handed him a picture and he gladly took it.
"He looks very handsome," Batman replied, without fully analyzing the picture, he actually smiled at the picture. It reminded him so much of Dick Grayson. . .
He rubbed his eyes quickly and he quickly took another look at the photo, and he realized that the son she was talking about was in fact Dick Grayson! Batman shot a glance at her and he saw who he was speaking to: Dick Grayson's biological mother. He couldn't believe what was happening right now, he backed away from her. Cold sweat dripping down his forehead eventually trickling down to his lips.
"Well, I certainly agree with you, Mr. Wayne." She smiled then her smile faded away, "I believe you have my son, Mr. Wayne, and I want him back."
"Why now?!" He spat back.
Baroness Lucifera folded her arms behind her and started walking side-to-side, "Easy, Mr. Wayne, to make up for all the lost time." She responded.
"You have no right to take away my son away from me!" He shouted.
"Oh but I do have every right to take him away from you. You see, no matter how much you can spin a story, you can't bury the truth of what happened to Jason Todd." Memories of Jason's death flooded Batman's brain and the guilt of not being able to protect his second ward began to affect his psyche and his breathing. "He was violently murdered at the hands of this 'Joker' person. So sorry if I don't trust you with the safety of my son." She stated. "And I expect my son to be returned to me by the end of the week, on this spot; if you don't return him by the end of the week, I will send Slade to capture him."
Batman tried to sucker punch the Baroness but she caught his fist and flipped him over. Before the Baroness could kick him, Batman threw some smoke bombs to cloud himself, and he evaded before he could be assaulted more.
She stood there waiting for the smoke to clear only for the Dark Knight to have disappeared. "Baroness, did he get the message?" Of the thugs was clutching his side, came walking to the Lucifera.
"Of course he did, now we wait for Mr. Wayne to make his move, but first Lester get Morrow on his feet." She pointed at another agent by the name of Lester.
"But Baroness, isn't Bruce Wayne one of the richest men around?" Agent Pete whispered with his leader nodding at his question, "Don'tcha think he'll do something drastic to prevent you from getting to your son?" He was concerned for her safety.
"As long as he doesn't know where we operate our business, we'll be okay; but I do have some concerns of own." Lucifera admitted.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Agent Lester walked in on the conversation with Agent Morrow on his shoulders.
"We've been compromised."
"By who?" Agent Lester asked.
"I'm afraid I don't know who did it, but I have a bad feeling Slade betrayed my trust." Lucifera said.
Agent Pete wondered, "Was Slade acting on his own self-interest?"
Agent Lester at first shook off the notion until something popped up in his head, "Does Slade have a family of his own?"
Everyone looked at him with intrigue, "I didn't really look into Mr. Wilson's personal history, but I'm pretty sure we can look further into his personal records and find whatever Mr. Wilson is hiding behind that mask of his." Agent Lester vowed.
Lucifera was startled at this revelation, "Even if Slade has a family of his own, he should've been telling them about the ideals of Hydra that way they would've been spared by our science project." The men nodded.
Agent Pete pondered for a second, "Do you think Slade was working alone or was there someone helping him from the inside?"
Agent Lester answered before the Baroness could speak, "Did anyone ever get my report on Agent Ibn?"
Lucifera look at Lester with wonder, "No, what was in it?"
Lester cleared his throat, "It was my suspicion that he was working for SHIELD with his records being falsified; from his fingerprints to his blood, everything was sending he was sending me came up as red flags, and I had advised for Mr. Wilson to be keeping a closer eye on the teen. To which I had assumed he told you."
"Teen? I thought he was in his mid-twenties!" Pete was surprised.
"Yeah, his blood kept telling his age was sixteen years old; at least on average of the mixture of blood he gave me."
"Mixture?" Lucifera was definitely fuming from her ears until she rubbed the bridge of her nose, "Is SHIELD involved with this nuisance?"
Lester shook his head, "Thankfully no. However there was five missing heroes from the future that our intel team notified in the afternoon."
"What does this have to do with our conversation?" Lucifera said frustratingly.
"The Titans of the future are missing. All that remained were the older Titans but our forces took care of them."
The Baroness' eyes soften at the mention of the older Titans dying, realizing her son would eventually grow up to Nightwing. It was obvious that Nightwing was second-in-command to this so called 'Batfamily' and leader of the Titans that they faced while they were testing their new weapon. She prevented tears from falling out and stated, "He was successfully indoctrinated with Wayne's philosophy. Hydra wouldn't be able to save him anyway." She stated, "However, right now he is at a perfect age to try to get him on our side."
The men nodded, "What about Nightstar? Wouldn't she be considered your granddaughter, Baroness; she is the daughter of Nightwing and Starfire, after all." Pete pointed out; the two men made the connection in their head.
Lucifera was excited about the idea of spending time with both her son and granddaughter but would her granddaughter be willing to join? "It'll be hard sell for her, but we will have to break her from the stranglehold that Wayne has put on her!"
"Of course, Baroness." Agents Pete and Lester said in unison.
Batman found himself inside his personal, private room in the Watchtower.
His cowl was left on the floor, both tears and sweat rushing down his face, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was reminding himself the anguish, the brutality of the day that Joker killed Jason Todd.
No matter how many times his friends and Alfred would tell him that it wasn't his fault, but the sad reality is that he could've spent one more day training with Jason or gave him better information on the Joker so he could've prepped Jason more on the tactics of the Joker.
Suddenly Batman was back in hot temperature of Ethiopia, he should've known the sun was hitting him hard, but he didn't care or at the least couldn't care what was happening to him; from the destroyed building standing before him, still burning from the explosion, and the worst part was that Jason was in that destroyed building.
Batman snapped himself back into reality, he was looking into the mirror again. Suddenly he jerked his hand behind the mirror and opened it, showing off the personal hygiene products, and prescription drugs. He reached for the memory suppression prescription, and he took five small tablets and individually swallowed them down his throat. This drug wasn't readily available for the public to use, as of yet; rather Bruce Wayne was using a drug that was not certified by any peer reviewed studies. Essentially he was being his own test subject and so far he hadn't experienced any major problems with his created drug.
The smell of fire entered Wayne's nose and he soon found himself face to face with Jason's lifeless body. His body almost seemed like it wasn't affected by the explosion, but on further inspection, one could see the damage that the Joker did to the young superhero. From the bruising near his eyes to the scars littered throughout his body. Batman touched the cold skin of Jason and tried to make sure that there was a pulse, a beat, anything to let his mind know that he could still save Jason.
All Batman received was nothing. He fell back on his butt and was leaning against something rough, probably one of the support beams, but the sink and mirror were still in front of him. He stood up and went to the sink and took another pill, followed by two more, then three more.
He was back in his room, finally ridding himself from the hot climate of Ethiopia. He had his coarse hands on top of the sturdy sink; he was sweating more and more, it seemed as if the medication wasn't going to work this time. He hadn't noticed how hard he was breathing until he saw that the mirror in front of him was foggy; he tried slowing down his breathing by taking deeper breathes but that wasn't working in his favor, then he finally realized that his heart was overworking itself. At that moment he knew he needed medical attention and quick before his heart gave out on him. However his body wasn't ready to comply with his movements.
His feet couldn't support his weight so he fell to the ground hard. He crawled his way to the bed-side telephone. The phone was to able connect to the medical team and it was with one press of the button he could send for help to come his way. He managed to press the button but he couldn't hear the operator on the other side of the phone.
He used the bed as a small crutch to help himself get back on his two feet. It was successful. . . For two seconds before he lost balance and was kneeling beside his bed again. He felt his breath getting shorter and shorter and he was far away from his door; he needed to open his door for the doctors to take him to med-bay, all the private rooms were only accessible by the people who owned the room.
His genuine concern for everyone's privacy was starting to backfire on the Dark Knight. He pushed away from the bed, realizing he wasn't going to get the door by using the bed as a crutch, and decided to slowly and painfully crawl his way to the door.
He was halfway to his door, when he heard someone knocking on the door; he imagined that the person on the other side was Joker waiting for Batman to open the door so the Joker could gun the weakened knight. He thought about quitting right there and then; what was the point of even continuing with his fight for justice, if someone he knew was always going to pay the ultimate price for his actions.
He stopped putting up a fight and just stayed there; defeat in his eyes, his body was starting to shutdown on him little by little. He took one glance at the door and let his head rest on the floor. There wasn't any point in trying to continue to the door. His eyes started getting heavy and he could feel his body relax on the hard floor.
He felt at peace, nothing was worrying or hurting him anymore. His body was now resting peacefully for the first time in months since Jason died. . .
Bruce was sitting in a new room, one that had a yellow coloring, but he could tell there was a tarp over his head. He saw a ringmaster step onto the circle and raise he arms up, "Thank for attending tonight's show, ladies and gentlemen! Now I know you've patiently waiting for the main event! Now get ready for the famous: Flying Graysons!" He pointed his raised hands behind him to show the trapeze lighting up; then said family had the lights placed on them, they started waving their hands towards the audience, then they started walking towards the ladders to perform their famous aerial stunts.
Before the Flying Graysons could reach the ladder, they halted by armed gangsters aiming their assault rifles at Haley first, then the Flying Graysons, and finally at the crowd. The crowd started panicking but really couldn't run away without the bullets tearing through their bodies at once. To Bruce's terror as he watch more men separate the boy and his family. A women entered the arena and snatched the boy away from his family; all the boy could do was scream, "Mama, daddy!" The child reached out for them.
All Bruce knew was that the bullets didn't hurt the most, it was the fact that he couldn't prevent the woman from pulling apart a family. . .
Bruce regained consciousness as he heard more people trying to open his door but couldn't budge the damn thing one inch. He stood up on weary legs and lunged towards the door; all he had to do was press a button to open the door and allow access to whoever was behind it.
He might have hit the sliding face first, but he was able to unlock the door. For a moment he rested on the door before it disappeared behind him.
"Get him to med-bay!"