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The day after Bruce is suspended from his third boarding school, he decides to kill himself.
It's not because of his suspension. Nothing quite so dramatic had occurred then to warrant such an extreme and irreversible decision. A part of Bruce had simply always considered it as the next step of his life — or, well, the last step of his teenage life. There had been no reason to wait this long anyway. It was as good a time as any.
The morning before his suspension, he hadn't even thought about ending things. It wasn't a situation dissimilar to the previous ones; cruel children who have opinions about his dead parents, rude teachers who have opinions about his dead parents, acquaintances who say the wrong things when trying not to bring up said dead parents. On that day, a bully with too big ears that fit with his too big fists had spoken ill of Martha Wayne.
Bruce hardly remembers punching him across the jaw. Or kneeing him in the groin. Or biting his arm, scratching his legs, pulling at the skin on his face.
They hold a meeting with the boy and his parents, where a stark difference is noticeable between Bruce's swollen face from a lucky punch and the other's bleeding skin. He's suspended immediately. The principal held themselves back from a permanent exclusion solely because Bruce had only joined the school that term, and kicking out the most expensive orphan in the country so soon looked worse for their reputation than it did Bruce's.
Not that it mattered. Him killing himself following their suspension will surely be worse for them. Bruce feels a little bad about the students and teachers who had treated him kindly (as one would a rare and endangered animal at the zoo, but kind nonetheless), and that's the only reason he considers writing a note to clarify his suicide wasn't due to the school. Or the bully, who would surely be condemned for an action that wasn't his doing.
But the last time he'd decided to leave a note, he'd been just ten years old, and hadn't even spelt the word suicide correctly.
Sat in the back seat of the car, his face throbbing from the dark colours blooming around his split lip, Bruce peers up at Alfred. The man is silent, fingers gripping the wheel tight enough to leave a dent in the leather. His face is mostly hidden, but Bruce can see the stiffness of his jaw through the rearview mirror. In just a few short years, Alfred seems to have aged centuries, his hair growing lighter and thinner as the skin around his eyes grew tighter.
After his previous attempt, Alfred had been the one to find him (there was no else who could've). It must have been strange for him, suddenly tasked with looking after his dead employer's son, then not even two years later, having to carry his bleeding body to the nearest hospital. Bruce can't quite remember his thought process aside from the overwhelming grief then, if there had been one at all, but it seems he had been a particularly melodramatic ten year old.
He'd chosen to use his father's razor blades, after all.
The note he'd written had been for Alfred as well, since there was no one else in his life that Bruce thought to say goodbye to. Bruce had written it the night before, and made his bed for the first time in his life before placing the piece of paper in the centre of the sheets. He'd been careless, really, having forgotten to lock his bathroom door. Alfred probably would have broken it down regardless.
Looking away from Alfred and out the window to the fields of Bristol, Bruce thinks, I won't leave a note again. It would only make Alfred upset. He remembers the recovery months that followed his return from the hospital more than his near-death. It is not something he wishes to put Alfred through again. If he's going to do it again, he's going to do it right.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred suddenly calls, making him jump.
Bruce turns to face the driver seat slowly, heart beating out of his chest. It seems ridiculously juvenile, but for a brief moment, Bruce was worried Alfred had somehow read his mind. The weary look the old man challenges him with does not sedate his suspicions.
“I was thinking, you and I should go on a trip, for your fifteenth birthday.” Alfred states. It's not really a suggestion from the sounds of it — simply a notice for the future.
Bruce blinks, “My birthday is months away.”
Alfred stares steadfastly at the long stretch of road before them, the sinking of the sun across the hills is the horizon leading them to an empty home, “It will give you something to look forward to in the future. I would also like to show you my home, back in England.”
Something to look forward to in the future, Bruce ponders on that. It's a bit on the nose, but he needs to be alive in order for this to happen. Bruce wonders if his disposition is far too revealing, or if Alfred is simply far too observant.
Or maybe, Alfred can actually read his mind, “What's it like?”
“My home?” Alfred hums in thought, hands tightening around the wheel in unavoidable worry, but his tone remains calm, “I grew up in the countryside, so it was very quiet. Despite that, I learnt a lot from living there. I think you can too.”
“Things that I can't learn here?” Bruce asks quietly, a finger tracing the cool glass of the window. It feels a little soon to bring up anything related to education, given their circumstances of this entire situation, but Bruce has a feeling he and Alfred aren't talking about conventionally learning academics.
“There's plenty you can learn here in Gotham,” Alfred acquiesces, “But there is much to learn about the world around you. You'll never know unless you let yourself explore. It might take you years, but I have no doubt you will find all that you're looking for.”
Bruce stops, his finger pressed against the window. The sky is a cacophony of colours, all overlapping and sheer like watercolours that begin to bleed into one another with the darkening sky. Gotham's perpetual overcast makes it hard to appreciate the sun, but this far out from the city centre and its light pollution, towards the outskirts of Bristol and the unending grounds of Wayne Manor, you can see the sky for all its glory. He wonders what the sunset would be like in England. He wonders what it would be like elsewhere in the world.
“That's awfully poetic,” Bruce mumbles, a million and one thoughts racing past him.
“Perhaps,” Alfred replies. “Is there anywhere you would like to go in particular?”
For a moment, the boy is silent.
“Everywhere,” Bruce whispers finally, with newfound purpose.
Alfred releases a barely audible sigh of relief, his hands loosening their hold around the steering wheel. Despite the darkness from the setting sun and oncoming night, the road before them feels much longer all of a sudden.
Bruce does end up going to England before his fifteenth birthday, but not anywhere near the home Alfred had spoken of. He travels through the rest of Europe soon after, following a trail given to him in France by a man he wishes to forget. Continuing forth to several locations dotted throughout Asia, where he eventually meets other people with similar goals and dissimilar motivations. These people are no less cruel and he doesn't love most of them any less for it. He spent a long few years there. He watches many sunsets. He learns many things.
Alfred waits at home with bated breath, in the empty halls of Wayne Manor, reading a note written in horrifyingly familiar handwriting. There's a promise in the many lines of reasoning that Alfred commits to memory. The words are fresh behind his eyelids every time he falls asleep.
I will return.
The only other constant Alfred had to hold onto was Bruce's bed. He hadn't made it before he ran away on his mission to learn vengeance around the globe. Perhaps he didn't have the time. Or, more likely, this was another unspoken promise.
Alfred holds onto the messily thrown around bed sheets like a drowning man at sea, I will return. I will return. I will return.
Years later, the boy returns as a man. He introduces himself as Batman.
Alfred releases a sigh of relief, looking out to the winding stretch of road brought before them, no end in sight, “Welcome home, Master Bruce.”
“When can I drive the Batmobile?” Dick asks for the third time that evening. Bruce has ignored him thus far only because he asks this question every day — but he's reached his limit.
“Maybe when you stop calling it that,” Bruce grumbles, shaking the twelve year old off his arm so he can go back to typing up the report he's been working on for the last hour. Dick's proving to be more of a distraction today than usual.
“Come on Bruce!” Dick groans, pulling at his cape, “I'm basically thirteen. I literally jump off buildings. I can drive your stupid car.”
“If you think it's so stupid, why do you want to drive it so bad?” Bruce sighs, pulling his cape away from the boy's grasp. He frowns at the way Dick stumbles to his feet, “It's well past your bedtime. You've got school tomorrow. Go away.”
Dick pouts, but Bruce stopped falling for the sad dejected puppy look after the first week. He isn't sure who taught him to use such a weapon — though he has a small inkling it might've been Selina — but Dick needs to start using the watery eyes more sparingly before they lose all effectiveness. Like now for instance, Bruce only feels a little bad.
For a moment, it looks like Dick is going to give in and listen to him and head to bed, but he turns back around towards Bruce again, looking pensive. It's a rather serious expression for the otherwise carefree boy, and that's never a good sign — since whenever Dick falls into his quiet shell, it can only end badly. Instead of bursting at the seams with another tantrum, Dick picks at the edge of Bruce's cape carefully, twiddling with it between small fingers.
“How old do I have to be before I can drive it?” He asks quietly.
Bruce's frown deepens at the forlorn tone, so he stops typing, turning towards Dick as well, “At least seventeen.”
If possible, Dick's apparent misery grows even stronger, “Five years? Will you— will you—”
“Will I…?” Bruce prompts, concerned.
“Will you still be around?” Dick finishes quickly, almost in a whisper. He's got a harsh grip on Bruce's cape again, like anything weaker would drag them away from each other.
Bruce is now partly worried about some unknown plot against him, but mostly, confused, “Where… where else would I be?”
“I dunno,” Dick shrugs, “You'll be pretty old by then…”
Bruce blinks. Finally, the true problem that's currently overtaken Dick Grayson’s heart becomes clear, and Bruce is struck between laughing until he cries or throwing his own tantrum. Without meaning to, he falls into both categories, but leaning towards more of the outraged variety.
“I'll only be thirty!” Bruce exclaims.
Dick's eyes go wide in horror, “Oh man, that's older than I thought.”
“You're kidding,” Bruce sighs, but to his horror, he sees a faint shine of water reflecting off of Dick's bright blue eyes, and he fumbles forward, resting both hands on the boy's shoulders, “Listen! I’m not going anywhere, alright? Thirty isn't even old! How old do you even think Alfred is?”
Dick sniffs, too overwhelmed to think rationally about Bruce's questions, apparently, “You gotta grow real old Bruce, okay? I'll drive you around when I get big. Deal?”
Bruce wants to sigh, but he finds himself chuckling instead. It's bizarre how quickly the moods of children can change, but also how infectious their simple hopes and dreams are as well. Bruce pulls the boy closer, moving one arm to gently pat him in the back of the head, letting it rest against his crown of curls a little longer than usual.
“I’ll stick around for as long as I can, chum,” he smiles, before pinching the boy's nose, “Now go to bed.”
Turns out, the reason Penguin's goons have successfully been able to track him the whole night is because Bruce's been leaving a trail of blood to follow behind him.
He could've called the car to come get him, take the back roads and tight alleyways in order to go about his patrol undetected, but the rain is particularly sharp and cold tonight. It slips past the edge of his cowl, trickling down his neck and burning the sensitive skin raw. Bruce finds this onslaught of constant and carefully diluted abuse of acid and rain the first real sensation he's been able to focus on in days.
So instead, Bruce carries his body through the scarcely populated streets, not bothering to crouch out of the view of curious onlookers that are hanging around corners and bars. It's stupid, to be so exposed without backup — and Bruce notices everytime someone's eyes shine a little too brightly, eager to pull out their phone and whisper away his location. So either it's these tip-offs that keep getting him jumped at every corner, or it is the dark congealing droplets of blood he leaves in his steps.
But there is no longer any back up. This is how it will be, from now on.
He didn't even notice the cut going up the side of his leg, deep enough that the pink flesh is gleaming white under the nearby lamp post. Bruce had thought his leg to be numb from how long he's been standing and fighting, but on closer inspection, the muscles around the wound are burning so violently that it's chilling his nerves. He can feel everything and nothing all at once.
It makes stepping over an unconscious thug quite a bit harder, but Bruce does so anyway. It might have been easier to simply step on him, but Ra's had taught him that there's no honour in disrespecting your opponent. Granted, the amount of people Ra's had given the prestigious title of opponent to was far and few in between, and anyone less worthy was treated according to their respective worthlessness.
But, well, this particular man had almost shot Bruce in the jaw, which puts him slightly higher than the average petty criminal in terms of worth (by Ra’s standards, at least). He had come remarkably close, but he had missed in the last second. This might have been due to the nervousness that comes with a close kill, or the last remaining bit of uncertainty in him had made the man miss by an inch and shoot past Batman's cowl instead. If Bruce could focus his swimming vision for more than five seconds, he would try to work out if he can recognise the man's face.
Bruce's ears are still ringing from how close the bullet had whizzed past his ear. That had been a very close call. Very close.
But not close enough, evidently.
The last group that had tried to bring him down are starting to regain consciousness, judging by the groaning and grumbling behind him. Bruce pauses for a moment, debating whether or not he wants to go for another round. The shift of his weight makes more blood pour from his wound, the metallic smell of his blood and others washing down into the gutters by the side of the road.
He decides against it. This group won't hit him hard enough the second time round. He won't feel it as much as he should.
As he starts his prowl towards the East End with the ever present smell of the pleasure district growing nearer, Bruce feels an electrocuting chill run up his spine. It renders him motionless for a moment, and he feels the overwhelming need to double down and cover his head from the pressure of blood pulsating past his eardrums. A burning sensation follows the icey sensation soon after, and he can't tell if the dampness that sticks to him is his own cold sweat or the rain.
Hilariously, Bruce is reminded of the worst fever he's had in his life. It had only happened earlier this month. He'd spent days awake and screaming in agony, blood boiling and body convulsing, fingernails uneven from where he had ripped into the bedsheets. Bruce was barely conscious for most of it, the short few hours spent asleep from Alfred's merciful painkillers and sedatives the only moments of peace through the torture.
That had been two weeks after Jason had died. Bruce's body had given up, wanting desperately to go with the boy.
Bruce had no such luck, however. With time and Alfred's careful tutelage, he recovered.
It's now been one month since his son died.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred's voice speaks on cue over the comm, “You have been awake for exactly 42 hours.”
Despite the growing pressure in Alfred's hourly notice, Bruce also has not been home in thirty hours, simply because he doesn't trust Alfred not to tranquilise him. The old man has made his threats, and while empty and hyperbolic they may be, Bruce doesn't take the chance. He can't sleep. Going home also means having to look at the case Alfred's put up in Jason's honour. Going home means remembering Jason can't come home.
Out here, in the rain and blood, Bruce can forget. He can focus on the pain he inflicts and the pain that is returned to him.
It's doing everyone some good, after all. The paper's are in a tumultuous back and forth within each individual article, some singing praise of Batman's never ending streak of justice (Batman Collars Dope Ring: FIVE arrested in one night!) and others a little less excitable (Batman Batters Bandits?). A very small but very loud few are not as secretive with their stance on the matter — a nearby dispensary has the most recent two-page spread plastered across the window: BATMAN ON THE RAMPAGE!
“Master Bruce,” Alfred says after some time, “Come home.”
Bruce doesn't say anything.
“Are you still planning to kill yourself?” Tim asks one evening.
Bruce doesn't immediately register the question, too busy wiping down his grapple for the third time. Clayface had been agreeable today (almost too agreeable, which usually means the next meeting will be worse), but that doesn't stop the excess mud from sneaking into every crevice possible. Batman and Robin’s equipment gets wiped down every night and decontaminated often — but there's nothing wrong with being extra cautious.
He stops all at once when the question finally settles against his skin, soft and unassuming. Tim had phrased it like it was a casual query, as unceremonious as asking for the time of day and for a split second, Bruce entertains the possibility that Tim had simply misspoke, or that he had misheard him.
But Bruce does not mishear things. Tim has also proven, through his blunt no-nonsense demeanour when it comes to all things Batman, to not misspeak. In fact, Bruce suspects this is a concern he has thought long and hard about, weighing the pros and cons and overall success rate of the answer. There is an outcome Tim is expecting.
Though, judging by the way Tim's fingers have started trembling as he holds a wet rag to his utility belt, perhaps the boy hadn't meant for the question to come out like that. Or now. Or ever. He is a dangerously curious child, but that's all he is, at the end of the day — a child. Bruce supposes some leeway for brashness should always be given at that cruel reminder.
He watches the boy for a moment, staring at the side of his face as Tim does his best to look anywhere but Bruce's heavy gaze. Finally, Bruce turns back to his grapple, continuing with his cleaning and desperately hoping Alfred is well out of hearing range, “I hadn't realised that was something I was planning to do.”
Judging by the slight side eye Bruce receives, Tim doesn't believe him. It's the truth, however. Bruce hadn't planned to take his life, not since he was a child, not since Batman.
“I just thought it was something you were always planning on doing,” Tim adds on carefully, less inclined to hold back now that Bruce has — assumedly — acted to expectation, “Is it?”
Bruce grunts, “No. It's not.”
“If you say so,” Tim settles on, sounding both relieved and annoyed at Bruce's uncharacteristic openness on the matter.
Bruce supposes this is a brief show of mercy in the cruelty of this conversation. They could leave it at that, finish cleaning up before Bruce can try and fail to convince Tim to stay the night in one of their spare rooms as opposed to going home to his father. Bruce's silence tonight will be the most honesty he can muster —
— and yet…
“Tim,” Bruce calls softly, taking care to sound just as informal as the rest of their conversation had been, not to knock over the careful balance of indifference, “This isn't a matter you need to concern yourself with.”
Tim doesn't turn to look at him, focused on scrubbing at a speck of dirt on his belt with erratic movement, “It's not like I can just ignore all the signs.”
“It is not your obligation to bring attention to them either,” Bruce immediately counters, before he frowns and puts down his grapple, “What signs?”
Tim ignores his question completely, “I promised to look out for you. It's only natural to worry.”
Bruce doesn't bring up how he doesn't remember that string of words ever leaving Tim's mouth directly. It's the truth, entirely, from the first day Tim had thrown himself headfirst into danger wearing a costume two sizes too big for him, looking up at Bruce with unabashed confidence and belief. Batman needs a Robin. The boy had wholeheartedly offered what Bruce had painstakingly tried to remove from his life.
“You don't need to worry,” Bruce says quietly. You don't need to look out for me either, kid.
He's made the mistake of sounding slightly too emotional, breaking the gentle truce of casual conversation. Tim looks uncomfortable, not at the topic, but at Bruce's cracking shell. There is still an unavoidable uncertainty that follows the two of them, a ghost of a boy is constantly standing behind Bruce while the real flesh and blood of Jack Drake is constantly beside Tim. Despite it all, Tim is not Bruce's keeper anymore than Bruce is his, no matter how hard Bruce craves it.
Perhaps this is simply one of those signs. Therefore, Tim had not prepared himself past Bruce's initial answer to the question. In all fairness, he had probably not expected any sort of answer at all.
An answer — they both seem to realise at that moment — Bruce hasn't actually answered yet.
“You sure?” Tim prompts, “You promise?”
How juvenile. Bruce feels the corners of his mouth twitch, but Tim's hands are trembling again, and Bruce has never found humour in scaring children, especially not his own and especially the ones that aren't actually his, “I promise.”
Perhaps Batman does need a Robin, Bruce thinks to himself as Tim swiftly moves on to cleaning his next piece of equipment, But I'm not so sure Robin needs Batman anymore.
He leaves it at that.
Cassandra can tell immediately.
Bruce isn't sure how, or what she's worked out about him specifically, but whatever it is — she can not rationalise it let alone begin to comprehend it. In a way, neither can Bruce.
There is far too much going on for either of them to have a conversation about it (though, even if circumstances had been different, Bruce doesn't expect them to talk about it then either). The city's in ruins, people's bodies are being pulled out from beneath the rubble hourly. The rest of the country has turned their backs on the inevitable demise of Gotham; whether that be it from disease or disaster, silent but eager to see its collapse after years of stubborn will. They are awaiting the collapse.
Batman can not let that happen. He must not break the foundation that he so carefully has placed upon his shoulders.
Gotham hangs in the uneven balance of not quite dead, but not quite alive. There are children playing hopscotch in the destroyed streets, lines drawn with fallen debris, and there are temporary hospitals set up beneath bridges and within gated communities. Bruce can always, constantly, hear the screaming of an abandoned child. It's been days since the earthquake, and yet, Bruce can still feel the trembling of the earth.
As they are perched atop a half demolished bridge, precarious and dangerous in its current unstable temperament, Bruce sees Cassandra sway backwards. She is usually so still it can become difficult to discern her from the other gargoyles that decorate Gotham's older buildings, but right now, she is weak and brittle and her frame rattles with fragility.
Bruce's heart drops, “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Cassandra states, and offers nothing more.
“Batgirl,” Bruce presses more sternly, the name foreign and bitter on his tongue despite the warmth it brings him for a single fleeting moment, “When was the last time you slept?”
Cassandra doesn't say anything this time, far past the point of impressing Bruce with her capabilities and stamina. Now, she seems to want to appeal to him instead, turning her head slowly and levelling him with an annoyingly loud silent expression. And you? When was the last time you slept, Bruce?
Bruce frowns. He doesn't know what to say to her.
After some thought, Bruce goes with what he does best — deflection, “Go get some sleep,” he orders rudely.
“No,” She counters easily, not because she's defiant, but because she genuinely doesn't see the point in it. Why would she go to rest? What's the point in doing that? The city can not rest, and neither can she.
It's been two days since Bruce has slept, and he imagines it's been longer for Cass. This frustration and this guilt, paired with the faint smell of the burst sewer pipes slowly rising above ground towards an emergency food bank, make his jaw tick. He grinds down on his teeth, the dry taste of dehydration and hunger in the back of his throat.
“Do you plan to stay awake until you drop dead?” He demands with a scowl. The moment the question leaves his throat, Bruce feels chastised.
Slowly, Cass cocks her head to the side: Don't you?
Before Bruce can muster up a reply that would've surely ended in Batgirl attempting to kick him off the side of the bridge, the distant sound of a baby's lonely cry pierces through the street. Bruce blinks awake, like he's coming up for air, unsure whether or not this is another trick of his exhausted mind. He doesn't take any chances, but when he looks up to direct Cassandra on where to go, she is already racing towards the direction of the cry.
“I'm not suicidal,” Bruce says with a roll of his eyes, reaching out to take a biscuit from the plate in front of him. Alfred had specifically sent them with him to give to Clark, but what he doesn't know can't hurt him.
Besides, Clark doesn't even seem to mind, given he's more focused on glaring at Bruce from across the table, “I didn’t say you were. I simply made some observations.”
“All of which seem to imply something specific,” Bruce frowns, “Shall I voice some observations I've made about you recently?”
Clark doesn't scowl, because his ironically all-American features don't allow for such a crass expression, but his frown is something close to it. Before things can get ugly (as in, Superman bursting into flames or tears) Bruce slides the plate of biscuits closer to his hand with a smile. The stiff lines of his shoulders relax as Clark silently takes a treat from the batch.
Stood in front of Jason, the Joker and a gun — Bruce is presented with three choices:
Kill Jason, kill Joker or kill Batman.
The longer he looks at Jason, the less he recognises his boy. He's grown stronger and taller than Bruce had ever prayed to see him, no longer a scrappy teenager with too big ears and a head full of curly hair and gone is a wide and toothy smile that filled anyone who saw it with glee. There are pale scars across his large hands that Bruce has never seen before, stories hidden in the folds of his tactical armour and weapons holsters.
He stares down the end of Jason's — Red Hood's gun and is reminded of that night in Crime Alley. How quickly everything has slipped from his control. How quickly he has lost his family. This, too, is his own doing.
Back then, the GCPD had found three bullets at the crime scene. One had gone straight through Thomas Wayne's neck and wedged itself into the wall nearby. The other had embedded itself into Martha Wayne's chest, piercing her lung and laying in the cavity near her ribs.
The final bullet had been found just a few feet from both bodies, hidden amongst nearby trash and debris. This bullet had been meant for Bruce Wayne.
Joe Chill had missed that night.
Tonight, Batman misses.
And Bruce Wayne mourns again.
“You promised,” Tim pants, pulling up Bruce's limp body with adrenaline and disbelief buzzing under his skin, the water cold as it sinks into his bones, “You fucking promised.”
Batman's cowl is held in one of his hands with a trembling vice grip, the other wrapped around Bruce's shoulder and heaving him forward. Within the confines of his fleeting death and subsequent revitalization, Bruce can barely comprehend where or when he is. The centuries he's been gone are condensed into months, the hours of pain blurring into incomprehensible nothing.
Through the haze, Bruce can remember Tim's blurry face appearing from beneath an unfamiliar cowl. I knew you weren't dead. I knew it. No longer Robin, Red Robin, Dick as Batman — Damian.
Part of him is wholly unsurprised by his family's decisions, while a greater part of him can't help but feel disappointed. Not for how they've decided to keep living, to keep fighting, evolution found in new names and small capes and the wrong father's; Bruce is disappointed that his presence has returned as a nuisance. He has returned wrong.
He should've died.
“You promised, Bruce,” Tim repeats shakily. With his hair and the top half of his face covered in this new suit, he looks older.
“Tim…” Bruce coughs, water in his lungs. There's a phantom weight against his heart and mind, the smell of ozone polluting the area around them. Bruce's incompetence shines brightly through the terrified expression on his son’s face. Tim is beyond relieved to see him alive, and judging by the withered and helpless look behind his eyes, he is exhausted by it all the same. He doesn't doubt that something has intrinsically changed within Tim in order for Bruce to be here.
Beyond the reassurance that Bruce is alive, a new emotion flutters across Tim's features.
He is afraid of what will happen now.
Tim breathes in deeply, “You promised.”
Bruce is alive, the most alive he has been in centuries — and he has never been closer to death.
Bruce grabs hold of Batman's cowl, holding Tim's trembling hands still as he does so, “I'm not done yet.” I am alive, I am dead — I can never be both.
The night of Damian's funeral, Bruce considers ending his life.
It shocks him, the conclusiveness of this possibility. For the first time in a long time, Bruce feels small and lost. There is nothing that exists before him that tries to convince him otherwise. He sees his other children standing around muddy graves, younger than they've seemed in years, faces flushed with grief and anger.
But most of all, they feel far, far away. He has no idea who any of them are, not really.
He tries to remember Tim's expression at the funeral, but can only conjure up an image of Damian's lifeless expression, terrified and in pain until his last breath. Barbara tries to call him, multiple times, but Bruce's phone loses battery eventually and when she turns to contacting him through the comm line, he removes himself from the radio.
That image of Damian's face haunts him for the days that follow. He can still feel the warmth leaving his son’s body as he cradles him to his chest. With that, Bruce removes the decision to end his life, and instead, carves a space within him. He is empty, there is a void where his baby should be, and he will fill it.
Bruce finds himself looking at the shadows in the corner of his vision and imagining a young boy, a witty comment that treads between the fine line of sarcastic and rude on the tip of his tongue as Bruce fails to suppress his amusement at Damian's words. The first time he works up the courage to enter the boy's bedroom, he is overcome with inexplicable anger for the way everything remains unchanged. Damian's death is an upheaval in Bruce's life, and yet, his belongings remain. His letters, his paintings — the ink is still fresh.
It is a reminder that this is all his doing. That he, alone, has condemned his son to a short and painful life. Bruce aches at every sharp comment he directed towards the boy as he sits too close to the fireplace and lets the flames ghost the hair on his arms, the smell of burning paper and death consuming him. He tries to imagine Damian's final thoughts, but can only remember the weight of his corpse. He was so very little, his boy.
Going on the first patrol with the ghost of Robin has been an experience Bruce swore he would never allow to happen again. If he moves too quickly, he can see a flash of Damian's cape against the dark sky. If he stares too intently at one part of their patrol route, Bruce can almost hear the quiet giggling of a mischievous child.
He doesn't remember much else from that night.
Reports from Gordon indicate a ridiculous amount of criminals apprehended, as well property damage he graciously sweeps under the rug. Back at the manor, Alfred spends hours cleaning up the worst of Bruce's childish meltdown; destroyed training equipment, shredded uniforms — his blood.
But viscerally, Bruce recalls one decision. He finds a goal to fill up the decaying emptiness that encompasses him.
I will resurrect my son, even if it kills me.
Dick's near-death takes Bruce to the arctic, traversing through a snowstorm with bullet holes in his side and infection clawing up his body. It takes him to a dark and inexplicable loneliness that is misconstrued as vengeance for a son who is half dead and sinking. Dick wouldn't want this. But Dick had almost died, and Bruce hadn't wanted that either.
When he leaves KGBeast for dead on the side of a mountain, his back broken and the rapid falling of snow burying his sins, Bruce entertains the brief possibility of laying in the ice next to him.
It would be easy for the both of them to disappear into nature's own cycle of justice. A life for a life.
But his son is waiting for him and Bruce has never wanted to live more than now.
When Alfred dies, Bruce feels nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
It takes him a while to realise it's not the complete absence of feelings that Bruce surmised into nothing. He reacted in many ways during that period of his life — he screamed, cried, tore through walls both figuratively and literally. He had said horribly cruel things to his friends and family, pushed away his children instead of helping them through this shared grief. This has to mean something more than nothing.
It would be a disservice to Alfred if Bruce pretended he'd become numb.
With every death that weighs down his soul, Bruce finds himself growing crueler — but not sharper. It pulls him at the seams and restitches him uneven and potholed, eagerly filling these spaces with unnecessary barbarity. His soft underbelly is left exposed and vulnerable and there is no reprieve.
But Alfred's death had been different, something else hidden amongst the devastation and the rage.
For the first time in a long time — Bruce was afraid.
Once, he'd travelled the globe because of an offhand comment from the old man. In a way, this choice had conceptualised the entire world into a series of adventures and lessons, the magic of people and places replaced with experiences to never reattempt. Because of that, venturing off into the world had never felt like an impossible obstacle to overcome later on, it seems was an extension to what Batman was.
But now, with Alfred gone, the world seems like an awfully dangerous place for Bruce Wayne to live in.
It's been many years since his death now. Gotham is recovering from the recurring tragedy and disaster that have plagued it for the last half-decade, its people stronger and less inclined to accept defeat with practice and will. Bruce's children, on their own terms and through their own journeys, have returned home, one by one. There is still progress to be made here, conversations and history not so easily forgiven and forgotten — but the resolution is closer than it has ever been.
Throughout it all, Bruce has come to his own revelation as well: He's exhausted.
This revelation has landed him in a small countryside manor in the South East of England, amongst the uneven green hills dotted with sheep and wild deer. It's a humble home compared to the estates around it, two stories and lush land around it that never really ends, with the occasional smaller building randomly dotted around. The nearest neighbour is almost two miles away, the town even further, nothing but winding rounds and endless skies.
It's not impossible to imagine this being the place Alfred grew up, even if it was just for a little while. Pennyworth Manor is a polite and quiet replica of its previous owner.
It had been the only thing left to Bruce in Alfred's will.
It's not impossible to imagine why that is, either.
It's rather lonely, out here. It's an easy place to disappear from, without affecting anyone else, without anyone noticing. The burden of passing would be his alone to bear and witness.
“Ah shit!” Bruce hears the back door open, thundering footsteps approaching the dining room he's been occupying for most of the morning, “Titus no! Get back outside!”
The dog’s barking, loud and full of insatiable energy, tells Bruce that despite his recommendations, Duke and Damian decide to go down to the river. It's February, so the English weather is deceptively nice, a warm toned sun and clear bright blue sky — but Bruce knows not to trust the aesthetics of it. He'd been the first one to wake up, and opening his bedroom window had told him just how cold it was going to be.
His suspicions are confirmed when Duke comes waddling into the room, soaked from the waist down, shivering pathetically. His teeth chatter louder at the sight of Bruce sitting with a cup of coffee and a blanket over his shoulders.
Bruce rolls his eyes, “Come on over here.”
The boy doesn't need much convincing, since he all but throws himself into the chair beside Bruce, pressing himself against the man's side to wrap the blanket around them both. Bruce had actually meant to slide both the blanket and coffee mug over, but he's not going to push Duke away, so he sighs and accepts the cold water soaking the side of his pajamas.
“Don't say anything,” Duke grumbles, still shivering, “Damian pushed me in.”
“Sure. Where is Damian anyway?” Bruce asks with a poorly suppressed smirk.
The boy scoffs, “Hopefully drowning.”
“Still in the lake then,” Bruce chuckles, coughing to hide it when Duke shoots him a scathing glare, “I did tell you both not to go down there.”
“We were following the stone path through the trees,” Duke shrugs, leaning into Bruce to steal his body heat, replacing it with the pre-spring chill from outside, “But we saw a little path to the side through the grass. Someone had obviously used it a lot since it was just sticking out. So we followed it to the edge of the lake. Then… Damian pushed me.”
The corner of Bruce's mouth quirks a little, “A desire path. There's quite a few of those around here.”
Bruce had found them his first week here, when he'd successfully detached himself from the confines of Gotham's watchful eyes and flown himself to the English countryside. Many of the paths around the estate are cobble and moss, lined with smooth pebbles, but there are other thinner paths embedded into the ground, crossing patches of grass and fern. Following those had taken Bruce on a more personal journey around the Manor; through hidden flower patches, by the shallow edge of a river with an old rope swing, to a small hill that overlooked the sunset.
Bruce had used that particular path a lot, following the careful outline of small feet dug into the hill, just to watch the sunset.
“Do you think Alfred made those paths back when he lived here?” Duke asks quietly, using his thumb to trace around a small indent in the dining table in front of them.
Bruce hums, “Maybe.” He hadn't had time to search for all of them to paint a picture on who might've created them.
After all, only a week into his isolation in the country home did Dick show up. He'd arrived alone, and judging by his tight and furious expression at the sight of Bruce sitting on the ground pulling weeds out of an overgrown flower bed, he'd arrived by himself because he didn't know what state he'd find Bruce in. Better to have dealt with it — whatever it would've been — alone before the others got involved.
The first thing Dick said was; “You ran away from home and didn't even leave a note. Are you fourteen? No — scratch that — at least Damian actually told us before he fucked off to die in another country!”
The second thing he said was; “I thought you would be dead.”
Then finally, “Can I help?”
They spent the remaining weekend clearing out most of the overgrown weeds and vines from the front of the house. The back was less of an issue since it was unclear where the garden ended and the fields began, so they cleaned enough space to bring out a small outdoor table and some chairs from one of the garden sheds. It was rusted and creaked precariously whenever Bruce shifted in his seat, much to Dick's amusement, but the finished sight of their landscaping filled them with satisfied completion.
Dick had taken one look inside the manor itself and grimaced. He had to return to Gotham, tasked with breaking the news that Bruce wasn't rotting away in some abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, and also with the approval of Cass’ first run as a temporary Batman (that had been a surprisingly quick, and surprisingly easy, decision for them to make), but promised to return soon to help clean the interior. Bruce didn't believe him.
He was proven right when one day, he came downstairs to find Jason scrubbing at the kitchen floor. Wordlessly, he deposited a mop and bucket in Bruce's arms and, wordlessly again, Bruce went back upstairs to start cleaning. Jason had not said a word to him the entire three days he stayed to help clean the manor, didn't eat meals with him and certainly didn't join him on any walks around the estate.
He did, however, stay until the manor looked almost livable. Then, just as quickly as he had appeared, Jason vanished. It had been so abrupt that the only proof Bruce had that it wasn't all a desperate hallucination was his sparkling reflection in every window. The days that followed felt louder, without Jason's carefully executed sounds and movements around the manor.
Since then, new visitors have popped in for days at a time. Bruce thought he learned to expect the pattern after Jason, since Tim showed up the following weekend to fit the manor with WiFi (“Just because you want to be a hermit doesn't mean you need to actually live like one. Would it kill you to send Babs a text?”) — but after him, Clark had flown in with his entire family. Over the last month, familiar and once-familiar faces placed their own footsteps onto the Pennyworth estate.
Faintly, Bruce wonders if it had ever held this many guests, or if Alfred's paths were his alone.
“You okay?” Duke pokes his side, making Bruce exhale sharply through his nose in surprise, “You looked like you were drifting off man.”
“Just thinking,” Bruce sighs.
“I've been thinking too,” Duke takes advantage of the answer immediately, uncharacteristically nervous as he taps the table with his knuckles, “I was thinking, maybe, I could bring my ma here next weekend? She's not been on a trip since she left the hospital after they got rid of the Joker gas and… you guys should really meet. At some point.”
This time, Bruce doesn't stop himself from smiling. Duke's too busy glaring at his fist to notice the approval on the man's face.
“Not next weekend,” Duke tenses, so Bruce quickly adds on, “But you should bring her the weekend after. I'd be honoured to meet her properly.”
Confused, Duke finally looks at him, “Someone already booked the guest rooms for next weekend?”
The phrasing makes Bruce huff a short laugh, “No one's coming. It's my birthday.”
Duke's eyes go wide for a moment, unable to hide his surprise. In Damian and Duke's short joint-visit to the manor, Bruce had told them how he first learned about this place when Alfred suggested they go on a trip for his fifteenth birthday, so the topic is still fresh in all of their hearts. Judging by Duke's sobering expression, the timing of this entire holiday is not lost on him.
Instead of asking about why Bruce wants to be left alone during that time, Duke's signature bright and unabashed smile greets him, “You're turning fifty, right? Congrats man. You're officially the oldest bestfriend I’ve ever had.”
Bruce rolls his eyes, wrapping the rest of the soggy blanket around Duke without apology and tipping his seat to side, “Go get changed before you catch a cold.”
“Alright old man, don't pull a muscle,” Duke laughs, bouncing off the chair with glee. He turns on his heel before he reaches the door, giving Bruce a surprisingly weighted look despite the levity of his tone, “If you're not okay with it, I can take my ma to like… Coast City, or something. No pressure man.”
Bruce blinks, affronted, “Don't you dare. I’m looking forward to meeting her here.”
Duke smiles, pleased. Without any more fanfare, he turns and makes a dash for the guest room he's claimed as his own, no doubt to change into something warmer and less waterlogged. Bruce listens to the distant thumping of footsteps that echoes through the old structure of the manor, proof of life that is seperate to Bruce's. Outside, Bruce can hear the return of Titus’ overjoyed barking, followed closely by Damian's equally as amused rambling.
Slowly, he rises to his feet. No doubt Damian's going to come in claiming to have had the time of his life traversing the unconquered Pennyworth Lake, shivering in his wet clothes and unwilling to admit it. Bruce might as well have some hot tea waiting for him.
As he waits for the water to boil, Bruce realises he's quite a bit busy for the next few weeks. Distantly, Bruce considers returning for his birthday next year. Maybe with others. Though, there is a long time yet until that can be considered.
Even in this small and fleeting adventure amongst fields and hills and foreign sunsets, there is much to look forward to.
Just as the kettle whistles, the backdoor slams open, “Father! Whatever that liar said is false. He pushed me into the lake!”
Bruce smiles. Much, indeed.