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chief-of-restless-hearts · 4 years

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Chapter 3: Oaths

. . .

Only in the sensible blackness did he remember that he couldn’t have run. It would have killed them. Slade might not even have chased him if he escaped the base. He might have let him run, and then let him return to the Tower to find four dead friends.

Dick drifted in and out of consciousness, losing count of the slow, bleary hours.

Time crawled without any way of measuring it, but the next time he stirred awake his stomach was pinched and complaining. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, his mouth was sandpaper dry, and his head felt stuffed full of throbbing wads of cotton.

He needed to get into the bathroom, for the water, to smear the cold wetness over his face until the crusting blood washed away, to gulp it down until it cleared his throat and his head.

But he felt so heavy, and he didn’t need to do that just yet.

He could wait...

and let his eyelids fall closed...just one more time...

. . .

The next time his dry eyes drifted open, he forced himself to move. It wasn’t quite as painful as the night before, but as he pushed up onto all fours he had to stop and wait for a cold shadow of dizziness to pass before rising the rest of the way and making his way haltingly over to the door that he knew would be locked. He checked it anyway.

He pressed his forehead against what was definitely a locked door and waited for the room to stop turning before making his way to the little bathroom.

Everything seemed gray through the mask lenses’ artificial light, and the mirror seemed almost black--save for the glowing white eyes that stared back at him. That at least was a relief. He pulled his gloves off with clumsy fingers, twisted the faucet, and plunged his face under the icy stream, gulping it down until his stomach threatened to send it all up again. Only then did he scrub away the flakes of blood caked along his left jaw and cheek, and pry his mask away from his face just far enough to splash water against his still hot, dry eyes. Knowing Deathstroke, he could be watching even now, even in the dark.

He braced his forearms against the porcelain sink, the water only just beginning to cut the weight of exhaustion away.

It was sinking in that for the first time since this ‘apprenticeship’ began, he didn’t have his hours dictated to him. With that door locked, he didn’t have to go out, listen to Slade, obey Slade, and pretend to not care. In theory, he could now do whatever he wanted.

In theory.

His room was bare, without even an assignment to distract from the dim silence. But at least it was better than having to look Slade in the eye after...that.

He took another chest-stabbing breath, willing himself to relax, and it was in that silence that his memory conjured up Slade’s voice as clearly as if it had been spoken into his ear.

“It’s as rigged over as you are.”

With ragged, painful motions he stripped off the top of his uniform and flung it onto the floor before starting on the pants. When he wore only his undershirt and shorts he sank down against the edge of the shower base. The underground labyrinth was as chilly as ever, and he rubbed his fingers briskly over his bare arms. He could tolerate the cold if it meant Slade didn’t get to read his system like a book.

But there was a blanket on the cot. He made his way across the room and settled under the blanket in the position that hurt his ribs the least.

It really was quiet, wasn’t it? He could hear his own breathing and the low steady thud in his chest, but beyond that the room was as soundless as a sealed tomb. Though he knew better than to think that Slade would keep him in there long enough for it to become a literal one, Dick began psychologically steeling himself for what could be a hungry few days. If necessary he could slow his breathing and heartbeat to essentially hibernate through the empty hours, but until then, all he really wanted to do was sleep.

. . .

He managed to ruffle Jason’s mop of coarse black curls before the kid ducked away with a growl of protest. Laughing, Dick dropped down beside Jason on the edge of the tower roof. The kid scooted away to put a full three feet between them.

Despite the mere two years between them in age, Jason stood a full head below Dick in stature. The teasing over that had stopped after Bruce explained that it was due to childhood malnutrition.

Jay scowled down at the trees surrounding Titans’ tower, but his lips were twitching treacherously.

With a renewed grin, Dick leaned forward just enough to catch his eye. “You know, we could do this more often if you’d just come over to the Tower. It was fun today, wasn’t it? Being part of the team?”

Jason’s masked gaze shifted away from him. “He doesn’t let me go out alone.”

Dick’s grin slipped. “Oh.”

He watched Jason fiddle idly with the corner of his cape; it was the same butter yellow that his had been before his work with the Titans had driven him to make a few alterations to his Robin costume. It still felt strange seeing his colors on someone else, even if he had grown past the discomfort.

Jason was a good kid. It had hardly been his fault when Bruce suddenly decided that his first Robin wasn’t doing the job well enough anymore.

“...But he might if you were in Gotham,” Jason continued suddenly. “If you came I could show you some cool tunnels I found by the docks. He never lets me explore with him, but together we could...” his gaze slanted toward Dick again, and he shrugged, “y’know, have fun.”

Dick could hear the barely reined eagerness in his voice.

He should have agreed. He should have gone home. But just the thought of facing Bruce again was enough to shut that option away altogether.

He kicked back against the Tower wall. “I dunno. It’s just that the HIVE called a hit on the team recently, so we’ve got this mercenary to deal with. I’m still working on a plan to draw him out, and...I think I must have mentioned some of that earlier.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“Well, I promise to stop by as soon as I can, li’l wing.”

He reached to ruffle Jay’s hair again, but the boy slapped his hand away and pushed to his feet.

“You know, Bruce said that we’d be brothers,” Jason bit out. “That’s a real joke. It’s been two years and I barely even know you.”

Something gripped Dick’s throat. “Jay--”

"I should get going,” Jason interrupted, not even looking at him. “Bruce and I are planning on going to a Knights’ game tonight. Unless he’s busy too.”

Jason leapt off the roof, arms spread like a bird as he fell. Dick jolted to his feet, to call after him, to catch him--but below the tower was nothing but a black void, he couldn't see Jason anymore, and all of a sudden, he knew that he wasn’t on the tower.

He never had been.

Dick’s phone was ringing. But he didn’t have his phone, not anymore. Still, he took it out of his pocket.

The caller ID said Jason Todd.

He tried to answer. He couldn’t.

The ringing finished, transitioning to the answering message.

“So...hey. It’s been a while, so this is me, calling that number you gave me. You must be busy or something, but I wanted to ask if maybe, when you have time later, we could hang out...or something. So, uh...see ya, I guess.”

*Beep*

The phone was ringing again. Agitatedly, he tried again to answer, futilely jamming his finger into the button repeatedly until the next answering message began.

“Hey. Last time didn’t work out, I get it, but Bruce and I are going to go up to the cabin in Vermont next week, and he said that I should ask if you’re interested in coming with. If you’re still busy with the Titans...that’s cool. No biggie. Bye.”

*Beep*

Dick’s throat tightened with guilt and foreboding. He nearly screamed in frustration as the ringing resumed, until the message brought Jason’s voice again, this time quieter, more tense. Dick stopped breathing.

“Dick. I...need to ask you something. Do this for me and I swear I’ll never ask for anything again, but there’s something that I need to do. I can do it alone, but I was wondering if...maybe --Oh hell, nevermind.”

*Beep*

Dick’s heart was hammering in his ears.

Oh God. Not this. Not again. No.

The ringing came and passed again, uninterrupted.

“I called, Dick. Before Joker, before I even left the manor. And I’ll bet that Bruce still doesn’t know.”

This time, the voice came from a shadow he could just make out through the inky black, caped in butter yellow with gleaming white accusing eyes.

The ringing began again and this time--finally--when Dick’s desperate finger slammed on the button, it stopped. He pulled the phone to his ear.

“Jason?” he asked, breathlessly.

Shrill, manic laughter screamed into his ear, almost but not quite drowning out the gut-lurching crunch of metal slamming into flesh and bone.

He yanked the phone away from his ear, hand slapped over his mouth and fighting back the bile that was pushing up his throat.

Jason’s voice from the shadows, again.

“‘Brothers’. What a joke.”

. . .

He jolted awake with Jason’s name in his raw throat. He was on his side facing the wall, a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and gradually his true location sank in. He pressed his hands over his eyes and waited for the lingering sensations of the dream to pass. The adrenaline. The tremors.

His sandpaper tongue and twinging abdomen were the only indicators for how long he had slept. It had been too long. He made himself return to the sink for water. Once satisfied, he turned on the shower.

He jumped back at the sharp hiss of the water, only to flush with embarrassment. He sincerely hoped that Slade hadn’t seen that.

The water, though tepid as always, still helped soothe the bruising patched across his torso, back, and jaw. The water cut off abruptly after five minutes, and sullenly Dick stepped out and scrubbed the damp out of his hair with the towel on the rack.

Unable and unwilling to sleep any longer, he dressed and put himself through a series of bends and stretches to gauge how far he could push through the pain.

Far enough, he decided once sweat was pouring from his temples after what should have been a basic warm-up. He would be easy pickings next time Slade decided to teach him a lesson, and that thought brought a prickling of the old anger back. He was sick of being treated like a student, a toy, and a prisoner in turns. It was like the man couldn’t make up his mind.

He sat stiffly against the cot with the silence still ringing in his ears, and waited. Perhaps he should have been using the time to ruminate over a new plan, but for now his mind was a blank.

He waited, and dozed, and tried not to dream.

. . .

A clack jolted him back to consciousness and the door swung open to pour blinding white light into his eyes.

He flung his arm across his eyes, hastily deactivating the night-vision lenses, and peered through the fading pain to see a familiar silhouette standing out stark against the doorway. He stood stiffly before Slade had a chance to tell him to and forced himself to glare into the cutting brightness.

“Get dressed,” said Slade. “I’ll be waiting in the training room.”

“I’m not fighting you like this!” Dick shouted before Slade could leave, hating how his voice cracked at the end. “You’ve already made your point.”

Slade paused, half-turned in the doorway. Dick glimpsed the man’s profile; he was unmasked.

“Who said anything about fighting?” Slade asked dryly. “I’m not going to repeat myself, Renegade. Do as you’re told.”

Slade left the door ajar, and Dick stared after him for a few seething moments before snatching his (still torn) uniform off the bathroom floor. When he stepped into the hallway, the floor seemed to sway under him. He braced against the wall just in time. He hadn’t felt this weak for a long, long time.

He made his way down the seemingly endless hall and entered the gym, half expecting to see Slade waiting on the mat, no matter what he had said. But he wasn’t. He was standing on the right side of the room beside one of the work tables, with something in his hands.

Deathstroke’s sword. Dick recognized it by the elaborate brass hilt as the one Slade always wore strapped across his back. Fending off a twinge of foreboding, Dick approached.

Slade lifted the naked sword so that it rested across his open palms and then extended it toward Dick, who glanced uncertainly between Slade and the weapon.

“Place your right hand over the blade,” Slade instructed, and waited for Dick to comply. “Now,” he continued smoothly, “I’m going to straighten a few things out for you: You are my apprentice now, not Batman’s. You take orders from me alone. You are no longer a Titan, neither are you a sidekick dressed like a parrot, and you will only continue to make life more difficult for the both of us until you learn to accept that and afford me a little trust.”

Dick’s glare hardened. “You don’t honestly expect me to--”

“Trust will come in its own time, but until then, I want you to learn the weight of your word, once given.”

Suddenly knowing exactly what Slade wanted him to do, Dick tried to pull his hand away from the sword. Slade’s hand clamped over his, pinning it in place. Dick pinched his lips together and tried to think.

“What ‘word’?” he snapped.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

. . .

“This is the oath you took?”

Bruce paused, froze, for just an instant. “We’ll share this vow,” he said at last, and if that wasn’t exactly an answer Dick was far beyond caring. “If there is anything about it you would like to change--”

“No.” His fingers trembled over the paper with reverence and anticipation. “It’s perfect,” he whispered.

. . .

With frustration Dick waited for yet another wave of dizziness to pass.

“So,” Slade prompted. “Do I have your word?”

Dick met his gaze with as much defiance as he could muster. “Those words won’t mean anything. Only one thing is keeping me here, and it isn’t words.”

. . .

Batman stood over his bed, holding a single candle.

Dick’s clock read three minutes to midnight. He didn’t even think to change out of his pajamas before bounding after Bruce through the hall, down the stone stairwell, and into the cave that was dimmer than he’d ever seen it. All the way down, the oath worked silently over his lips and then, over a fraying Bible and the light of that single, gleaming candle, he raised his right hand and looked into Batman’s piercing white eyes.

“I’m ready.”

. . .

“Maybe you don’t understand the importance of a vow yet, but one day you will,” Slade said. “Now, say it. What is your name?” When Dick stiffened, Slade wryly clarified, “Your title.”

A moment passed, and Dick knew by the shift in Slade’s expression that something in his eyes must have betrayed his answer.

“Robin,” he answered, and the conviction in his voice was the first solid thing he’d felt in days.

Slade’s hand whipped across his face.

“I’d rethink that answer if I were you,” Slade hissed. The clamping grip over Dick’s hand returned, this time squeezing until the bones of his hand ground together, dangerously close to snapping. Dick held his cry behind his clenched teeth, refusing to break eye contact. “...Or do you need some more time alone to think it over?”

“My name,” Dick repeated, voice level but dangerously tight, “is Robin.”

Without another word the sword ripped out from under his hand, slicing across his palm.

This time Dick didn’t resist as Slade grabbed his upper arm, hauled him down the hall, and flung him like a ragdoll onto the floor of his room. His conviction barely wavered, even as the door slammed shut and locked behind him with a finality that stirred up dread in his gut.

He took one deep breath, let it out, and took another. He activated his night vision and set about cleaning and wrapping his hand with the med kit under his cot. He could handle this, and it was worth it. While in this room, he couldn’t be Slade’s tool. He couldn’t hurt his friends. He couldn’t steal, or kill, or break any of the vows he had made to Bruce and to himself.

In here, he was buying precious time, time that the Titans or the League or Bruce could use to sort out this mess before it got any worse.

He could handle this.

. . .

He couldn’t sleep.

He waited, even used the slowed breathing techniques he’d been taught to use in extreme emergency to bring him close to a coma, but the closest he came to sleep was dreams that he flickered in and out of so quickly and so frequently that it was difficult to discern between them.

“Enough, Jason,” he whispered under his breath. The physical sound touched his ears, pulling him just an inch closer to reality. “I know that I messed up. I should have been your brother, and I should have protected you. I KNOW.”

He flinched as his own shout rang shrilly through his skull--and through his ribs, and then he was coughing, uncontrollably even though the pain spiked through him like claws through his chest, the suffocating fluid wasn’t in his throat it was deep inside his chest and no matter how hard he coughed he couldn’t get it out, he couldn’t breathe...

He didn’t know how much time passed before he was laying limp on his side, sucking in shuddering, painful, but hungry breaths. Slowly, his heartbeat stopped thundering against his ribs.

He should never have left either of them, not the way he had, and the guilt of it clung to the inside of his chest, just as suffocating. But...Bruce had been...different, after Jason came. Suddenly nothing his first Robin did had been good enough for him, Bruce had changed and he still didn’t know why, whether it was Gotham or...or him...

Moving into Titans Tower had been his choice, his hot blooded retaliation against Bruce’s passive-aggressive maneuvering, but he had wanted Bruce to make him come back home. Or ask. Anything but the disconnect that happened instead. In the end it had been Alfred who came to see him, bringing only a question of why.

Slade wasn’t as wrong as Dick wanted him to be, but Dick hadn’t been the only one abandoned. Because where had Dick been when Bruce needed him, when Jason needed him. And now Jason was six feet under and somehow Dick was buried even deeper, leaving Bruce alone, more alone than he’d been since Dick first met him.

When it ultimately came down to the question of blame, each time he torturously cycled through it the answer was always, always, anyone but Jason.

. . .

How many hours had it been, now? Twenty-four hours? Fifty?

Had Halloween passed yet?

Gar had been looking forward to trick-or-treating, wasting hours trying to convince Vic and Raven to come with him. Gar had never had the opportunity to go before, and his enthusiasm had blinded him to the realization that Vic would never agree to treat his cybernetic parts like a costume and that Raven would rather drop dead than put on the Batgirl costume he had bought her in a futile attempt at bribery. It probably hadn’t helped that Gar had been planning to go as himself.

Gar had even bought a Batman costume for Dick...who had been too busy to even consider wearing it.

At the time, he had been utterly preoccupied with his work--that had largely circulated around Red X. His futile plan to draw Slade’s attention by assuming the identity of a skilled thief. Stupidly, Dick had been following the logic that Deathstroke might seek out a replacement for his former partner, Ravager, the boy Deathstroke had cried over as he died at their feet.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Not only had Deathstroke been humoring him the entire time, when the Titans ultimately learned the truth they hadn’t understood at all.

He had made a mistake, he knew that now. But back then, all that wasted time had seemed the most important thing in the world.

Dick remembered Gar’s crestfallen reaction to his apologetic rejection, and winced.

Kory had of course embraced Gar’s plans with her usual wholehearted zeal. When Gar had given her the Wonder Woman costume he had picked out for her she had embraced the much shorter boy in a bone-crushing hug and proceeded to join him in pestering their teammates.

Dick had found it much harder to say no to her cajoling, faced with wide, hopeful green eyes that glimmered with unspoken concern...but he had done it anyway. It was already difficult enough to focus on the mission without her smiles turning him into a distracted, blushing mess.

Though a selfish part of him wanted his team’s first priority to be getting to the bottom of this charade...he did hope that Gar and Kory had still gone trick-or-treating.

Right now he wanted nothing more than to get back home to the Tower and apologize to all of them for being such an ass for at least the past month...but first he would need to get out.

He would get out. Of course he would get out.

Any time now would be good, he thought earnestly, with just a hint of panic as once again the walls pressed down on him from all sides, as though by sheer force of will he might get Raven to hear him.

A voice whispered back, but it wasn’t Raven’s.

“No one ever comes, Dick. No one.”

Dick pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and pressed his forearms against his ears. “Please, shut up,” he whispered. “Please.”

. . .

The crack of an opening door and the immediate onslaught of piercing brightness flooded his senses again before Slade’s hulking silhouette cut between him and the light.

Slade grabbed and hauled him upright and then out the door without speaking a word. Dick tripped over his own feet more than once, a blinding bout of dizziness nearly dropping him, but Slade’s iron hold on his arm kept pulling him along. His feet were a little more steady under him by the time they finally reached the gym.

He smelled the food on the worktable before he saw it, and the aroma curdled a confused mixture of nausea and desperation in his smarting stomach. He glimpsed sweet potatoes and stewed oats before forcing himself to look away.

Slade, masked this time, halted exactly where they had stood before. He reached over his shoulder, drew his sword from its sheath, and then slapped Dick’s bandaged hand down on the blade. Slade stared down at him until Dick forced his dry eyes upward.

He was so tired. He saw a chair behind Slade at the table, and wanted nothing more than to slump down into it, already drained by the brief walk from his room.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Slade said coldly. “What is your name?”

Dick said nothing, his teeth clamped tightly shut. He wanted this over with. He wanted Slade to send him back into the dark. He also wanted to eat, and he wanted to spit into Slade’s one good eye. But mostly he was tired. He knew what his answer was, but this time he was too weary to say it.

“Do not make me wonder if I’m wasting my time on you,” Slade said in a frigid near-whisper. “Or did I not make it clear that your friends will only live as long as I have a use for you?”

Dick’s heart stuttered in his chest. For the first time he looked into Slade’s face, saw the man’s brow furrowed under the cloth mask, and fresh, almost-forgotten fear curled around his gut.

“I’ll do it,” he mumbled, gaze drifting down to his hand on the sword.

They were just words. It didn’t matter. Not really.

“Look me in the eye when you’re speaking to me.” Slowly, wearily, Dick obeyed the order. “Your name?” Slade prompted him.

He forced the name out. It felt like ripping something out of his chest, something he could never put back. I’m sorry, Jay. I’m sorry the title had to die with me.

“Renegade.”

“And what do you swear to do,” Slade asked, “on the lives of your friends?”

He could have sworn he could still smell the burning wick, feel the leather binding fraying under his fingers, still hear Bruce’s baritone voice overlaying his own as they spoke the oath together, ‘I swear to fight against crime and corruption, and never to swerve from the path of righteousness--’

“I swear to,” he swallowed, “serve as your apprentice.”

“And?”

“To follow your orders.” Words. Just words, he told himself, even as frustrated tears pricked at his eyes. “But--”

“No,” Slade barked. “No conditions. That isn’t how this deal of ours works.” Slade pulled the sword back and slid it back into its sheath. “We’re done,” he said shortly, and waved a hand toward the tray of food that Dick had given up on looking away from. “When you finish that there’s medication in the kitchen.”

Dick watched Slade walking away, fully confident that he had won, and what was left of Dick’s anger reached its boiling point.

“What about you?” he burst out. Slade stopped, and turned slowly. “If this is a deal, then what’s your oath?”

Slade surveyed him for a long moment before he spoke. “You have what I’ve already promised you, that I’ll teach and train you to the best of my ability...and that your life from now on will only be as difficult as you make it. You have my word on that. And I do keep my word, Renegade.”

He turned, then stopped as though something had occurred to him. “Oh, and I fixed you a new uniform top. You’ll be wearing it tomorrow night.” Slade grabbed something from the table beside him and tossed the black and orange bundle of kevlar beside the food tray before starting for the hall. “I’ll be going out tonight,” he called back. “If I were you, I’d use the time to ensure I was in shape for my first encounter with the HIVE.”

As soon as the doors closed behind Slade, Dick dropped like a stone into the chair by the table. His stomach was doing uncomfortable things at the sight of the food, and it was all he could do to make sure that he ate slowly enough to keep the food from forcing its way up again.

Finally he finished and leaned back in the chair. Slade had left an ice pack beside the tray; Dick carefully pressed it against his ribcage, and was musing over what medication he should take before proceeding with some semblance of a workout when Slade’s final words finally sank in.

The HIVE? They were going to ‘encounter’ the HIVE?

The one mystery that had haunted him beyond that of Deathstroke’s identity had been the HIVE’s location and intentions. The Titans had known that Ravager had been hired by the mysterious organization, but beyond that Dick hadn’t had a clue of where to start an investigation. That had left the team completely vulnerable to whatever attack might come next, and it had been driving him mad.

But then Deathstroke had proven himself a more immediate threat, and the organization had lost its priority.

What was Slade planning now? He had as good as said that first night that he planned to hold the HIVE accountable for what had happened to his son, and that he intended for Dick to help him do it. Well, that was one thing Dick would not object to.

Dick’s gaze drifted toward the new uniform lying on the table, forgotten until now. A little curious, he reached to pick it up

--only to drop it like a burning coal.

A familiar emblem, a golden ‘R’ that he hadn't expected to see again, was attached to the kevlar over his heart.

R, for Renegade.

+ - + - + - +

A flurry of thin screeching and leathery wings heralded his return. Long, weary steps, hindered by the tattered cape tangling around his ankles, carried Batman from the landing bay toward the main computers and past the enshrined uniform.

His fingers skimmed a feather touch across the glass casing in answer to the youthful greeting whose deafening absence hollowed the cave out into a tomb, as it should. He settled heavily into the computer chair, and exhaled as much of the weight as would pass out of his lungs, while the gravity still dragged him down.

Familiar clipped footsteps approached his seat from behind, and then paused. “Welcome home, Master Bruce. I trust that you return uninjured?”

Bruce didn’t push back his cowl, didn’t turn. In keeping with their nightly routine, he activated the computer before Alfred would inquire further.

“Sir,” Alfred began again, hesitantly, “during your absence Lucius Fox made multiple attempts to contact you. I...must insist that you listen to what he had to say.”

“I’ll look into it,” Batman said, and his voice came out like gravel. He swallowed, and then out of basic duty, and debt, he forced out the rest. “...Thank you.”

Alfred opened his mouth briefly before resigning himself to pensively pinching his lips together.

Batman pretended not to notice.

Alfred’s concern was ironic, to say the least. If patrols had been ending with more injuries than usual, even Alfred must understand how little that mattered now. With that shrine erected in memory of a child’s life cut short while the father’s inexplicably lingered on, it was impossible to believe otherwise--or to be selfish enough to wish that the still-living child might return to the city that would only eat him alive too.

He prepared to review Gotham’s recent activity. It was inevitable that an excursion with the League, no matter how rare or how urgent, had resulted in him being cut off from his city. He had told the League to contact him for nothing less than an emergency of intergalactic proportions--and they had then proceeded to summon him for exactly that.

Grimly, he braced for the inevitable. The unanswered signals, the damage, the deaths...

An alert flashing across his screen interrupted his search, and in an instant he was viewing surveillance footage of a recent theft from Wayne Tower.

At his shoulder, Alfred sighed. “Perhaps the messages shall be unnecessary,” he said, a note of tension coloring his tone.

Batman didn’t have time to wonder why before the screen came to life. A figure in orange and black emerged from a hatch and darted across the rooftop--with the Teen Titans hot on his heels. At one end of the roof the figure halted, hand pressed to his ear, as if listening to an earpiece.

Bruce’s finger slammed down on the keyboard to freeze the screen. He zoomed in. The intruder was clearly a teenager, whose long dark bangs nearly obscured the domino mask that left his identity unmistakable.

Bruce lurched to his feet, shoving back his cowl, eyes glued to the screen as he searched desperately for a contradiction to what he already knew to be true.

But the recording played on, and Bruce watched as Dick took on his own team single-handedly, his attacks clearly restrained, yet marked with the ferocity of a battle he could not afford to lose. By the time the clip ended the Wayne sign’s lettering was scattered in smoking shambles across the roof, and Dick had vanished with the dissipating smoke, leaving Bruce with a hauntingly familiar hollow forming in his chest.

“Is the lad alright, sir?” Alfred asked softly.

Was he? Bruce should know, he should have watched his surviving son more closely because he recognized those colors, that pattern--

and, already, it was happening again.

#jason is here!#sort of #bad company #dick grayson #jason todd #slade wilson #bruce wayne #batfam #batman #teen titans #deathstroke #the apprentice #bat family #alfred #my writing #bad company ch 3

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