A/N: While this is a canon divergent AU, I've ironed out the post-War Games timeline to streamline some details and dispense with others in order to tell the story that I want to tell, as well as keep you on your toes. This is fanfic, after all.

Chapter 8: The More Things Change

When we dream, it's of the wind blowing cold and hard
And when we wake up, we still live in a house of cards
—Mary Chapin Carpenter, "House of Cards" (excerpt)

DETECTIVE COMICS

The next night, Batman had little difficulty tracking down Tarantula. She had retained her control of the Latino Unified Gang, but the way she picked fights was far more impulsive than her fighting skills warranted. Batman watched from the rooftops as she dashed through alleys and scaled buildings haphazardly, while her gang of pursuers grew in numbers and aggression. When she shook them off for a minute and took a breather in a cul-de-sac (foolish woman, you're going to regret that soon enough), Bruce took the opportunity to activate his com-link.

"Alfred. What's his status?" That morning, Dick had begun to stir from his haze of blood loss, fever, pain and medicine, and though he was only coherent for fitful moments, he seemed to be aware of himself and his surroundings at last.

"Good evening, Master Bruce. No significant change in status, though I'm still concerned about the fever and some recurrent haemorrhaging from the femoral arterial laceration."

"Have you told him about the others? Where Robin and Batgirl are, and what happened to Oracle and Spoiler?"

"No, I have not mentioned any of that. Thankfully, he's only asked for you so far. I honestly have no idea what I'd tell him."

"You don't need to tell him anything. I'll talk to him myself when I get back."

"Yes, of course. And when might that be?"

Bruce's answer was interrupted by gunshots from the street below. "Later, Alfred," he muttered, terminating the connection before swooping down into the melee.

Tarantula had dived for cover behind a dumpster, but her pursuers were so occupied in wasting their bullets in her general direction that it was child's play to take out a few from the shadows.

Crunch. His fist met a nose, which crumpled under the force.

"Augh!" The man screamed and fell backwards, cracking his head on the wall.

A twisted arm.

"Nnngh!"

A deft, precise uppercut.

"Mikey, behind you!"

"N-n-no! Puh-please!"

A pinched pressure point. A swish of a black cape.

"Holy God! Run for it!"

A few well-aimed batarangs would do the trick.

"AHHH—"

A single silent blow, and the last of the fleeing men dropped like puppets. Typical. And Batman hadn't even broken a sweat.

Tarantula cowered beside the dumpster, but when she dared to peek at the carnage in his wake, he came up behind her and yanked the handgun from her grip. In the same moment, his other hand left a tracking bug on the back of her orange shirt.

"Oh!" She jumped to her feet, wide-eyed and off guard. "At-at first there were only a few of them, so I thought I could…" Her words trailed away foolishly.

"Why are you out here?" he demanded.

"Fighting like this, you mean? Trying to be a hero?" Her stance grew more defensive as her volume rose. "Look, you see some abadesa pull a gun out in a liquor store and you think all you gotta do is beat him up to stop crime. You don't see the mama he's got with bleeding ulcers who won't stop cleaning some gringa's house long enough to see a doctor, 'cause she's not sure she's got the right to a day off. Or the little baby sister who'll be left home alone all day if he doesn't come back."

She gestured with wide, uncontrolled movements, and a mixture of blood and spittle flew from her mouth. "You don't see the papá who drank himself to death when he couldn't find a job for fifteen years… or the companies that wouldn't hire him on account of a record he got when he was twelve for making some white cop mad. I bet you think prisons are for rehabilitation, and that anybody can make it if they just work hard enough—"

"You're talking about politics and white collar crime, but you're fighting drug dealers and numbers runners."

"Maybe I'm working towards a goal." Her finger jabbed up at him.

"You're working towards a grave," Batman corrected, anger burning in his tone. "Your ideas are interesting, but you have a completely inadequate skill set, no apparent impulse control—"

"Fine. So teach me something. Train me."

He glared. She looked down and hugged her arms to herself in a way that was at odds with the brash personality he had come to expect from her.

"Tell me everything you know about Blockbuster's death," he said, ignoring her demand.

"Blockbuster?" She grinned up at him, but the blood staining her teeth gave her an unnerving quality. "You're in the wrong city, big man."

"Answer me."

Tarantula narrowed her eyes and smirked. "Now I get it," she said coolly. "You're the papá he was so worried about. Tell…" Her lips twisted into a sultry smile, and her voice grew breathy. "Tell my querido that Tarantula misses him very much, and I can't wait until he's back on his feet again. Loose ends are—just—terrible."

A wave of fury swept through Batman, settling somewhere near his lungs. She paled and took an involuntary step back as he loomed over her and growled, "What happened to Blockbuster?"

"All work and no play, just like him," she muttered defiantly. "What's Blockbuster to you? Aren't you glad he's dead? Does it matter that I killed him?"

His heart pounded so suddenly, he felt like it would burst out of his chest. Despite the fact that almost everything within him was screaming not to trust her, his voice was calm as he repeated, "You killed him?"

"Well, truth be told, I did have a little help from my partner," she said, winking.

Batman ignored the bait. "Taking a life doesn't make you a hero."

"Taking a life!" she scoffed. "Blockbuster deserved to die, and Redhorn too. You can't lie to me and tell me that the world isn't better off without those lowlifes! I did what had to be done."

"You created an unstable power vacuum. Are you planning to kill every crime boss who bids for Blockbuster's territories? You've seen who suffer most when gang leaders go to war."

"You think you know everything, don't you?" she snarled.

"I know enough."

He could interrogate her further, but he knew that sifting the truth from her manipulation and lies would require far more time and effort than he was willing to spend. Instead, he shot his grapple gun to the top of the nearby building.

"No lethal force," he ordered as he stashed her handgun in his belt, ignoring her obscenity-filled protests. "Since I know you can't obey that, get the hell out of my city."

As he let the force of the grapple gun line pull him upwards, he felt her eyes on his back.

Bruce slipped into Dick's bedroom an hour later to find the room dim and Dick asleep, one arm flung out from under the messy covers. The drip had been removed. Bruce sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Alfred?" Dick mumbled, eyes still shut.

Bruce's heart sank. Had Dick slipped back into delirium? "It's me, Dick," he answered, taking his son's hand in his and squeezing it gently. Dick's eyes flew open.

"Bruce!" he gasped. His other hand flailed and came up to cover Bruce's. "I—you—" His face darkened. "You did it again, didn't you? You pushed everyone away!"

Bruce turned on the bedside lamp, and both of them flinched at the sudden assault of yellow light. "Yes," he answered. "And no. Robin and Batgirl are on a temporary duty assignment. Oracle is off active duty for the foreseeable future, because the clock tower was destroyed. And Spoiler—Stephanie—is staying here."

"Here? In the Manor? But Stephanie doesn't know…"

"She does now."

Dick's mouth dropped open. "You're serious."

"She was tortured by Black Mask. She's here for her own safety. And there's something else you should know. The gang war we just fought… Spoiler was responsible for starting it. She somehow got hold of one of many war game contingencies I had drawn up, and executed the opening move without understanding that it was never meant to happen. And then…"

Bruce's throat closed up. He wanted to tell Dick what he had kept from Tim and Alfred, what he had eventually revealed to Selina, but something within him stopped him from uttering the words—as if there were a physical barrier that could not be removed, a stronghold that could not be breached, lest his world shatter into echoes and ashes. He put his face in his hands.

"Bruce?" Dick's voice wavered.

Damn it. Fathers were supposed to look out for their sons, not the other way around. It was a fact of life, just like doctors were supposed to care for their patients, and parents weren't supposed to bury their children. And Leslie had saved Dick's life more than once.

Bruce lifted his head and turned off the lamp.

This was a mistake. "I'm sorry I woke you." I'm glad you're on the mend. "Get some rest."

Once upon a time, Dick would have bristled at the obvious dismissal, and would have pestered Bruce to talk instead of bottling up his troubles. But the Dick Grayson who was with Bruce now only looked pale and tired in the dim bedroom.

Bruce stood up and went to the door.

"Bruce!"

Bruce paused with a hand on the doorknob. "Yes?"

Dick hesitated. His jaw moved, but if he spoke, the words were far too quiet for Bruce to hear. They held eye contact for a long moment, until Dick swallowed and averted his gaze.

"I—never mind. It's nothing. Good night, Bruce."

Much to Alfred's chagrin, Dick was insistent on getting out of bed for breakfast. He painstakingly hobbled downstairs on a pair of crutches while Bruce stood outside the kitchen and watched in silence.

"Hi," Dick muttered, subdued. He sat down and picked at the eggs Alfred had left for him, took a bite, then paused and looked up.

"Come on, Bruce. I can't eat with you watching me like that. At least sit down."

Bruce sighed and sat down opposite Dick, still not taking his eyes off his son. He had to say something, because he was certain he had seen the half dazed, half wild look in Dick's countenance before.

"Dick. I can't let you go back to Blüdhaven. You're emotionally compromised."

"I wasn't going to," Dick burst out, lowering his fork. "I mean, I can't just—I don't have—" He visibly forced himself to stop stammering. "I don't have anywhere to live. My apartment… it got blown up."

"I am aware," said Bruce. "I was referring to your night work."

"You think I can go out with this leg?"

"Don't short-change yourself. If you didn't have to get past Alfred, you'd be there already."

Judging by Dick's blush and weak smile, Bruce's light guess had hit home.

"Tim spoke to me about you while you were ill. He was worried."

"About what?" Dick's voice sounded like a squeak. "What did he say?"

"He told me…" That he thinks you're having problems. That you're not coping. Bruce struggled to find words that would not provoke heated defensiveness in Dick, and settled on the stark truth. "He told me that you suffered a panic attack as Nightwing."

"I'm fine." The words were too hasty.

Bruce's frown deepened. "What aren't you telling me, Dick?"

Dick blanched. "I just—I… I…"

"Stop," Bruce interrupted, holding up a hand. "Before you answer, I want you to take a breath and think very carefully about who you're talking to and what you're going to say."

Dick was silent for several long moments. When he did speak again, his tone was deliberately light.

"Rain check, Bruce?" he suggested, pushing back his chair and reaching for his crutches. "I'm still catching up on sleep, and I know how much you hate it when I tell you things out of order. Anyway, like I said… it's not like I can go anywhere fast." But he was already hobbling down the corridor at a pace which belied his words. The half-eaten eggs lay forgotten on the bench.

Bruce let him go.

That evening, when Bruce was sure that Dick and Stephanie were both sequestered away upstairs, he examined Tarantula's gun down in the Batcave. Unsurprisingly, it yielded no fingerprints, but it did match the calibre of the gun that killed Blockbuster. Coupled with his own audio recording of his encounter with Tarantula, it would not be enough for an arrest warrant, but it sufficed for the Batcave's records.

"Call Robin," Bruce commanded, breaking the silence.

"Calling Robin," came the computer's cool voice. A moment later, Tim's face appeared on the screen, with Cassandra beside him. Both were in uniform, but barefaced.

"Hey, Batman," said Tim. "What's up?"

"Robin, Batgirl. Report your mission progress."

"Okay." Robin took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "We asked around. Nightwing hasn't been seen in Blüdhaven since Blockbuster's death. He and Tarantula didn't report the murder or anything, just left town on his bike and headed north. I found a news report of a break-in at a bed-and-breakfast near Hartford. The descriptions from the security camera match Nightwing and Tarantula. They didn't take or damage anything valuable, just stayed a night and lit out before it got busy.

"From there, I knew what I was looking for and was able to follow their trail better. They had a run-in with Copperhead in a church in Lawrence, Massachusetts. And then, it seems like they eventually drove back south, because Alfred called Dick the same night the gang war broke out, and Dick was on the road with Tarantula then, but he was in Atlantic City by the time you called him back to Gotham."

"Hmm. Good work. Any more progress with the BPD?"

Tim shook his head. "We're taking it slow there, because they still want intel about Tarantula. But, based on the conversation we sent you, I think Rohrbach knows something else—or she thinks she does—and she's trying to cover up for Dick."

"She knows him," Cassandra interrupted.

Tim blinked. "Yeah, they worked together. I guess she knows him pretty well, or thinks she does."

"No. She knows that he is Nightwing."

Both Tim and Bruce stared at her. "You're certain?" Bruce asked.

Cassandra nodded. "She thinks Nightwing did something bad. Maybe killed Blockbuster." Tim twitched. "But Dick is her friend, so she's… conflicted."

"How long has she…?" Tim began.

"I'm not a mind reader."

"Probably not too long," Tim thought out loud. "But it does make sense. She fired him even though he had an excellent record. She must have found out somehow, and decided she couldn't knowingly support a vigilante police officer."

Bruce wanted to dismiss Tim's words as conjecture, but the theory was far too plausible. "All right," he said. "What's your assessment of the situation at this stage?"

Tim bit his lip and looked down. There was a long pause, during which Cassandra watched Tim intently, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth.

"It doesn't look good, Bruce," Tim said softly. "I'm not sure what to think. Well, we all know what the evidence suggests—but Cassie disagrees."

"Nightwing doesn't kill," said Cassandra.

"I know, but… you didn't see him that time he thought the Joker killed me. I don't believe he'd necessarily want to, but he's definitely capable of it."

"No," snapped Bruce. "You are comparing a rash decision with premeditated murder—the cause and circumstances of the death suggest that much. Nightwing knows how I feel about guns, and why. He wouldn't shoot a crime boss in cold blood and then immediately leave town. It's preposterous." Dick knows what it's like to take a life. He wouldn't do it again.

"Tarantula could have done it," Cassandra interjected.

"I don't doubt that, but if Nightwing is innocent, then why did he leave town without even reporting the murder?" countered Tim. "And with the murderer? Nothing adds up."

Bruce took a slow, deep breath. "I found Tarantula yesterday evening. She's in Gotham. She boasted that she killed Blockbuster—with some help from her partner. I confiscated her gun. The calibre matches what we know."

There was a shocked silence, then both teenagers burst into speech, just as Bruce's Justice League signal device buzzed and lit up, signalling an urgent message.

Bruce held up his hand for quiet.

"Hold on. I have to take this."

As he read the message in silent disbelief and with a grim sense of foreboding, his com-link beeped with an incoming call. From the Batcomputer, Tim and Cassandra were still watching him in trepidation.

Bruce answered his com-link, mentally calculating how long it would take to get to Opal City as he said, "Oracle."

"Bruce." Barbara's voice was shaky. "You need to—"

"I know. I'm heading to the crime scene." Morbid though it was, the Justice League had contingency plans for situations like this.

"Crime scene?" Tim yelped from the computer.

Barbara was talking again. "Yes, but you need to—is that Tim?"

Bruce swiftly muted the computer. "Yes," he answered Barbara.

"Okay. You need to tell him what happened and get him back in Gotham. For his own sake, if not for his dad's. You're the one who sent them in there. Tim deserves to hear it from you."

"Noted. Batman out." Bruce unmuted Tim and Cassandra, and the computer's speakers exploded into sound.

"Bruce? What's happening!?" Tim demanded.

"Something bad?" guessed Cassandra.

Batman didn't involve Robin in Justice League affairs if he could help it. It was a practice that dated back to the days when Dick had been a fiercely stubborn teenager who insisted that the Teen Titans be allowed to operate independently of any hovering adults. He and Bruce had struck a deal that transformed into a ten-year habit, only broken on rare occasions. The Justice League was Batman's, and the Teen Titans were Robin's, but Batman and Robin was theirs.

At least, it had been.

Bruce waited for silence, then broke the sombre news in the quiet of the cave. His initial shock had given way to a cool, methodical resolve. This was no time to mourn.

"Oracle is back for emergency support. Sue Dibny—the Elongated Man's wife—has just been found dead in her apartment in Opal City. I'm going there immediately, to assess the crime scene. Robin—"

"I need to see my dad," interjected Tim, his face pale. "But—the mission—"

"I know," said Bruce. "I'll pick you both up in a few hours and fly you back to Gotham. Your mission—and your time in Blüdhaven—has been terminated."

Bruce flew the Batplane to Opal City, and his personal life faded to the back of his mind as he performed a meticulous investigation of the crime scene. But the lack of evidence was perplexing. No sign of a forced entry. All the alarms were still on. Not even a carpet fibre was out of place. He took what he could, left a note for Green Arrow, relayed his findings to Oracle and headed for Blüdhaven, where Robin and Batgirl were waiting for him.

As soon as the plane doors closed, Tim swallowed and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He peeled off his domino mask and was fast asleep within a few minutes. Now exposed, the shadows under his eyes were darker than ever. Bruce's brow creased.

"It's good for him," said Cassandra. "To sleep. He needs more."

"He hasn't been sleeping?"

"He only takes naps sometimes. I think he's too—" She grimaced as she tried to find the right word. "Stressed. Nerved?"

"Nervous."

"Yes. That."

The Batplane's communicator beeped with an incoming connection, but Tim slept on as Bruce said, "Yes, Alfred?"

"Mr Drake just telephoned, sir. I would advise you to return with Master Tim post-haste."

A/N: I've received permission to move my posting due date, to give me more time to finish editing the final chapters, and my artist more time to finish the artwork. Because of this, and also because the second half of this story is more fast-paced, there will be no more double posting days, and I will take two days off from posting—one on either side of the interlude chapter in the middle of the story—to give readers a little time to catch up and digest.

Stats on FanFiction are currently broken, so I have no way of knowing how many people are reading on this website (it says Family Crisis has 0 views, even though there are multiple follows and favourites). So, if you're reading this, please leave a review! (I know I'm posting pretty fast, so I'll be patient.)

Sources:

The first two scenes borrow heavily from Nightwing (1996) #99.

One of Tarantula's lines is from Nightwing (1996) #96 (Batman: War Games), though the original was ostensibly in Spanish.

Alfred called Dick in Batman: The 12-Cent Adventure #1 (Batman: War Games), and details about Nightwing and Tarantula's road trip are from Nightwing (1996) #94-95. I did make up the location of the bed-and-breakfast, but since Hartford is on the way to Lawrence from Atlantic City, it seems plausible enough to me.

The incident where Dick "killed" the Joker happened in Joker: Last Laugh #6.

Sue Dibny's death is from a crossover miniseries called Identity Crisis.