Author's Note: Thank you to soccernin19 (Damian's place in the superhero world is going to be interesting, to say the least. And as for the others, you'll just have to wait and see!), Guest 1 (When it comes to communicating with each other, Dick and Bruce don't always do the greatest on serious subjects. Thus Bruce's message), and Meridianpony (I'm really glad you're enjoying it! I debated between Dick and Jason on who would take the cowl and then decided that Jason fit better as Batman for the purpose of this story) for reviewing the last chapter! I own nothing.
Jason stared at the cowl as if he suspected it would eat him alive. It had been a week since Bruce's children had seen his recordings. A week since, after clinging tightly to Stephanie for an hour after hearing what Bruce had to say, Damian had retreated into his room and refused to come out. Alfred was the only one who'd seen the boy since that fateful day which had both Dick and Jason worried. Whatever Bruce had told the boy had clearly shaken him but Damian had been clever enough to encrypt the file and Dick was having difficulty cracking the encryption. It had also been close to a week since Jason had taken up the cowl. He had hoped that it would begin to feel more natural to be dressed as Batman as the nights patrolling with Nightwing dragged on but instead he constantly felt like a child that had stolen his father's clothing.
It didn't help that the crooks had noted the absence of Robin. Since Tim was in Hong Kong researching rather than patrolling Robin had become conspicuous by the lack of news coverage on him. Gotham criminals were beginning to take notice. Just the night before Poison Ivy had commented on the lack of the Boy Wonder and Selina Kyle's eyes had narrowed behind her goggles before she'd vanished without a word when she'd realized it was only Batman and Nightwing together. Sooner or later the rumor would start to spread that another Robin had been killed. Villains would grow bold and chaos would take over Gotham. The only good thing about this situation was that the Joker was safely locked away in Belle Reve.
"You okay Jaybird?" Dick's voice shook the new Batman out of his thoughts and the younger man turned to face his brother.
"Still no luck with the kid?"Jason asked, blatantly dodging the question. Dick shook his head, looking disheartened.
"He won't even talk to me through the door aside from insisting I go away," the acrobat replied, removing the Nightwing costume from its proper case.
"We really need to decrypt that file," Jason muttered and Dick nodded in agreement before vanishing to change. The pair of them slipped into the Batmobile fully costumed a moment later and they were zooming out into the Gotham night, both silently praying that this wasn't the night everything fell apart.
Barbara Gordon studied the silent streets of Gotham, green eyes narrowed behind her glasses. Something felt off. Maybe it was the fact that Gotham was rarely this quiet, maybe it was the nervous way the dock workers were glancing nervously around as if they expected to get busted for possession of illegal substances at any moment, or maybe it was the worry Nightwing and Batman seemed to exude even through comms and cameras. Regardless of the reason, the red head just knew something was going to go terribly wrong.
"Everything still quiet?" Stephanie Brown's voice broke the silence and made Barbara jump. "Sorry," the blonde apologized sheepishly and the red head smiled weakly at her student.
"Everything's still quiet," Barbara confirmed. "Should I tell the boys you're coming out for the night."
"Do you want me out?" Barbara arched an eyebrow at Stephanie and the blonde stared back. Normally the younger girl would have been jumping at the chance to patrol but something seemed to be bothering her. "I just...You've lost enough already," Stephanie sputtered. "I don't want to go out if you're going to feel guilty for anything that might happen to me."
"I'll be fine," Barbara informed her student, touched by Stephanie's concern. "So why don't you suit up and get out there." The blonde grinned at her and scurried out, leaving the red head to activate her comm system. "Keep your eyes peeled for Batgirl," she informed Batman and Nightwing. "I'm sending her out."
"Roger that Oracle," Nightwing chirped with false cheer while the Batman on screen simply lifted his hand in acknowledgement. Barbara felt another pang of worry but she did her best to ignore it as she began scanning the screens for any sign of trouble. Stephanie called a good-bye as she darted out the window and the red head managed a real grin only to startle again as a new window opened on her screen. The signal was coming from the Batcave.
"Alfred what is it?" she asked after a quick glance at the dark screen, turning back towards her searching. "Is something wrong?" No reply. Barbara turned towards the screen and her eyes widened when she saw who was looking at her. "Damian?" she asked cautiously, startled by the tear stains she saw on his cheeks. "Is everything okay?"
"I, uh, I need to talk to someone," the boy said, sniffing slightly as if trying to hold back tears. Barbara wanted to question why Damian had come to her instead of one of his brothers but she knew that would probably scare off boy.
"Okay," she said, giving him his full attention. "I'm here." That earned her a weak smile. Barbara Gordon had only met Damian Wayne once and during the meeting the boy had been stuffy and aloof. Stephanie and Tim had both informed her that Damian normally behaved that way so to see the boy this shaken was worrying. When it became clear that the boy needed a little prodded she asked, "What did you want to talk about?"
"Father's recording," came the downcast reply.
Oh Bruce, Barbara thought. What did you say to him? "What about it?" she asked gently. It was then that Damian focused watery green eyes directly on Barbara's own eyes.
"What do you do when you find out your whole life is a lie?"
"What do you mean?" Barbara was shocked, not only by the question but also by the sheer amount of despair in the boy's voice.
"I'm not Damian Wayne," the ten year old told her. "I'm Richard Grayson's clone."