Work Text:
“How are they?”
Clark stumbled after him, fidgeting with his fingers and worrying his lip between his teeth.
“Not great. Nobody’s dangerously hurt, Bruce, but Scarecrow upped his dosage while we were away, and--”
“Who else knows?”
“Wally and Roy. Starfire, almost definitely. I don’t know about Kon or Kara.”
“If they don’t know, keep it that way. The less people who know Gotham is defenseless, the better. Tell Koriand’r I have things under control.”
“She could help--”
“You know how I feel about metas in my city, Clark. And I know I’m already too late to stop Wally.”
Bruce shouldered past the concerned gaggle of his teammates standing by the zeta tubes and turned back to Clark as the mechanisms started up, already running through a mental checklist of what needed to be done.
“Strong work today,” he told the huddle in English, then, again to Clark in Kryptonian: “Tell them one of the boys wrecked the Batmobile again. Keep them from worrying.”
“Bruce--” he began. But the light had already swallowed him whole.
Alfred was waiting as soon as he stepped out again, worry creased into his eyes and sleeves pushed up his arms in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. Jason had once said you could tell how bad a situation was by how much skin Alfred wore on display. The last time Bruce had seen his shirt’s first two buttons undone was when they’d very nearly lost Cassandra to a bellyful of shrapnel, during the sixteen hours in surgery. Two buttons were open now. The old man’s tawny wings were folded close to his back, rumpled like they’d had hands tangled into them.
“Status report.”
“Masters Dick, Jason, Damian, and Cassandra are accounted for. Master Wallace is currently upstairs, helping Richard through one of his… episodes. The others are downstairs in the lounge. The strain is a new one-- an antidote is still synthesizing.”
“Jason’s here?” That, at least, was a weight off his mind. If Jason were in the Manor, he was less likely to do something dangerous. Fear toxin tended to make the boy unpredictable at best, and near feral at his worst. Left unsupervised, the Pit tended to take him, and the last time Jason had been dosed on his own, it had taken the family eleven days to find him, wild-eyed and empty in an abandoned shack near the pier. He’d left fourteen cooling bodies in that time.
“Master Roy brought him, sir. He’s with the others, as well, and is unharmed.” Alfred cleared his throat, as if the words stuck to them. “It seems Master Jason gave him his helmet when the gas went out.”
Bruce closed his eyes, the image of Sheila Haywood’s gasping breaths in his mind. He tried to protect me. That boy is a hero. Some things, at least, remained the same.
“The others?”
“Master Barbara is secure in the Clocktower. She is monitoring the situation for now, but the other children…”
“Alfred.”
“They remain unaccounted for, sir. Their vitals are steady, but they indicate they’ve been dosed.”
“Understood. Send an alert to Batwoman and Catwoman, tell them they’re needed here. Do what you can for Cassandra and the boys while Oracle and I locate the others. Have the medical bay prepped, just in case. Call Roy down here.”
“I’m afraid he won’t be easily moved, sir.”
Bruce frowned. He didn’t have time for Roy’s stubbornness, not now.
“Then tell him I’m coming up.”
Alfred murmured something into his earpiece as Bruce leaned over the Batcomputer, scattering fingers over the keys as he opened a link to Oracle and checked on the antidote’s progress. Barbara didn’t try to speak to him, for which he was grateful. He didn’t have the time nor headspace for chatter, and she knew him well enough to understand the fact, instead feeding him information in neat lines of text and coordinates.
Spoiler was circulating the Diamond District, moving in erratic zigzags as Oracle pinged her on the map, red spots of triangulation that never stayed still as Stephanie bounced from building to building in pursuit or in fear of some invisible enemy. Signal was hovering in the upper half of the Narrows, having fled there from the south side of the city when the gas hit, a long line of interconnected dots charting his path as he sought the security of familiar territory. Like Spoiler, he bounced about a radius of buildings, but lingered in each location for two pings or longer where Stephanie hardly stopped moving at all. Bruce recognized it as one of the techniques he’d taught the children for hiding, going between secure locations without spending too much time in any one place, and he made a note to praise Duke for his mindfulness once this was over.
Red Robin was static, unmoving in a single location in the Warehouse District, and the sight had Bruce’s chest tightening more than he’d care to admit, habitually checking over Tim’s vitals to double check he was conscious and breathing. He was just… standing there, tiny changes in his position marked only by increments of his coordinates, too small to be footsteps, but more likely, him turning around, idly shifting, or swaying on his feet. Bruce’s first thought was that he’d been surrounded, but his position had remained static almost since the gas had dropped, with no changes to his readouts whatsoever, meaning that if he was surrounded, he’d yet to be attacked.
Bruce catalogued the data in his mind and swept up the stairs, running his hands over his belt and pockets in a brief inventory of what he needed to restock before heading back out into the city. He’d hardly made it past the grandfather clock before he could hear Dick despite the soundproofing in the old walls, muffled half-laughter half-screams that soaked through the wood and made his skin crawl. He’s survived them before, he thought. Wally’s worked him through them before. He’ll be fine.
The lounge was another beast entirely. The great oak doors between it and the hall were pulled shut, and Bruce hadn’t a chance to do more than begin to yank them open before he heard a strangled cry-- Jason, Jason, the same sound he made when he was scared as boy, God, Jason-- and Roy stood in the doorway, tawny-red wings filling the space and blocking him from the room, a garish orange gun (automatic, large magazine, custom built, designed for ambidextrous use with extra recoil support) clutched white-knuckled but steady in his hands and pointed right at the center of Bruce’s chest.
“You try to say anything to him, I’ll blow a three-inch hole in your sternum.”
“I’m here for you--”
“Fuck you, I’m not leaving. Not a goddamn chance.”
“Good,” Bruce said, and Roy looked momentarily taken aback, blinking up at him like he’d grown a third head. He didn’t waver, though, not in his stance, his aggressive display, nor his grip on the rifle, and Bruce was reminded not for the first time that Roy was just as formidable as one of his own children. “I’m going out to collect the others. You, Wally, and Alfred are the Manor’s most competent line of defense until I come back. Let me see them.”
“No.”
Bruce snapped open his own wings, ignoring the way Roy’s jaw dropped and he took an instinctive step back, not even trying to make himself look any bigger than he was as his wings hit the floor. He fought back his senses a moment later, throwing them back up in a defensive wall that once again blocked the room from view. A moment was all Bruce needed, however; it was long enough to see Cassandra’s sleek black feathers and Jason’s russet ones folded over each other, packed into a nest of blankets and curled up protectively around one another, and more importantly, around Damian’s tiny form squished beneath them, eyes wide and adrenaline-blown as he peered out at Bruce from between them. All of them safe. Breathing. Alive.
He looked back to Roy, who had his gun back up and pointed, this time square at his head, before Bruce turned and grabbed a fistful of his own black feathers, sweaty and grimy, but scent-heavy, and tore them out with a grimace. Roy flinched sympathetically, but didn’t budge.
“Put these in the nest. Make sure Wally gets some to Dick, too. If Dick didn’t already leave them, give a few of his feathers to Damian. It’ll calm him down.”
Roy glanced down at the feathers, then back to Bruce, lowering his gun by a fraction and nodding. Bruce swallowed the lump of guilt and pride in his throat before he spoke.
“Take care of Jason. Please.”
“Don’t pretend to care,” Roy spat, and Bruce tasted bile, because he deserved it.
“I’m not.”
He turned, folding his wings away again, and heard Roy mutter something into his own comm, feeling the burst of static along his arms as Wally flickered down the stairs a moment later, not even sparing him a glance. He passed Alfred as he readjusted the cowl on his head, and politely averted his ears from the quiet exchange of words between him and Roy as the doors pulled shut again and he returned to the Cave, setting out to find his children and bring them home.
“Oracle, give me an update on vitals and location,” he ordered, flooring the Batmobile through the deserted Gotham streets, thick with gas and filled with the sounds of screaming as citizens fled the unseen. There’d be time to help them later, but with no antidote, he was worthless to do anything more than cause more fear.
“All three are steady, no major injuries, no change. Spoiler is still in the Diamond District, but her last ping has her heading toward Midtown. Signal’s still in the Narrows, north side. Red Robin hasn’t moved. B, I think you should--”
“Any criminal activity on CCTV footage?”
“Not near the bats, no. But Batman--”
“I’m closest to the Narrows now--”
“Bruce! For God’s sake, shut the hell up and let me talk! Tim is your first priority. Fear toxin makes him more likely to act on impulse, and he’s prone to violent intrusive thoughts. He’s in the most danger right now, and if you don’t haul your ass over to get him out of it, Scarecrow will be the least of your problems!”
“No names in the field,” he said, because it was the only response he knew to give.
Tim was rational. He was excellent at discerning between his Red Robin field persona and his personal one, and more than that, he was exceptional at the compartmentalization that came with having a lifestyle prone to violent stimuli. Red Robin was well and capable of redirecting thoughts of violence into a controlled expression of physical exertion, and Tim was no different. He had to be. Bruce had never known him to be otherwise. He was more than able to take care of himself, as proven by his solo work as his own hero and his establishment of the Nest, so why wasn’t he capable now? What changed? Had anything? Or, like Jason and Stephanie, had he simply failed to see the most obvious truth when it was in front of him?
“Don’t you dare shut down on me now,” Barbara snapped.
“Red Robin can manage himself.”
“He’s sixteen, he knows that he’s a potential danger to others, and he’s scared. Don’t let your insistence on being right take another one of these kids from me.”
Bruce turned the wheel.
Where midtown was too silent, warehouse district was heaving, pouring terrified masses through the old streets as people clambered over one another to escape some great monstrosity none of the world could see, howling and begging a litany of gods that had yet to come. It was a miracle Red Robin hadn’t been found yet, considering the way civilians clung to the Batmobile where he parked it, weeping over the windows and scratching away at the paint with naught but their fingernails, the streets too congested for any kind of safe passage. Bruce took to the rooftops, swinging from his grapnel through the grimy air and landing at the kicked-in door of Red Robin’s location, keeping a cautious eye for traps laid in the case of hostile incursion. None. Tim had been standing defenseless but for himself.
Bruce stepped through the doorway and found the third Robin standing there, bo clutched in one hand and a gun in his other, grip steady but trembling down to his bones as he stood, staring at everything and nothing at all, breaths heaving so loudly that they echoed over every inch of the old metal and concrete. As Bruce carefully edged closer, he could see angry red marks scraped down Tim’s face, like he’d been scratched, and he wondered briefly if he’d been attacked, only the see matching red fingertips wrapped around the grip of the pistol, slippery with sweat and gloveless with stiff white knuckles and splintered fingernails. Most shocking of all, he had both wings open and outstretched, red and black feathers rumpled and puffed huge, making himself bigger in some invisibile standoff against a demon all his own.
“Red Robin,” Bruce called out.
Tim jerked his head up, swinging to look at him for only a moment before he whipped around, turning on his heels and brandishing his staff at the other side of the room. The gun stayed pressed against his thigh, aimed down at the floor.
“Red Robin, you’ve been hit with Scarecrow’s toxin. I’m here to bring you back to the Cave for your safety.”
“I’m scared,” Tim gasped, barely more than a whisper. Bruce took another step closer.
“I know. You’ve been chemically affected and it’s causing your brain to produce hallucinations and feelings of anxiety. There are no hostiles here.”
“I can see them,” he argued.
“They’re not real. There’s only me and you here.”
He reached out to brush a hand over Tim’s shoulder, and the boy lurched back, the first step he’d taken since Bruce walked in, and perhaps the first he’d taken since he’d settled there in the first place. He pulled back the hammer on the pistol, and Bruce didn’t try to move forward again.
“It’s not safe,” Tim said. “I’m not safe.”
“I can bring you back to the Cave. You’ll be safe there. Let go of the gun, Robin.”
“No, no. You don’t understand. I’m not safe.”
“You’re in an unsecured location with impaired facilities that may keep you from adequately defending yourself. Feeling unsafe is very wise of you, and completely natural.”
“No. I’ll hurt someone. They get hurt because of me. I’m dangerous...”
His fingers twitched away from the trigger guard and Bruce moved without thinking, throwing open his big black wings and reaching them up as wide as they’d go, feeling the tips of his feathers brush the grimy ceiling beams as he made himself supermassive, as large as he could get, so much so it blotted out the moonlight spilling in from the harbor and blanketed both he and Tim in shadows. He’d hoped it would make Tim flinch from the display, maybe point the gun at Bruce so he could grab it and twist; anything to keep the situation from spiraling down the path it was. His heart gagged his throat and nausea hailed fists in his stomach at the thought that Barbara had been right, that Bruce’s failure to observe had very nearly cost Tim his life, and even worse, it was Bruce’s training that had convinced him it would have been a good thing, a safer thing, if it had.
Tim didn’t flinch.
As soon as Bruce’s wings registered in his addled mind, both the bo and the gun slipped from his hands and Tim lunged, gathering fistfuls of his feathers and shoving himself into the space under Bruce’s arm, face buried in his coverts like they’d shield him from the world. Bruce didn’t stumble, but it was a close thing. Instead, he cautiously folded himself over Tim’s shaking body, brushing his hands over red and black feathers with unpracticed and clumsy movements, a pale imitation of what he’d seen Dick and Alfred do when the others were upset.
“You… you do good,” he said stiffly. Didn’t know what words to use. “Here. You being here is good. People are saved because of you. Don’t assume otherwise. If it that were the case, I would have handled you personally the moment I thought it was true.” Did that sound like a threat? It wasn’t supposed to be a threat. “I am not threatening you,” he added.
“Please don’t leave,” Tim said shakily.
“I need to recover Signal and Spoiler. I’ll return to the Manor once they’ve been accounted for. Cassandra and your brothers will be with you until then.”
When Tim didn’t move, Bruce cleared his throat.
“It’s imperative I move quickly. The longer they’re out in the field, the more likely they are to be injured.”
Tim still didn’t move, so Bruce gave up trying to rationalize with him and did what he’d used to do with Dick when he got like this, scooping him up in his arms and settling him against his chest, one hand supporting the backs of his knees and one below his shoulders, and, after a moment of tugging, Tim let go of his feathers and hung onto the neck of the cowl instead. Bruce tucked his wings away again and started back for the car, making sure Red Robin was unidentifiable as he ducked the crowds and dropped back into the scratched and dented Batmobile.
“Oracle, Alfred, I’ve secured Red Robin. He has minor abrasions on his face and hands, but appears otherwise unharmed.”
“Thank god,” Barbara sighed. “You have to get better at comforting your children.”
Alfred, true to form, was waiting at the cave, and Bruce was relieved to note there were no more buttons undone than when he’d left. He helped Bruce peel Tim out of the uniform and into the first thing grabbed from his locker-- one of Jason’s sweatpants and Dick’s shirts, from the looks of it-- and smoothed a weathered hand over the boy’s shoulders as Bruce carried him back upstairs. This time, at least, Roy didn’t threaten him with any rifles, though he cast a particularly nasty look Bruce’s way as he breezed into the room and took stock of the others.
Dick was back in the nest, face still twisted up in an unnatural smile and eyes hazy with exhaustion, but he had Damian half-hidden beneath his short, brilliant wings, and was at least aware enough to start when he saw Bruce. Wally flattened him back into the blankets with one of his own dusty wings, and shuffled a little sheepishly toward where Roy had allowed Jason to tuck him against his side. Cassandra was half covering Jason and Dick, all of them tangled up in some kind of Gordian knot of protecting one another, and he gently nudged her aside to deposit Tim into the blankets, where he was immediately snagged by the back of the shirt and yanked beneath Jason’s defensive shield, his sleek, red feathers sliding out from beneath his brother to reach Dick, who began combing through them with an absent hand.
“Any changes in condition?” he asked.
“No, sir. It seems they either need the antidote to recover, or it takes a substantial period to work through the system. Chemical analysis suggests the latter.”
“Good.” He looked over at Wally, who ducked a little at the attention.
“Just so you know,” he said. “I’m also not planning on going anywhere.”
“Has Dick received muscle relaxants?”
“What?”
“His muscle relaxants. It makes him less likely to relapse into another episode.”
“Administered the moment he returned downstairs, sir,” Alfred cut in, and Bruce nodded. He moved to step away, but Cass snapped out a hand to clutch his boot, and he frowned.
“Stay.”
“I’ll come back with Signal and Spoiler.”
“Safe,” she protested, and he sighed, unfolding his wings once more, ignoring Wally’s quiet ‘holy shit’ and tugging free another few feathers, passing them to his daughter as she snatched them from his hand and started packing them into the sheets, one of Tim’s pale hands darting out to grab some himself before disappearing back under Jason’s ruddy plumage.
Alfred settled on the carpet beside her with only a slight tremor to his joints, and began to card through her scapulars as Bruce set out for the city once again, pulling the lounge doors shut behind him and shaking out the weariness in his shoulders as he drove back out into the night.
“Oracle?”
“Signal’s left the Narrows and is up in the Bowery now. Spoiler’s last ping was in Robinson Park, but she’s still on the move. Both their vitals are stable, but I caught Signal on CCTV, and he looked injured.”
“Hn.”
“Go to him first,” she ordered, before Bruce even had a chance to consider a path of action. “Spoiler’s dropping in and out of CCTV coverage, but she appears unharmed and she’s not being followed.”
He obeyed, because Oracle was not an enemy he needed right now.
He’d been prepared for the Bowery to be a nightmare; readied himself for the inevitable chaos and massacre that would greet him upon arriving, but he found himself caught off guard by the reality-- packs of working women, armed with baseball bats, brass knuckles, and what looked suspiciously like Jason’s stockpile of nonlethals wandered the streets, wings cupped protectively around one another and curled in defensive circles around misplaced children they’d snagged from the chaos, all headed back and forth from the Narrows where the nearest shelter lay. They were ferrying other civilians, he realized, following the same paths Bruce would’ve if Batman had been directing the traffic flow, which meant that these were Red Hood’s girls, the ones Jason took under his protection in his benevolent chokehold on the Narrows. The thought made something warm and proud well up in his chest.
“Signal’s on the move,” Oracle warned, and Bruce returned to the task at hand, leaving the Batmobile on the streetside and taking to the rooftops, scanning for a telltale flicker of yellow against the grimy night sky.
“Where?”
“Looks like he’s circling back to his ping on Fourteenth Street.”
“Understood.”
Duke was doing plenty well at keeping himself hidden, Bruce had to admit, if Oracle had seen him only once. He was well enough to keep moving, and that eased some of the knot from his chest as Bruce swung over the rooftops, a spot of blackness in a city of lights.
He’d have been able to pinpoint the building even if Barbara hadn’t given him the precise address; it was somewhere between well-maintained and dilapidated, but not square in the middle, with an intact fire escape and enough broken windows for one of many not to be suspicious. He pulled himself through the gap and landed on dusty floors, moth-eaten throw rug mottled in a litany of suspicious stains, too dark to tell if any of it was blood, let alone if any was fresh. Nothing else in the apartment was disturbed. Plastic sheets covered half the furniture, and those that were uncovered had been that way for some time, riddled with holes and worn thin by the elements blowing past the broken glass, making the plastic crinkle as Gotham’s exhale crept into every crevice, carrying with it the stench of fire and exhaust even through the tox mask over his mouth. If Bruce were anyone else, he’d have assumed the place was empty, and looked somewhere else.
“Signal.”
He moved through the old apartment as quietly and unobtrusively as he could while still being thorough in his search, methodically sorting every closet and corner into ‘too small,’ ‘too obvious,’ and ‘maybe'.
He heard Duke before he saw him.
Halfway between the kitchen and the only bedroom, a quiet, shaky melody reached his ears, muffled but still audible through the thin walls. A song he didn’t know, soft and lilting in a way that suggested a lullaby that grew louder the closer Bruce got to the bathroom, tucked away in the part of the apartment furthest from the open window but close to the fire escape, hidden behind a door that wasn’t quite closed.
“Signal,” he said again, and placed his hand on the door. “I’m here to take you back to the Cave. You’ve been dosed with fear toxin.”
Like Tim, he got no response, and he pushed into the room.
Duke was curled in the corner of the old bathtub, knees drawn to his chest and body positioned protectively over his left leg, and this close, Bruce could smell the telltale tang of antiseptic-soaked field dressings. Distressingly, like Tim, Duke had his wings unfolded and wrapped around his shoulders, earthy brown and white feathers mottled grey by the grime that stuck to the old porcelain. Barbara would have said something if he’d had them out on the cameras, so he was at least aware enough to know it wasn’t safe to reveal them in the open.
“Signal,” Bruce tried again, this time placing a hand on Duke’s shoulder.
He flinched back, much more violently than Red Robin had done, shielding himself behind his wingspan and pressing himself into the tile, lullaby picking up in volume as if he were trying to drown out the world by force of will alone.
Bruce soothed a hand over his primaries for lack of any other ideas, and gently coaxed him from his defensive ball, taking advantage of his lowered shield to stroke over his scalp like he’d done when Dick and Jason were small, and like he’d do now on the rare occasion Damian allowed it.
“B?” Duke said shakily.
“Yes. I’m here to get you somewhere safe and treat your injuries.”
“I’m hiding.”
“I know. There’s nothing for you to be hiding from. The apartment is empty and free of hostiles.”
“My leg-- I can’t run. I can’t get away. You gotta go, I can’t help you.”
“I’m here to help you, Signal. I can’t carry you unless you get up.”
“But they’ll find me,” he protested, the words so strung out and wet with terror that it made Bruce’s skin crawl, anger bubbling his blood in a low simmer that spiked every time he saw what Crane had wrought on his city, his family.
“Rationality isn’t working, B,” Oracle urged, and he grit his teeth. What else was he supposed to say? There was no one coming. Why wasn’t that enough? “Treat him like he’s right, like what he’s telling you is real. He says they’re coming for him. Tell him what will happen if they do.”
“I won’t let them,” he said instead, and Duke grabbed at his arm, tugging on it in a nervous habit he’d observed in the boy before, dating all the way back to the photos he’d traced on social medias of Duke as a toddler, clinging on his parents’ hands, then their arms as he’d grown. There was a photo in the Manor that Cass had taken, one of Duke, Stephanie, and Jason all piled into one bed, Jason’s arm looped over his shoulders and Duke clutching it close like a lifeline. Bruce offered his forearm, and true to form, Signal dragged it closer, pressing it to his chest.
“I can’t--I can’t breathe. I’m scared. I’m terrified.”
“Your vitals show no signs of asphyxiation,” Bruce replied automatically, then winced. “I will protect you from… them.”
Signal nodded, moving like he meant to stand, then froze, stone-still and wary.
“Wait. Wait. I’m hallucinating.”
“Yes. You’ve been dosed with fear toxin. We’re synthesizing an antidote, but until then, the poison needs to run its course.”
“Prove it. Prove it’s you.”
Were he not in such a hurry, Bruce would be impressed with his situational awareness. As it was, he found himself more frustrated than anything else.
“I saved you once, during a Joker outbreak. Before you joined the Robin Army, before Signal. I carried you on the glider.” You were smaller, he didn’t say, because that detail was irrelevant. You hung onto my arm like this then, too.
Duke shook his head, beginning to curl up and lean away from him again, and Bruce sighed, shaking out his wings as much as he could in the tiny bathroom, fighting back a grimace at the feeling of some stray insects scuttling along his flight feathers as they pressed against the floor.
Like Tim, Duke responded well to the display, reaching out with the hand that wasn’t hanging to Bruce’s arm and tangling it in his feathers, tension bleeding off his shoulders as Bruce lifted one side to curve over their heads, boxing them into a pocket of darkness and safety for a few moments before hiding his wings away again. Duke nodded jerkily, grabbing onto his shoulder and starting to lever himself upright.
“Okay. Okay. Please let me go home now.”
“Yes. I’ll return you to the Manor where your brothers and Cassandra will take care of you while I retrieve Spoiler.”
“Okay,” he said again, murmuring the word over and over under his breath like a mantra as he folded his own wings from view and let Bruce heave him upright, briefly looking over the wrapping on his leg before picking him up on his back, leaving his hands free to grapple back to the Batmobile. He was heavier than he’d been last, more muscle packed onto a frame that was growing up to be stalwart and tanklike, built for hiding others behind his back and facing the threat head-on, himself. For now, however, Bruce was the shield, and he was content shielding his partners, as he’d always been.
“Alfred, I’m coming inbound with Signal. He has an unknown exsanguinating injury to his left leg that’s been bound in field dressing. I can’t risk looking over it without relieving the pressure to the wound.”
“The medical bay is set and ready for you, sir.
Like before, Alfred was there upon their arrival, gloves already on and sterilized as the helped Duke from the Signal’s armor, cutting away bandages to reveal an ugly but low-risk laceration across the outside of his thigh. Alfred worked stitches into the skin as Bruce wrangled Duke’s fear-stiff limbs into clean clothes, hauling him up into his arms again as he returned to the sitting room, gently settling his boy against Cassandra’s side, who swept him up under her glossy, narrow feathers. He responded in turn and let Jason sort out the bent plumages where they’d been crushed against the bathtub walls, and Bruce stayed only long enough to take another inventory-- Dick was seemingly in and out of a fitful sleep, jolts of adrenaline warring with the physical tax of a laughing episode, his head in Wally’s lap as the speedster carded through his hair, mumbling a mash of comforts so rapidly they could have been nonsense, Damian still barely visible where he lay curled against Dick’s side, the flick of his watchful eyes and the glint of a knife in his hand the only indication he was awake at all. Tim was still hidden under Jason’s wings, but the glow of a screen from between his feathers meant he was still there and accounted for. Jason, himself, had a worrying vacancy to his eyes, pupils dilated so small they looked almost inhuman, greener than they should be and his body unnervingly motionless but for the hand he had tangled in Duke’s feathers, one of Roy’s laid overtop it and the other carding through his scapulars. Cassandra’s watchful gaze flicked between every person in the room like clockwork, fists clenching and unclenching with the loose tension of a body prepared for combat.
Alfred settled back on the floor by her side and began working through Duke’s other wing.
“Steph,” Cass said, and Bruce nodded.
“I’ll be back with her,” he promised, and returned to the streets once again.
He didn’t need to ask Barbara for an update, this time, her voice coming into his ear unbidden as he tore through the city’s streets, familiar even in their agony.
“Spoiler’s still on the move,” she said. “Her vitals are still stable, no changes other than exertion. She’s desperate, but running on empty. Catching her’s not gonna be easy, B, but she’ll crash hard once you get her to stop moving.”
“Where am I going?”
“She’s circling Gotham U now, but her trajectory suggests she’s headed to the Upper West Side next. You can intercept her near Finger River, if you hurry.”
“Understood.”
Bruce pressed the gas pedal to the floor and let the roar of the engine soothe his nerves as the buildings blurred by, ignoring the exhaustion dogging his bones and the burning ache in his muscles, screaming for him to stop, to rest, to do just about anything other than dig through Gotham’s heavy guts on less sleep than Tim on a good lead. Stephanie was out there, alone and unprotected, and it took all of his willpower not to let the past haunt him, the image of her body, broken and bleeding on Leslie’s table printed on the backs of his eyes like a movie stuck on loop. Things were different now, he reminded himself. It wouldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
His gas mask was simply beginning to fail him, was all. His fears were the irrational results of prolonged exposure to Crane’s fear toxin, and were nothing but unsubstantiated and useless illusions of his mind.
He checked her vitals again.
“Oracle.”
“I see you, B. She’s still headed your way-- drop the car and head to the rooftops, I’ll guide you toward her location. She’s about nine blocks out.”
“Hn.”
He did as he was told, letting the city skyline carry him through the night as he leapt from one roof to another, eyes peeled for a streak of purple amid the grey as Barbara kept up a quiet stream of correction in his ear.
Stephanie wasn’t hard to find. She was a beacon of color in the darkness, lit from below in an unmistakable silhouette as she rocketed from building to building, her feet hardly touching the ground as she tore single-mindedly after some false adversary. She wasn’t afraid of being chased, he knew, not considering the stance of her body-- head down, shoulders low, all of her force directed onwards like a spear of righteous fury-- and she never looked back, not even as Bruce began to close on her. If it weren’t for the fact that her target was an invisible one, he’d doubt she’d been dosed at all. There was no outright terror to the way she moved, and nothing to suggest it but perhaps her refusal to be still. She was a lot like Jason, when it came to fear: translated it all into rage, a defensive kind of violence that preempted anyone else’s, armor made from peeled-back lips and bloody knuckles. It had been a danger when she was Robin, that hot-headed anger, the same as it had been for his second son, and her recklessness was what pushed him to expel her from the mantle, but now… now she was better at handling it. He hoped. At the very least, her bullheaded rampage made her easy to find.
Catching her, however, was another matter entirely. The speed and agility with which she leapt through the city was admirable, enough to nearly rival Dick on a slow day (and that was still a feat in itself) as her body moved more on instinct than anything, letting her familiarity with the city in which she was raised and the formative years spent working alone guide her steps, every bunch and release of her muscles sewn through with bits of Cass’ expertise to make her a powerhouse of her own right. She didn’t spare Bruce a thought as she ripped away from him. He wasn’t even sure if she’d seen him, at all.
More than once, he closed on her, his years of experience and greater training making up for her youth and slighter build, but she ducked from his hands every time, darting from under his arm, springing off the side of AC units, and even hurling batarangs over her shoulders to keep him at bay. She cut clotheslines, threw garbage, dropped smoke pellets, but not once did she look at him for more than the barest of seconds, long enough only to know where to aim before turning back to her quarry.
Finally, he managed to grab a fistful of her cape, the force of her momentum sending them both sprawling as Bruce tried to cushion her impact as best he could, her ragged, nearly wheezing breaths seeming almost louder than the sounds of chaos below. He’d barely a chance to reach for the restraints in his belt before she’d curled away from him, bunching her legs to her chest before slamming them hard into Bruce’s ribs, making them creak even through his armor, and he grit his teeth as he felt one crack, another breaking entirely from where he’d damaged it on his mission with the League. Despite all his resolve, he stumbled, and Stephanie was out from under him and hurling herself off the roof’s ledge in the next moment, fast enough he’d be proud if he weren’t making sure she hadn’t punctured a lung.
“Spoiler!” he called, and she didn’t even look back at him.
He grit his teeth, snarling through the pain, and took off after her once again, ignoring Oracle’s rapid-fire warnings in his ears and plowing on.
“B, if you two keep this up, someone’s going to get hurt. Badly. Right now, my money’s on you.”
“What am I supposed to do, Oracle? She won’t let me near her, and she’s not responsive!”
“You’re the goddamn Batman, Bruce! Figure it out before the oxygen dep makes her break her neck out there!”
Awfully enough, that gave him an idea.
He came close to her again, this time matching her pace at her side instead of trying to wrangle her, scanning the buildings below for one that could serve his purposes while avoiding the onslaught of weapons being flung his way, black spots beginning to dance along his vision. He found his target and swallowed the apprehension coiling in his stomach as he pulled ahead of her, readying his grapnel and letting a batarang fall between his fingers, distances and angles and trajectories flying through his head faster than the wind in his ears. If he made a mistake, it could kill her, and that thought was nearly enough to stop him. But he knew as well as Barbara that neither of them could keep up this pace for much longer, and if he wasn’t there to catch her when she inevitably collapsed….
Forcing back the last of his doubt, Bruce shot his grapnel at the same moment Stephanie did, already beginning to swing into her space, and he threw his batarang hard, watching in a mix of satisfaction and guilt as it struck true, shredding her line and dropping her into freefall. Oracle shouted in his ear, but he ignored her once more, diverting all of his focus to Spoiler, flailing in midair for only a moment before beginning to right herself, twisting and thrashing as if trying to punish gravity into behaving for her. Bruce reached out at the same moment he saw her wings just beginning to emerge from her back, and he wondered what it was about this particular strain of fear toxin that was making these children so damn determined to jeopardize their identities. He wrapped an arm around her waist before she could reveal herself to anyone but him, clutching her close to his chest as the grapnel groaned under the extra weight, directing their momentum into the empty penthouse of an office building under construction, folding as much of Spoiler as he could behind the shield of his body as the glass shattered around them, skidding across the floor in a tangle of limbs and fresh bruises.
“Spoiler,” he tried again, wheezing through the burn of his ribs. “You’ve been dosed with fear toxin. Whatever you’re seeing is an illusion-- I’m here to bring you to safety, and--”
She elbowed him, hard, the bone colliding painfully with his stomach and making all the wind rush out of him, too dazed from the impact against the floor to have prepared himself against it. She was out of his arms again a moment later, struggling to her feet as her chest heaved with the effort of getting air into her lungs, knees shaking with exertion and mask visibly damp with sweat.
“Why did you stop me?” she bellowed.
Bruce dragged himself back up to his feet, the noise ripping out of his throat closer to an animal snarl than a gasp.
“You’re compromised,” he growled, the sound echoing over the empty concrete floor from every direction, dissonant and otherworldly.
“I have to catch him!”
“There is no one to catch!” Bruce yelled. “You’re hallucinating. What you are seeing is fake!”
“He’s going to hurt them!”
“There is no one! ‘He’ will not hurt anyone, because ‘he’ is the result of a hyperstimulated prefrontal cortex, and is nothing but a figment of your imagination!”
“Don’t you get it? They’ll die! They’ll die and it’ll be because I couldn’t stop him!”
Stephanie rushed him, and Bruce braced for her, anticipating her feint and locking her arm in an iron grip as she tried to sprint past him and out the broken window. He yanked her back, dodging her thrown punch and tossing her away, stretching out an arm to block the gaping hole at his back, wind ripping through and making his cape snap against the floor. She rolled for a moment before scrambling back to all fours, skidding across the concrete and straightening as soon as she’d stopped moving. Her wings billowed out behind her, stocky but wicked, the stark violet edging of her flight feathers rippling out against the tawny browns of the rest. She arched them up, ruffled as big as she could get, her mask askew on her head where it had slipped in her and Bruce’s struggle. Her lips were curled back, teeth bared, eyes wild as she leaned forward and roared. It was wordless, nothing but raw fury and desperation as it tore from her throat, and seemed to rattle the windowpanes even as the wind whisked it into the night.
If Bruce were better at this, at any of it, he might have stepped down. As it was, he’d never been known for his complacency, and with Stephanie’s identity, her very life on the line, he couldn’t help responding in kind. Even if he could have, he wouldn’t have tried to fight the instinct as his own wings plumed out behind him, massive enough to nearly brush the windows on the other side of the building, and screamed back at her in a tearing, ground-shaking howl. It was lower, louder, meaner than hers, the kind of display that had made even Bane falter in his steps, and he’d intended it to make her back down, to crumple and give into the instinct to submit and defer to the largest predator in the room. She would hate him for it, once this was over, and he would feel guilty for having forced her back with fear, but he didn’t know what else to do. What else to say to make her stop before the damage couldn’t be undone. He only needed a moment, a single acknowledgement of defeat and he could get her away from her, get her someplace safe.
Stephanie took one look at him, and promptly burst into tears.
Before he even had a chance to respond, she threw himself into his arms, jostling against his ribs and making him wheeze as she grabbed ahold of anything she could get to-- the Batsuit, his feathers, the cape, all of it-- and buried herself against his chest, sobbing against him so uncontrollably that every exhale wracked her frame against him so severely it was likely to bruise. It certainly wasn’t the reaction he’d been… expecting, and definitely not one he’d ever gotten from an aggressive display before, but she was no longer trying to jump out the window, so he curled around her like he’d done to Tim and Duke, using his wings to build a shield of darkness and warmth around them as he tried to calm her as best he could.
“You’re in a state of hysteria,” he warned, gently lowering them both to the ground where he could prop her more comfortably against him to accommodate her need for oxygen, rubbing her back as she sucked in great gasps of air. “You’re likely to hyperventilate if you don’t calm down. The fear you’re feeling is the result of psychoactive fear toxin, and I’m here to bring you to a secure location to recuperate while Batwoman and Catwoman handle the city.”
“God, you--” she gasped, hands clutching at his arm. “Just shut up-- and hold me-- like-- a normal person!”
“I am holding you.”
Spoiler snatched the cowl’s neck, violently yanking his head down to look him in the eyes, face contorted into a nightmarish snarl of fury and snot. “Comfort me!” she screamed.
“...There, there.”
She stopped crying only long enough to dry heave over the pavement, and Bruce soothed a hand over her shoulders as gently as he could, softly stroking her damp and stinking hair, peeling it away from the rivulets of sweat and tear tracks down her face as he rocked her against his chest, defaulting to the tactics he’d use to calm frightened children on patrol. If she noticed, she didn’t complain.
“Deep breaths,” he instructed, feeling her breathing slowly begin to even out, still rasping and wheezy from having overexerted herself, but it was nothing an inhaler couldn’t fix upon returning to the Manor.
He gathered her up in his arms, folding his wings away as he hooked one arm under her bottom, her fingers reaching up and clinging to his cape as her ankles dug uncomfortably into the small of his back.
“Oracle, I have her. She’s exhausted, but unharmed.”
“Oh thank god. I have half a mind to put your dumb ass in a wheelchair, too, for scaring me like that. I saw you two go down on CCTV-- what were you thinking?”
“That I’m the goddamn Batman,” he replied, and was rewarded with a strangled, breathy snort against his neck.
“Oh, oh, oh, B. You are… you are a goddamn dead man, is what you are. Not get your ass home and take care of your kids.”
“Alfred, ready an oxygen mask for Spoiler. I’m coming in.”
He returned to the Batmobile, streets flashing by as he rode back to the Manor, Stephanie still panting in the passenger seat, but not enough to be an imminent concern. Alfred took her from his arms as they pulled into the Cave, helping her from her suit as she took lungfuls of oxygen from the machine, vitals finally beginning to steady. Alfred swabbed a section of her arm as Bruce tried wrangling her into a fresh shirt and injected something into it, pressing a colorful bandaid (courtesy of Stephanie, herself) over the site and passing her a glass of water.
“Alfred, the antidote--”
“Just finished synthesizing only a few moments ago, and is being administered upstairs as we speak. Miss Kane and Miss Kyle are on their way here now to begin dispersing the aerosol version across the city. I think you would serve more effectively by staying here,” he added pointedly.
“I have to--”
“If you leave, I’ll kick the shit out of you,” Stephanie said. “You’re going to use your stupid-huge wings, and you’re going to make me and whoever else got hit stop feeling like we’re gonna explode, I swear to god. I’ll tell Selina if you leave. She likes me. You won’t get laid for weeks.”
“Language,” Bruce wheezed, for lack of anything else to say.
He’d admit, however reluctantly, that she had a point. He’d be of little use to Kate and Selina in his current state, and the children… could benefit from having the largest of their pseudo-flock present.
He relented, stripping out of the Batsuit and into a clean set of clothes, letting Alfred fuss over his many new bruises and bleeders before scooping Stephanie back up into his arms and going upstairs.
This time, it was Wally who opened the doors, hair stuck up at all angles and face lined with blanket creases as Bruce pushed past him, passing his last not-child to Cass, who’d begun making grabby hands as soon as he’d come through the door. She and the others were still tense, the antidote likely only beginning to work through their systems, all still curled around one another with the youngest of the family visible only between feathers, blanketed by the wings of the others and hidden from the world. Wally settled back in the spot he’d left, tucked in the space between Dick and Roy with Dick squishing up against him as soon as he returned, notorious octopus-limbs trapping him against his side.
“Boss,” Cass demanded, and made grabby hands at him again. He glanced to her, then to the pair of redheads currently packed into his living room, frowning.
“Roy,” Wally said. “Roy, man, maybe we should go. This is flock stuff.”
“Wally, I love you, but fuck that, and honestly, fuck you for suggesting it.”
Bruce sighed.
Slowly, taking the time to shake them out this time, he unfurled his wings, stepping gingerly into the space Dick had left as he folded up one of his own, leaning against a mass of pillows as he eased his aching joints into sitting down, his back against the old loveseat and his legs outstretched. As soon as he’d gotten comfortable, the whole pile moved around him, Damian wiggling out from Dick’s wing only enough to press himself against Bruce’s side, curling as close as he could into his coverlets so much so he nearly disappeared in them, Bruce wrapping an arm around the boy’s shoulders as he came close. Dick scooted close enough to press his back to the length of Bruce’s thigh, dragging Wally along with him despite his obvious discomfort. Cass hauled Steph (and Duke, who, despite his size, had been barely visible beneath his siblings’ wings) to rest against his shins, making a face at the smell of his socked feet and promptly smothering them with a blanket as she made herself comfortable. Tim was only visible through Jason’s rusty feathers, and he looked torn between staying where he was and moving closer. Bruce cleared his throat.
“...Jason.”
“He can’t hear you,” Roy said, in a voice that would have been a threat if it weren’t pitched so softly. “He’s fighting the Pit.”
“I… see. Would it. Does it help, if…. Would I make it worse?”
Roy opened his mouth to reply, but before he got a chance, Jason reached out, eyes unfocused.
“Br’ce?” he rasped, something between hope, confusion, and desperation, and he didn’t wait for Roy’s approval to reach out and tug his second eldest against his side, tucked against his leg in a mirror of Dick to his right. Roy, to his credit, wasn’t deterred, and followed as dutifully as the tide did the moon, pulling Jason’s head right back into his lap with a sharp, vigilant gaze on the hand Bruce laid over his son’s shoulder. Tim scrambled up next, slotting himself below Bruce’s free arm, half sprawled over his lap and his fingers tangled in Jason’s feathers.
Bruce sprawled out his wings, letting them reach around the nest and its occupants before gently laying over those he could reach, cupped together in a bowl so snug the tips of his feathers touched. Wally tried to politely squirm away from touching him, but Dick kept him plastered close, and Bruce tucked them under his feathers all the same, only a little to amuse himself with how red the speedster went at the attention. He didn’t try the same on Roy.
Slowly, like waking from a dream, he watched the tension bleed from the bodies around him, held breaths exhaled and knotted muscles going lax as the antidote began to do its work, Damian’s painfully close press to his injured ribs leaning back into something less terrified, the boy relaxing in increments as Bruce smoothed over his hair. He shuffled out from his hiding place and Bruce tugged him more comfortably against his chest, and Damian seemed too tired to fight it.
From between Steph and Cass, Duke groaned, clutching his head and rolling to lay face-down in the blankets as Cass preened through his scapulars sympathetically.
“Seconded,” Tim grunted, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. “I feel like I got hit by a train, ugh.”
“Fear toxin hangovers are the worst,” Steph agreed. Cass made a face that was either in pained agreement, or just gas.
From beside Bruce, Jason gasped, halfway sitting up before Roy bracketed him down with an arm over his chest, speaking rapidfire into his hair until Jason let go of his iron grip on Roy’s forearm and fell back into the blankets, eyes screwed shut and hissing between his teeth. Bruce tried not to feel nauseous at the half-moon imprints of Jason’s nails in Roy’s skin.
“Fuuuuuuuuck.”
“Nice to have you back, Jay.”
“Tim, remind me to kill you.”
“I’ll put it in my schedule.”
Gently, Bruce laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder, and felt him startle, turning and gaping at him with wide eyes. Clear eyes. Blue eyes.
“Aw, hell. Here I was hopin’ those were someone else’s wings.”
“How’re you feeling, Jay-lad?”
“Honky-fucking-dory, Bruce. How do you think?”
“He’s just cranky,” Steph said, burrowing as far under Cass’ wings as she could. “Maybe try getting him a bottle, since he’s being such a bigass baby.”
“Language.”
“Tim, remind me to kill Steph.”
“You’ll have to call my agent.”
“I am her agent,” Cass put in.
“Please stop talking,” Duke moaned.
Roy whistled lowly, the aggression in his shoulders soothing out into something more tender as Jason came back to the world around them. He quirked a lopsided smile, and Bruce saw Speedy in the line of his grin.
“This is way more fun than when Ollie tried to do it.”
“That’s because Oliver’s an incompetent shitbag, and Dinah’s the only reason he’s still alive. My old cardboard box in the Narrows’ probably better than his sorry excuse for a nest, christ.”
“You always know just what to say to make me all aflutter, Jaybird.”
“Dick’s been pretty quiet,” Tim pointed out, and Jason snorted.
“Call the fucking presses. We’ve witnessed a miracle.”
“Language,” Bruce said again, but placed a hand on Dick’s back nonetheless. “Dick? You doing alright, chum?”
“Yeah, uh. He’s not gonna answer you.” Wally replied.
“...Is he. Good?” Jason asked, a little too anxiously to be nonchalant.
Wally reached out to Dick’s head on his chest and nudged it to the side. A moment later, a loud, rumbling snore cut through the silence, followed immediately by the sound of Steph and Roy losing their shit. Jason let his head thunk back against Roy’s lap, groaning.
“Oh, god damn it. I try to give a shit once, once--”
“Oh, my god, he-- he sounds like-- like a tractor giving birth, oh, Cass, Cass I’m gonna cry--”
“Tt. Tractors cannot give birth, imbecile.”
“Please stop talking."
Bruce tucked his wings closer around his family, and smiled.