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"Hey, Connor? I'm going to give you my phone number in a few seconds, and then I'm gonna need you to call me, sound good?"
Bernard pressed his locked phone tighter to his ear, just in case anyone overheard him 'talking to himself'. The rain was getting heavier as he casually strolled away from Amusement Mile, nothing in his body language that might suggest what he'd just done. Who he'd just killed.
“848-556-3289. We still want to keep this all on the down-low, right?"
The last thing Bernard needed was Superboy to descend from the sky, no matter how convenient it would be to get home. There had been no blood on his clothes, no fingerprints on the gun he'd left behind, and even though he had no ambition of becoming a serial killer, Bernard refused to give the game away so easily. Tim had brought his friends in as the alibi, risking Batman's disgruntled anger. He was using Bernard's own 'obliviousness' as the reason he wasn't joining the Bats looking for the clown. He couldn't let that effort go to waste just because he wanted to see Tim quicker.
The buzz of his phone against his cheek brought him out of his contemplations, glad to have silenced it earlier (the last thing he needed was for Shakira to start blasting on the empty boardwalk). Accepting the call without even checking the number, Bernard tucked his smile away, ducked his head, and kept on walking as that strange accent filled his ear.
"Smart thinking. How did you know I'd be listening?"
"I figured Tim would find a way to gut you if you weren't." Snorting softly, Bernard lengthened his stride, not looking like he was running but also not ambling. Ambling in Gotham got him mugged, and he really wasn't in the mood to deal with anything else tonight. He just wanted to go home, back to Tim, to promise his love that his nightmare was finally over.
"Oh yeah, he's glaring at me at the moment. So, do you need an extraction? Did everything-"
"Nah, I'm walking home now," Bernard cut him off, not sure how much Superboy might know about Gotham vigilantes. He still had Oracle in his other ear, and he had no intention of flagging her attention as a call to tap. "It's practice in this place to call someone when walking around; it gives everyone a heads up in case I go missing or turn up in a ditch somewhere. Are you guys still at my place?"
"Dude, if you get shanked after everything, Tim's gonna go mental."
"I'll be fine," Bernard snorted, hearing his reluctant passenger chuckle at the thought of anyone harming him when Dionysus was so close to the surface. "Should I head back to you guys or to Tim's boat? We've kinda got a lot to talk about-"
In the distance of the call, he could hear Tim start yelling, bringing a bright smile to his face that he didn't bother to hide. Who cared if he looked insane when Tim was fighting his best friend for the phone?
"-Bernard! Are you okay? Kon won't say-"
"Oi! This is my phone! Dude, don't try to bite me!"
"I bought you that phone, Connor Kent, now give it!"
"Connor, just give Tim the phone," Bernard laughed, heart swelling with love when Tim let out a triumphant yell and a door slammed in the distance. "Just you now, babe?"
"Yeah," Tim sighed, and Bernard could almost picture the way Tim would cradle his phone close whenever he wanted the conversation to be private, even when he was alone in his room. "… You're okay, right?"
"Right as the rain that's soaking me through," Bernard happily reported, just to get Tim to snort in laughter. Peering up into the darkening sky, Bernard carefully began to plot out his route. He had to head through the Heights no matter what, but he'd need to know where he was going by the time he reached Aparo Bridge. "Just leaving University Drive. Where do you want me to go?"
There was a slight pause as Tim thought it over, letting Bernard's feet and the heavy rain be the only beat in their conversation.
"The boat. I'll grab a coat and meet you there."
"The green one you like is at the bottom of the laundry basket," Bernard told him, glad to have a destination in mind as he nearly skipped over bollards. A cop car cruised past him, but the sirens were off, so it was likely just a routine patrol. Still, Bernard gave a lazy salute when his eyes met the woman behind the wheel, grinning when she raised a hand in greeting. Sure, they were never going to be best friends, but Bernard didn't go out of his way to be rude to cops. Someone had to protect the city when his boyfriend was busy. "Just washed it last week, but I haven't hung it up yet."
"That or any of your jerseys," Tim pointed out incredulously, faint rustling coming through the line.
"You do not get to judge me for my organisational skills," Bernard replied, an offended hand to his chest. Red Hood began yelling again in his other ear, and he quickly slid the Bat-Comm into his pocket. He did not want to listen to a crime lord when the love of his life was being a little shit. "How long has it been since you've done laundry? Remind me again- oh wait, three weeks. Your clothes chair is three sweaters away from sentience."
"And he'll still be a better house guest than half of my family," Tim replied in his snippiest, most high-society tone. A tone guaranteed to get Bernard laughing because of how ridiculous it was that people actually talked like that. (His parents tried to talk like that, but it always lacked the substance that Tim could put into his words, despite the fact that he could switch it on and off at the drop of a hat). In a quieter voice, Tim softly asked the question again, and Bernard knew he'd be hugging Tim for as long as the younger boy could stand the second he saw him again. "Seriously though, you're okay?"
"A bit of a sore head, but nothing else," Bernard reassured, raising his voice as he approached the denser traffic. "I'm gonna need to let you go now, babe; pretty sure every student in this place is heading Downtown-"
"It is still Wednesday, right? What the hell are they doing out on a Wednesday-"
"-and I've still got to cross Aparo," Bernard laughed at Tim's disgruntled complaining. "I'll see you soon. I love you."
"Love you too," Tim whispered before the line went dead.
Bernard slipped his phone back into his pocket and squared his shoulders with a quick breath. The sooner he got back to Tim, the better they'd both feel. So, picking up his pace, he slipped through throngs of students, laughter and groans surrounding him until he was just another student heading towards the neon lines of Downtown Gotham. There was nothing to distinguish him as someone who had just murdered someone.
And as Bernard hurried through streets he knew better than his syllabus, he was eternally grateful that nothing about him stood out to the bloodthirsty gangs that prowled the West End.
The Joker's death would have ramifications across the whole city, not only for Batman and his family. Whilst the clown was never a territory hoarder like some people (Penguin and Black Mask immediately sprang to mind), he had still controlled the city from the shadows with more fear than Batman could ever inspire. He was the creature in the night that every Gothamite knew to fear, especially the ones that worked for him. The Batman was there to instil fear of an afterlife in thugs and cartels, but the Joker was the one who actually sent them there.
And now they would be free of that.
The level of control the Joker had over people was an intoxicating drug, and Bernard just knew there would be plenty of copycats once the body was discovered. But copycats come and go, and without Harley's backing, they would sink back into the shadows, grumbling about missed opportunities until the Bat broke their bones.
Jumping over the wall that separated the upper levels of the West end from the lower, Bernard tried to mentally sort out the pros from the cons as he landed in a careful crouch. He was slowly getting better at parkouring, even in its most basic form, and he was grateful for it when it meant shortcuts like that. Instead of walking a further ten minutes and looping back on the downward slope, he was able to just hop, jump, and slide his way through Gotham's various levels and architectural oddities. He'd need to ask Tim if parkouring was a Bat-skill that Batman taught them all; if they were going to talk about the truth, that is. Otherwise, he'd just have to put a pin in that question until Tim was ready to confront it.
He was confident enough in their relationship, or at least his devotion to it, that he was pretty sure Tim would bring up the topic of Robin. It had hovered over them enough, but he still meant what he said. If Tim didn't want him to know, he'd play the oblivious boyfriend until the city burned around them. There was nothing he wouldn't do if it brought Tim just a little bit of peace.
The city around him began its choruses of screams and sirens, and it took Bernard several detours to avoid the ringing gunshots that happened on nearly every corner. It might be driving the heroes in his apartment crazy that they couldn't be out helping, but then again, the Bat's meta rule was absolute. Even if it would help, none of them could leave without their house of cards falling down around them.
Even with his detours, it only took thirty minutes for Bernard to reach the marina, nodding his head to the neighbours he recognised as he beelined for the boat he knew better than his own apartment. It was a rusty piece of shit, but he loved it for the safety it had given Tim. Any place where Tim felt secure enough to plant roots was heaven to Bernard's heart.
And speaking of his heart, Tim was just sitting above the door, swinging his legs in the open doorway as he clearly waited for Bernard to come home. He could see the instant Tim saw him, his face brightening even though he didn't smile, legs stilling in the air as his arms began to tremble from where they were braced against the roof. And the second that Bernard clamboured onto the deck, Tim was jumping, pushing off his perch and falling right into he arms that immediately went to catch him. Bernard would always catch Tim whenever he felt like falling.
"You're alright," Tim breathed, flinging his arms around Bernard's neck and burying his face right in the crook of his shoulder, drawing in shaky breaths as Bernard brought his arms around Tim's waist. Squeezing gently as his love shook in relief. Clearly the phone call hadn't been enough, not that Bernard could blame him.
He had gone to kill the Joker.
"I'm alright," Bernard confirmed, burying his face in Tim's hair and breathing in the clear scent of oranges that had begun to mean home. Squeezing him again, Bernard kissed the side of Tim's head, holding him as close as he dared until their souls had a chance to fuse together. "I'm alright. I promise. It's all over now, darling. He's never going to hurt you ever again."
"I don't care about him," Tim murmured, turning just enough to press warm lips against Bernard's frozen ones, searing life back into his rain-soaked body. "I care about you. Fuck, I'm so glad you're okay."
"Of course, I promised, didn't I?" Bernard muttered, chasing those lips until they were kissing in the rain, two steps away from the indoors, but too lost in each other to care. The city was alive around them, and more importantly, they were with each other.
Feeling Tim slide his fingers through his hair, Bernard tried to stifle the groan of pleasure building in his chest, pride and love coursing through him like the blood that kept him alive. Gripping Tim's shirt, he fell greedily into the kiss, not even caring about breathing because Tim was sighing sweetly, and everything just felt right. Who needed air when they could be kissing Tim Drake?
A wolf whistle cut through the air, ripping through the little bubble that was just the two of them as they broke away from one another. Two boats over stood Darcy, a mischievous grin lighting her face as she raised her fingers up to whistle again.
"We getting a show, boys?" She called, grinning even when Tim grabbed a can from the deck to throw at her.
"Fuck off!" He shouted, but he was laughing, and so was Bernard, reaching over to tangle their hands together as he took an exaggerated bow.
"Sorry, this show has an exclusive audience and you're not part of it!" He called as soon as he straightened up, feeling Tim lean into his side.
"Then quit eating face in public!"
"Shall we head inside?" Tim murmured, chuckling softly as Bernard gave Darcy the middle finger he always had ready for her.
"And hide away with my beautiful boyfriend?" Bernad grinned, kissing Tim's cheek before tugging their entwined hands, leading the way to the stairs. "I could be convinced."
"Oh, really? I need to convince you?" Tim smirked, following him until they were out of sight from the rest of the marina's residents. Only then, instead of following, he took the lead, pressing Bernard into the wall and leaving a lingering kiss that only made the blonde want to follow it down once more. Instead, he got a tantalising smirk and dancing blue eyes that sparkled in the dim light of the cabin. "How will I ever manage?"
"You're doing a pretty good job right now."
Tim smiled, his eyes turning smug as he slipped from Bernard’s space, turning to walk away with the grace of a leopard. ‘I love to watch him walk away.’ Shaking that thought from his head, Bernard followed Tim right back into his bedroom, smiling softly when his boyfriend reached for him. Stepping up and sliding his fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, Bernard pressed a brief kiss to Tim’s nose before pulling back to watch his eyes. No matter how good his mouth was at lying, Bernard could always read the truth in those captivating eyes.
“Are you happy? That I killed him?”
“… I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” Tim confessed slowly, clearly taking a moment to think and feel. He reached out, fiddling with the jacket Bernard hadn’t even taken off yet. Looking for bloodstains or just needing to feel that he was real, Bernard gave Tim all the time in the world. As long as he was honest, that’s all Bernard needed. “I’ve wanted him dead for so long, I didn’t really think about the aftermath.”
“There will be a power grab,” Bernard pointed out softly, still not feeling the slightest amount of regret. Whatever the outcome was, it had to be better than letting the clown live. It had to be.
“Not if we’re prepared.” And there it was, the spark of a plan flaring up behind opal eyes. Fingers twitched as Tim no doubt wanted a phone to text on, but Bernard managed to pull his hands off of Tim’s hips. Just to lay on the hand tapping over his heart, and the other to bracket Tim’s cheek, his thumb slowly rubbing along the scar he couldn’t even see.
“Always got a plan,” Bernard whispered, soft smile firmly on his face as Tim’s eyelids fluttered. Back and forth, he kept caressing his boyfriend’s beautiful face, leaning forward just enough to kiss the corner of his lips. Right where Joker had tried to claim this incredible boy.
Tried and failed, and Bernard was never so glad for how strong Tim was. It was awe-inspiring, knowing what he had been through when Bernard hadn’t even known his name.
“You’re making this whole talking thing more difficult than it has to be,” Tim murmured, dazed eyes fluttering back open as he leaned further into Bernard’s hold. Trusting him implicitly to hold and never hurt. Bernard wasn’t entirely convinced that it was impossible to get drunk off of trust alone. That look alone did things to his heart that he didn’t have the vocabulary to describe, which meant it could only be intoxication of the most divine making.
“Oh, sorry, love, do you need me to stop touching you?” Bernard smirked, laughing softly as Tim’s fingers clenched down, not letting him get even an inch from his grip.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Tim hissed, pulling Bernard’s hair just to bring their mouths back together, need, fury, and something that tasted like pride painting his lips. “You just killed the Joker. Good luck getting me off you after that.”
“Good thing I only want you closer then, isn’t it?”
"Did you practise that line in the mirror?" Tim sniggered, kissing him swiftly as he pulled him further into the room, until Tim's knees hit his unmade bed. But Bernard wasn't some kind of savage, so he pulled his rain-slick coat off, casting it off into a heap to join the rest of the laundry that Tim was putting off. He wouldn't be the one responsible for damp sheets, no matter how tempting it was just to sink down to Tim's side and never surface ever again.
"Did you put cameras in my apartment again?" Bernard asked, raising a hand to his chest as if Tim had dealt a fatal blow before he tried to shimmy out of his soaked jeans. A feat that at least garnered him a little sympathy from his smirking boyfriend, bringing down the simmering heat between them until they were giggling teenagers again. "Why do I even bother wearing jeans when it rains every day?"
"Because your ass looks incredible in them?" Tim helpfully suggested, grinning when Bernard laughed.
"My ass looks incredible in everything," Bernard shot back, finally freeing his legs from their denim sticky prison. Once the worst of the wet clothes were off his body, Bernard dived into bed beside Tim, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend as he pulled them both down. And even though Tim could absolutely stay upright if he wanted to, he fell back into Bernard's chest with a giddy laugh, placing his hands on the arms wrapped around his waist in a strange mimicry of the night when Tim had told Bernard all about Joker Junior. They weren't sitting in contemplative silence, looking at each other through the distortion of a mirror; they were now face to face, elation running through them and burning away any fear that might once have lingered.
Bernard just couldn't stop looking at Tim, wishing for a second that the rain had washed that damn makeup off his boyfriend's face, but unwilling to let him go to wash it off himself. He couldn't see his scars, or the eyebags that typically weighed down those beautiful eyes; he couldn't see the proof that Tim was real, right beside him, in the home they were making together.
"I love you," Bernard breathed, completely in awe of the boy beside him. And even when Tim blushed lightly at his honesty, he didn't pull away. Even though Bernard was now a murderer. "Fuck, I love you so much."
"I love you too," Tim said softly, craning his neck to kiss along Bernard's cheekbone. "Even though you could have told me you knew."
"I wanted you to trust me; it wasn't my secret to reveal," Bernard reminded him before catching the glint of gold from underneath Tim's shirt. Heart skipping madly, he slid a hand up Tim's chest to feel the outline of his initial through his shirt; the lucky charm he had hoped would keep his vigilante boyfriend as safe as a necklace could. But the fact that Tim wore it? Had worn it whilst Bernard was eliminating the biggest threat to Tim's peace? That made the possessive part of his heart, which always wanted more of Tim, purr in contentment.
"I do trust you," Tim insisted quietly, but something troubled settled over his lips and forehead, frowning slightly at whatever memory came over him. "It's just- I don't have a good track record for people finding out. My dad threatened Batman with a gun until I quit being Robin, and Spoiler took over-"
"The blonde Robin was Spoiler?" Bernard asked, hating to interrupt but needing something else to focus on, so he didn't go and dig up Jack Drake and haul his worm-riddled corpse to rot with Joker's. "That makes so much more sense than the theory that she was a de-aged Black Canary."
"When was that a theory?" Tim choked, startling in his arms as he scrambled to turn around properly. Eyes wide with disbelief, Tim pushed himself into a kneeling position, straddling Bernard's hips as blue eyes demanded all the information he had.
"BC disappeared for a while when you did, then a blonde Robin showed up on the scene," Bernard shrugged, thinking back to what he knew about the purple-clad vigilante. "No one had even seen her face because of the mask and hood she wore, hell, I didn't even realise Spoiler was blonde. Wait, does this mean she's the blonde Batgirl, too?"
"Wait, hold on, do you not know who Spoiler is?" Tim asked, not even answering his question as he shifted backwards, pulling Bernard up into a sitting position because clearly this conversation needed to happen upright. Not that Bernard minded Tim lecturing him from above as he got to relax into the bed and enjoy the feeling of Tim's thighs squeezing around him.
"I could probably make an educated guess?" Bernard supposed, shifting them both slightly so that he could more comfortably hold Tim in his lap. "I do have fun making up dumbass theories, okay? Though given how many blondes are in your life, it could take me a couple of tries to pin her down. Do you want me to work out the rest? You were my friend, and I already felt like I was invading your privacy when I figured it out."
"How did you figure me out?" Tim asked slowly, digesting Bernard's rambling with a calculating glint in his eyes.
"Jacked enough to be a jock, but too nerdy to pull it off," Bernard repeated their old joke, chuckling as Tim groaned in despair. "I knew you were into something you weren't talking about. Plus, I had a stupid crush on you as Robin, and no matter what accent you were using, there was something about you that felt so familiar every time I saw you out there. Then, you got hurt, really hurt, and Robin wasn't out for months. I figured either you knew Robin, or were Robin, and well, the years kinda proved the theory."
"You've been watching me the whole time?" Tim asked, thankfully not interrogating Bernard over the whole crushing on Robin thing. Though his cheeks did turn an adorable shade of pink.
"Kinda? Not like, full-on stalking you, but watching a little closer than the average person," Bernard confirmed.
"Okay, if the Bats ever find out that you know, you are not telling that story," Tim snorted, pressing his palm to Bernard's mouth to halt the flood of protesting that immediately began. "No! My pride will not allow that. Hood will never let me live that down!"
Bernard licked a long stripe against Tim's hand, but when that didn't get his boyfriend to move more than a disgusted grimace, he jabbed his fingers right into Tim's waist, sending him shrieking as he kicked out in reflex.
"You ass!" Tim protested as Bernard flopped back into the bed, laughing his head off at Tim's expressions. "I'm trying to have a serious conversation and you fucking lick me?!"
"You weren't complaining last week," Bernard sniggered, leering at his boyfriend as Tim flushed crimson, kicking out at him gently in retaliation. "What? Am I lying? Did you not enjoy me licking your co-"
"Shut. Up." Tim stressed, grabbing a jumper from the floor and smacking it across Bernard's face, halting his words as a sleeve got lodged in his mouth. "The last thing I want is my best friend to know that."
"Conner's still listening?" Bernard checked before his phone lit up with a message. Checking it briefly, Bernard let out a startled laugh as Conner's number was displayed at the top of the screen, two emojis conveying the message loud and clear. "Does your friend think he's being subtle when he uses the sunglass smiley?"
"Don't get me started on those fucking sunglasses," Tim groaned, reaching over to pluck Bernard's phone from his slack grasp. By the time it was back on the bed, Tim had sent a total of twenty middle finger emojis, still flushed in the face as he told his best friend to fuck off.
"You know half the internet ships you two, right?"
"Oh, I know," Tim snorted, rolling his eyes before lying back on top of Bernard's chest. "Trust me, it's something we talked about when you and I got together. Conner didn't realise I like guys-"
"You didn't know you liked guys."
"-and it took him some time to realise he was the same," Tim continued, poking his cheek in retaliation for the interruption. But then he settled back, fiddling with Bernard's shirt as his memory took him back to a time Bernard knew Tim struggled to talk about. The aftermath of Superboy's death, and then Batman's disappearance. "I think, maybe if we'd both realised when we were younger, we would have been a thing. But then I remember his death, and I think of how much worse it would have been if we had realised the love we had. Kon came back like nothing had happened and I-…I changed too much to be the boy he fell in love with."
"I'm convinced I fell in love the moment I met you," Bernard pointed out, knowing he couldn't really compare as he hadn't been in life-or-death situations with Tim at his side. He hadn't seen the hero side of things, no matter how hard he had dug to find the truth once Tim came back home. "You've changed drastically since the boy I first met, but I still love you."
"I think Kon fell in love with Robin before he could get feelings for Tim," Tim mumbled, resting his chin on Bernard's sternum, right above the scar that would have ripped his heart out. Yet somehow, feeling Tim there felt more life-changing than that day could ever have hoped to be. He didn't need his heart as long as Tim had a place to rest.
"You're speaking like that's two different people."
"Isn't it?" Tim asked rhetorically, bitterness coating his tongue.
"Brave, kind, smart, funny," Bernard began, counting out characteristics as Tim straightened up, blinking down at him in confusion. Well, he could continue to sit there looking lost but lovely, because Bernard wouldn't let Tim feel so discordant about his identity. Especially not after tonight, when wide eyes and a wider smile had finally slipped closed. "Sarcastic as all hell, but that just adds to your charm, terrifying in the right circumstances, amazing voice, stunning eyes, strong, loyal, an ass that I have admired maybe too many times before Ives told me off, oh, gorgeous laugh. Seriously, the best sound I've ever heard-"
"Is there a point to this?" Tim asked, laughing in disbelief and warming Bernard's world with its beauty.
"There is," he insisted softly, reaching up to cup Tim's cheeks, bringing his boyfriend down for a lingering kiss. But he could pull himself from this one because his words were important. Maybe even more important than kissing Tim's lips. "Now, tell me; did I describe Tim, or Robin?"
"…That's not the point-"
"Did I describe Tim, or Robin?" Bernard insisted, not letting Tim dodge his way out of the question as his thumbs carefully traced over where he knew his scars to be. "I described both because you are both. And to love one is to love the other, and I love all of you. Every last inch and bad decision."
"I've never made a bad decision in my life," Tim sniffed, shaking slightly in his hold.
"Ehh, your Gotham Knights jersey would disagree with you," Bernard sniggered, grinning into the kiss that Tim gave him just to shut him up. Yes, he was aware of his boyfriend's tricks, but god help him, he would gladly fall for them every single time.
His phone buzzed again, but Bernard threw it across the room, his hands being far too busy to reply to whatever emoji Conner was sending now. Instead of typing, one was gripping Tim's hip as he got lost in the taste of his lips, the other hand playing with the hem of Tim's shirt. Adrenaline was still running fast through his blood, his brain crashing out as it screamed between the ecstasy of killing the biggest threat to his lover, and the pulsing serotonin that hid somewhere in the corner of Tim's smile.
"Would it be crazy to fuck after you just killed someone?" Tim panted into his mouth, leaving his lips and trailing down to his neck before Bernard could even make a sound of protest. Feeling Tim's teeth along his pulse did things to Bernard's brain he was too embarrassed to voice aloud, a whine dying in his throat as plain flared deliciously over his mind.
"I think we passed crazy three supervillains ago," Bernard choked instead, immediately switching up his grip to hold Tim's head steady, not letting his boyfriend leave as he sucked bitemarks and bruises into the pale flesh of his throat.
Joker had tried to claim Tim as his, yet on the evening of his death, Tim was laying claim to the man who killed his would-be father. The civilian who had consistently chosen him, precisely as he was; Tim, Robin, Joker Junior- Bernard had chosen them all, and loved them.
What else could he do but pay that love back with the pain that almost took his boyfriend before they had gotten a chance to be?
"The Joker has been found dead."
Tim stilled as Bruce's voice echoed out through the comms, serious and slow, as if he were reporting just enough crime. Not paying attention to the way every Robin and Batgirl, past and present, held their breath in anticipation, waiting to see who'd be the first to celebrate the news.
"The GCPD found the body at Amusement Mile two hours ago; estimated time of death based on the decomposition was two weeks ago."
Damn, Tim knew the cops were incompetent, but he had honestly expected the discovery sooner, even if Jim hadn't told the Bat immediately. But no, they had only just found the Joker's corpse, and Jim had told Bruce immediately. Okay, Tim could work with this.
"Were they able to positively ID the body?" He asked, breaking the silence that had been interrupted by his siblings as the radio exploded with noise, demands, and double checks being shouted from across the city. "At two weeks, the body should be in active decay, even with the rain we've had recently."
"Blood matched the reports we had on file," Bruce grunted, the sound of air whistling being the only hint that the Batman was on the move. "There are also distinct markers on the body that confirm it to be the Joker."
"Someone finally fucking killed that clown?" Jason muttered, a strange mix of gleeful and confused that set Tim's trajectory for the night.
Pushing up from the gargoyle he was perched on, Tim brought his wrist computer to life, searching for his brother's tracker and setting his mark. With a destination set, Tim jumped, falling through the air as he felt the secret of the Joker's death fly from his shoulders, set free as his body was finally discovered. He'd need to tell Bernard, but that could happen when they were face-to-face, and no Bat could find their conversation later.
Snapping out his grapple, Tim flew through the air like a spectre, feeling a grin itch at his scars as he listened to his family demand explanations and making plans. But one voice was absent, so between hopping rooftops and water towers, Tim sent a message Barbara's way, concern bubbling in his stomach at the continued absence of Joker's other victim.
'You alright, Babs?'
'How do we know he's really gone, Tim?'
'Phone your dad. He'll tell you.'
'But how would I know without Batman telling me?'
'Closure is more important than a secret, I'm sure your dad knows already. Just talk to him, Babs.'
'Thanks, Tim. You doing alright?'
'Off to check on Jason. Then I'm buying a cake.'
'Got room for me and Jason to crash the party?'
'Always.'
'See you soon, then.'
"Oracle signing off for tonight," Babs' voice finally crackled through the buzz of chattering Bats. Tim ignored Dick's questioning "Oracle?" in favour of tumbling from a church steeple, letting out a sigh of relief as he spotted the bright chrome of Jason's distinctive helmet.
He was dangling a thug off the rooftop, but had seemingly forgotten about the man in his grip, too busy shouting into his comm to pay attention to what he was doing.
"No, Bats, what the fuck do you mean? We were still looking for the fuck yesterday!"
"Hood! Drop!" Tim shouted as soon as he got close enough, reaching out his arms as Jason instinctively threw the guy he was holding right at Tim's chest. It was never fun getting a grown ass man to the ribs, but Tim slid with it as best he could, putting the man back on his shaky feet as soon as he checked he had no weapons on him. "Seriously, dude? You know Hood patrols this street."
"I-I-I'm s-sorry!" The thug wailed, bursting into terrified tears as he shrank away from the two red-themed vigilantes. "I just- I needed the money, and the boss ain't back yet-"
"Talk to Bill," Hood snarled, still running hot from Bruce's monotone ringing in both their ears. "He'll get you squared. You an amateur or what?"
"I just lost my job two months ago-" The guys tried to explain, but Tim had heard enough. Flipping a business card from his belt, he placed it gently into the guy's hand before backhanding him across the face, knocking him straight into unconsciousness.
"Harsh," Jason muttered, staring down at the now unconscious man.
"The Goonion will sort him out," Tim waved dismissively before crossing his arms over his chest. "We have bigger issues. You know a good cake place near here?"
"What the fuck are you talking about, Red?" Jason asked, the suddenness of the random question breaking him from whatever meditation technique Bruce was trying to instruct them in at the moment.
"You, me, Oracle; cake at the clocktower to celebrate," Tim shrugged, knowing not everyone followed his perfectly normal train of thought, but usually Jason was on the same page as him.
"Wha- I get me and Barbie, but why are you hosting?" Jason spluttered, knocking the side of his helmet to shut off Bruce's monotone grunts.
"Red Robin and Red Hood, going dark," Tim called out to the chat, not even bothering with Dick's suddenly panicked squawking as he turned his own comms off. Leaving just him and his brother on a rooftop to discuss the creature that ruined their lives. "You think he stopped hunting Robins after he killed you?"
"This is why I wanted Bruce to kill that fucker," Jason growled, ripping off his helmet and running his fingers through his sweaty bangs. The whites of his domino mask narrowed in on Tim, seemingly scanning him for any evidence of what Joker did. "Do you know if he got the Demon Brat too?"
"There's not much I know about Robin's run when Nightwing was Batman," Tim led, smirking as he punched Jason in the arm and turned away, firing off his grapple and expecting his brother to follow. "But beating the Joker with a crowbar was pretty damn poetic."
"Demon Brat did that?" Jason called, glee clear in his voice, even if Tim could only see him out of his periphery.
"Oh yeah, Nightwing tried to lecture him, but he can't say shit when he beat Joker to death with his bare hands."
"Wait, how many people in this family have tried to kill that shit stain?"
"Batman, Oracle, Commish, Nightwing, me, you, Robin," Tim counted off, letting his arms carry him towards Barbara's base even as his mind wandered. "I think Huntress might have, too? Oh shit, should we wake up Signal? He deserves to get in on this party."
"Knowing Oracle, she's already on it," Jason snorted, sounding dazed and mildly incensed that not one of the people mentioned managed to get Joker's death to stick. (Granted, half the time that was Bruce's fault, but Tim wasn't about to tell Jason that.) "If we hurry, we'll be able to hitch a ride on the Kane line. There's a damn good bakery two streets from City Hall."
"They open at this time?"
"They stay open late on Tuesday and Thursday; lots of politics students need something sweet to make it through their week whenever they have to sit in on council meetings."
"Damn, that's smart. Do you think they do red velvet?"
"Fucking hell, man," Jason laughed, startling himself to the point his grapple slipped. But Jason had been doing this for too long to simply fall. Instead, he dropped, grabbed a street light, and used it to propel himself upward as his grapple snapped back and deployed again, elated laughter echoing in the sky that took Tim back to a time when he had simply watched from rooftops as Robins flew through the sky. "That fucking dark, Tim Tam."
"You're just mad you didn't think of it first!" Tim shot back, cackling as he flew and soon losing himself in the joy that came from flying with one of his family at his side.
The bakery smelled amazing when Tim and Jason casually stepped through the door, well worth the risk of being smacked around by the train they'd hopped to get there. It was run by two young women, who didn't even blink at seeing two vigilantes in their shop. But as Jason chatted to them about the neighbourhood, or whatever he did when he was being friendly, Tim perused the cake cases, checking out the premade ones before his eyes found the perfect one.
"Can we ask for writing to be added?" He called over, not moving his gaze unless the cake managed to sneak itself out of the case and down the street.
"Sure. We can whip up some colours as well if it's for something special?"
"Oh, it's for something special, alright," Tim grinned as he pointed out the cake he wanted. It was a deep red vintage heart cake with a red velvet centre and black piping around the top and base. It was a perfect combination of Jason, Tim, and Harley Quinn. All Tim needed was a bit of purple and gold. "Is there space for 'Ding Dong, the Clown is dead'?"
"Red, I don't think we were meant to tell them that," Jason drawled as one of the girls gasped, hope lighting up her eyes as the other girl's jaw dropped.
"Classified is only classified when they make the file unhackable," Tim shrugged, glad that the shock hadn't caused the girl to drop the cake. It was too perfect to fall on the floor.
"It might be a bit cramped," the girl holding the cake whispered, shaking, placing it down on a turntable at their back.
"Wait, what about a clown emoji with exes for eyes?" Jason suggested, excitement palpable through the voice modulator.
"We've done clowns before," The other girl mumbled, slowly coming back to herself as she wiped tears from her eyes. "Usually they're for smash cakes or to send to people customers don't like, but this-"
"This will be the best clown we ever make," The cake girl declared resolutely, bending down to grab a bucket of frosting from the fridge.
"Don't make it look like him, though," Tim quickly clarified before the girl (he really needed to look at their name badges) could mix the colours. "Just purple and gold, if you can?"
"He's the reason Redhead Batgirl had to retire," Jason explained when the girls looked confused by the request. But they were clearly old enough to remember Babs' mantle of Batgirl, and fire fuelled them as they set out to make the cake the best celebration of the clown finally being dead.
Tim's comm began to beep, and he could see Jason's shoulders slump as he no doubt got the same request from Batman to unmute their comms. It was set to go off every five minutes in case they were busy with a case or didn't have their coms for whatever reason. But when his kids wanted to ignore him, it was the most irritating update Batman had ever made.
"Red Robin," Tim answered, opening up his comms just to spare Jason from having to speak to Bruce right now. "Batman, I told you, Hood and I are going dark."
"I need you on this case, Red," Bruce grunted, low and insistent as Nightwing and Robin's voices went back and forth in the background. "We don't know who killed the Joker or how. I'm heading to the scene now, but I need your eyes."
"Well, you can get my eyes tomorrow," Tim snorted, rolling said eyes behind his domino and smiling apologetically to the girls who were rushing to make their order perfect. "You'll need Oracle, too, for the cameras, but I can't hear her. Now, Hood, Signal, and I will be with Oracle all night, and we will get on the case tomorrow, and we will do our best to find the person who killed the Joker just to shake their goddamn hand."
"Tim, this isn't you," Bruce said lowly, likely trying to remind Tim of his morals or something equally as righteous. But Tim didn't care; as far as he was concerned, the Joker transcended any moral debate.
"That monster broke everything about me," Tim stated calmly, feeling Jason's eyes on him even as he heard Dick ask Bruce what he meant. "I put myself back together as best I could, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to feel safer now that he's rotting. Think of everything he's taken from you over the years, Bats, and tell me you're not a little relieved."
"I'll be relieved once I know I don't have something worse than the Joker on my hands."
"You'll be hard pushed to find anything worse," Tim snapped, rolling his eyes before signing off with no courtesy warning. Bruce could stew in silence, knowing that none of his children were too cut up about the Joker's passing. But he didn't ask about the gathering they were organising, and Tim wasn't giving him the chance to remember that detail. Instead, he turned back to the cake girls, who were arguing with Jason over payment.
"You've brought us the best news of the decade," One of the girls insisted. Oh, her name was Abigail, and she was clearly not intimidated by Jason's bulk as she kept swatting his wallet out of his hand. "Consider it free service for the protection you guys give us."
"That cake is forty dollars," Jason protested, picking his wallet up for the fifth time and attempting to pull the bills out. Probably thinking that if he threw the money at her, he'd be able to escape in the time it took her to gather it back up to give him. "Plus customisation!"
"Do you guys have a tip jar?" Tim murmured to the other girl, scanning her blouse desperately for a name badge. Miriam, great, now he could come back to this bakery without feeling crushing embarrassment. Then again, maybe he wouldn't feel that way if he had just left Jason at home.
"Beside the register," Mirium whispered back, packing up the cake and sliding it over to him.
"C'mon, Hood, let's leave these ladies to their night," Tim called, kicking Jason's shin until he could shove the cake into his hands and slip three hundred-dollar bills into the mason jar. "We've got a celebration to get to."
"Jesus, Red, we still need to pay!" Jason protested, but he noticeably relaxed, even as he tried to trip him on their way out. Once they were out onto the street, Jason was too busy shaking his head to say anything as Tim began to grapple up City Hall.
"C'mon, Hood! You're not getting any younger standing there!"
"If Joker got his way, I wouldn't have gotten any older!"
The best thing about flying through Old Gotham was the number of perches and grapple gargoyles. It was premium grappling territory before it dropped into the hell that was the Financial District. There were too many glass surfaces for anything to find purchase, and almost all of them hated patrolling those streets. So much so that it was Bruce's favourite punishment when he knew they wouldn't obey his benching rules.
Soaring through the streets with Jason felt just as freeing as it had when he had been thirteen, maybe more so now that their nightmare was finally over. Now, maybe Jason's relationship with Bruce stood a better chance without the constant cloud of betrayal and grief clouding their eyes. Hell, maybe Tim's own relationship with Bruce could begin its slow steps towards healing. There were a lot of unresolved issues Bruce had with all his children that could now get more than a passing glance since the clown was no longer there to block their dad's vision.
Maybe now Dick wouldn't feel guilty about killing the Joker, since Bruce hadn't been around to resuscitate him. Now, they could just be glad that it was done.
Fuck, he loved his boyfriend.
Maybe he should organise something nice for him, just to show his endless appreciation. The immediate aftermath didn't count as enough, no matter how much of his brain leaked out of his ears that night. The past two weeks had been a strange mix of tense and blissful, waiting for the Bats to discover what Bernard had done whilst simultaneously being so fucking proud of him that Tim just wanted to lavish love and affection on him every day. Which, honestly, wasn't too far from how he felt about Bernard normally.
It was so different to everything before, and Tim was constantly catching himself from spilling every little thought he had throughout the day. He knew intimately well how it felt to have love piled on top of him when he wasn't expecting it, only for it to disappear when he really needed it. His friends had learned to ease him into things, as they had all been getting used to one another at the time, but his family? That was a complicated mess that he didn't want to think about right now.
The last thing he wanted was to set an impossible standard that he'd need to reach every day, even though his heart ached to say the words he kept between his teeth. He didn't want to disappoint Bernard by one day not being able to say sweet nothings into his ear.
"What'cha thinking about Timbo?" Neither of them made a sound as they alighted on the secret entrance to the Clocktower. But when Jason removed his helmet for the second time that night, Tim could see the concern on his brother's face, even as they entered Barbara's domain.
"Bernard," Tim confessed, scuffing his feet when Jason shot him a look of helpless disbelief.
"Seriously? You just found out the Joker is dead, and you start thinking about your boyfriend?"
"Thinking about how he'll never be used against me by that psycho, yeah," Tim bluffed, shrugging away Jason's disbelief as he took the cake from his careful grip. The walls around them lit up in a pulsing green glow, welcoming them to the temple of their Oracle, and Tim found himself smiling as he caught sight of Barbara and Duke, sitting around her computers with Duke still in his pyjamas.
A hastily thrown-on coat and sneakers were the only things that gave away the fact that Duke hadn't originally been having a sleepover. But both of them sported red eyes and tear-stained smiles, a tissue-filled trash can giving away how long they had been celebrating.
"Tim!" Duke cried, grinning as he sprang up from his seat, barralling into him with an elated laugh. "He's gone! We have a chance to reverse what he did to my parents, he's never gonna hurt anyone again, he's really actually gone-"
"I know," Tim murmured softly, wrapping an arm around his little brother and squeezing tightly as the younger boy returned to tears. "We'll be able to find an antidote without him making a worse venom. They'll get better, Duke, I promise."
"We brought cake," Jason announced as he swiped the box back, taking it over to Barbara with a hesitant grin. "Figured you'd like this, Barbie."
Barbara took the box from him with a sceptical look, opening it cautiously before bursting into laughter. She looked lighter than she had in years as she pulled the cake from its confines, the Batgirl purple, Signal gold, and the Red team's signature crimson shining defiantly in the green glow of her computers.
"Loving the eyes," she chuckled, grinning maliciously as she scooped out an 'eye' and stuck her frosting-covered finger right in her mouth. "Tastes good too. Where'd you get it?"
"Peaceful Treat, across from City Hall," Jason told her, offering a hand to hold the cake as they looked for a place to put it. "Sweet pair of girls who run it. We may have told them the Joker was dead, but it's gotta be announced soon, right?"
"B said it was likely he was killed two weeks ago, right?" Tim double checked, even though he knew the exact time of death. But if protecting Bernard meant lying to his siblings and friends, then he'd do it in a heartbeat, and only feel a little bad because he knew these three would feel better knowing who finally offed their tormentor. "I'm kinda shocked it took that long to find his body. I mean, we've been searching the city with the belief he was moving, only to find out he was rotting away in Amusement Mile."
"Of course he was there," Barbara snorted bitterly, finally placing the cake down and fishing a batarang from the side of her chair. "What? It's thematic."
"Usually I can't see it," Jason snorted, leaning casually back on the desk as he carefully worked the domino mask from his eyes. "But whenever you do shit like that, I understand why you dated Dickface."
The batarang sliced down, cutting into the clown's face as Barbara made quick work of cutting them all some slices. It was only when they had cake in hand and frosting on their fingers that it all seemed to hit them once again.
"He's really actually gone," Barbara murmured, one hand gripping the arm of her chair as she stared at the cake.
"He is," Tim promised, crouching down to rest his head against her shoulder, smiling when he felt her kiss his hair. "He can't hurt any of us anymore."
"What did he do to you, Tim?" Duke sniffed, scrubbing his eyes on his Mr Terrific pyjama top. Tim could feel Jason look at him in confusion as well, just as Barbara tensed beneath his cheek.
"Babs? You have the footage, right?" he asked, not wanting to go through the whole rigamarole of taking his dumb makeup off. "I'm kinda tired of this being an open secret that Bruce won't talk about."
"It was confirming all the arguments he made when you first told him that he needed a Robin," Barbara pointed out. Still, she carefully rolled back to her station, slowly biting into her cake as she scrolled through her meticulous file database. As if they were waiting for the cue, the boys all started to eat, careful bites and small smiles traded as they breathed freely for the first time in years. But then Barbara pulled the pictures up of Tim's recovery, and Jason nearly spat out his cake in shock.
"We have cake, Jay. Stop trying to catch flies as well," Tim pointed out, taking advantage of Jason's transfixed stare to sneak a bite of his cake.
He could kind of see why Duke had scrambled back and why Jason was horrified. The picture on the screen wasn't exactly pleasant; J.J. was on the screen, sobbing his eyes out as the makeup slapped on ran down his sliced cheeks. His green hair was dishevelled from its previously gelled state, his frantic hands having clearly tugged at the strands until his scalp was bleeding. In another picture, the electrical burns from the electroshock therapy were blown up to excruciating detail, showing the infection brewing in the charred skin. The aftermath was also there, a picture of Tim with all the green shaved off, stitches clearly visible beside his lips, as Leslie sewed his cheeks back together. There was an emptiness in his eyes that sent a shiver through present-day Tim, having seen that look too many times in the mirror since that day.
"Joker Junior," Barbara explained gently when no one made a sound. "Joker decided that, since killing Robin hadn't monopolised B's attention, he would do something else to the new Robin. He and Harley kidnapped Tim in the middle of patrol, and tortured him for three months, turning him into a puppet for Joker to call his son."
"He set me up to kill Batman, since he knew Bruce wouldn't hurt me," Tim shrugged, leaning over Barbara to close the pictures down. Just because they didn't unnerve him didn't mean he wanted to stare at them for any length of time. "I shot him instead. But it must not have been a killing shot, because he was back four months later."
"Fucking cockroach," Jason muttered bitterly, still staring at the blank screen. "Shit, Tim, I'm- fuck, I'm so sorry."
"You didn't know," Tim shrugged, watching both his brothers out of the corners of his eyes. He hadn't wanted to trigger either of them, but Joker had forced a 'family resemblance' onto his body that, if Tim was honest, he wouldn't blame either of them for freaking out over. "No one but B, Babs, and Alfred knew about it."
"You didn't tell Dick?" Duke asked quietly, ripping his gaze away from the screen to stare at Tim's face instead. A frosting-covered hand reached out towards his cheek, and Tim carefully stepped back, shooting Duke a sheepish grin as he did so.
"Dude, your hand is gross," he chuckled, keeping as much of his cackle out of his throat as he could. But it still seemed to unnerve the people around him, and Tim's heart began to sink even as his shoulders began to rise. "I don't like people touching them. I can't be the only one."
"The Outlaws have been the only ones to see my scars outside of you lot," Jason confirmed, reaching over to clap a hand on Tim's shoulder, rubbing along the seam of his cape with a gentle thumb. "It's not weird at all, Timbit. What's weird is not telling Dickie-bird. Didn't you use to tell him everything?"
"He was dealing with his own shit, back then," Tim shrugged, not wanting to get into the whole mess that was Dick's personal life back when the entire J.J. mess was happening. "He was there for the aftermath when I came back. That was enough."
"Was it?" Duke asked, watching him with eyes that always saw too much.
Much like Tim's own.
Shrugging, Tim couldn't even explain the complicated knot of emotions he got in his chest every time he thought back to those moments. Plus, he couldn't really lie to his little brother when he was looking at him with so much concern.
"Who knows? Anyway, we should eat the cake while we can. Bats wants me and Barbara on the case tomorrow, and I'm not looking at that corpse without a sugar coma to back me up."
"Batman, for the fourth time, I can't pull up the CCTV footage."
From where he was crouched, Tim rolled his eyes over Bruce's insistence on aggravating Oracle. She had told him multiple times since logging back into her server that the Amusement Mile cameras had been broken for almost two years, but Bruce was seemingly convinced that she could conjure footage out of thin air. Genuis Barbara may be, but she wasn't a magician.
"Pull back the search, check along University Drive," Bruce growled, scanning along the ground in the hopes of picking up any footprints or tracks. But the Gotham rain had swept away any trace of a person, and it was only the smell of rotting flesh that had alerted the GCPD that a body was left inside. Tim doubted any of them had gone in expecting Joker's body, but this was what they were dealing with now.
Jim wanted proof that Joker's death was final before announcing it to the public. It would either escalate into a riot or a public celebration, and leaking the information would only complicate the investigation. Thank God none of the Secret Cake Gang were snitches, or Jason might have gotten into even more trouble. Not Tim, obviously, since he wouldn't ever tell classified information to civilians.
Shooting off a quick text to Jason (to go to the bakery and make sure those two girls were okay and as secure as civilians could be), Tim stretched out of his crouch, rolling his shoulders as he considered the tarp covering Joker's body.
"You examined the body last night, right?" Tim checked, cutting through the continued argument between Bruce and Barbara. Damian scoffed from where he was perched on a beam, surveying from afar in case anyone came to silence any investigators. Bruce hadn't ruled out the likelihood of the perpetrator returning to the scene to gloat in private.
The perpetrator had been busy over the past two weeks. Just not in a way Bruce would ever imagine.
"Not a lot to see, decayed as it is," Dick explained, calling over from where he was inspecting whatever the Joker had been building in his last moments of life. He was taking a digital scan of the machine, uploading it straight to Oracle to dissect. "The back of the head is missing a substantial portion of skull, but that could just mean that our perp shot the Joker straight in the face."
"Entry wound?" Tim checked, carefully securing a filtration mask to his face before checking that his family had done the same. Who knew what kind of bacteria would breed from Joker's decaying body? Once he was sure none of them would die of plague, Tim carefully peeled back the sheet and finally got to see his boyfriend's handywork up close. "Well… that's disgusting."
It could be the greying meat visible from where the skin had rotted away, or the way maggots were already forming in the eyes, but Tim couldn't look at the face that had haunted his nightmares for years. The skin was sloughing off the bone, and Nightwing had been right about the back of Joker's head, grey brain matter matting into green hair. But it didn't look like Joker had died smiling, and that was all the closure Tim had needed without knowing.
But Bernard had known. And he made sure that Joker was paid back tenfold for everything he had done to Tim and his family.
"The moisture has accelerated the decomposition," Damian sniffed, scowling down at the body Tim was ever so slowly revealing. "We will be fortunate if this corpse does not result in a new Black Death."
"The Green Death," Tim agreed, scanning the body for any clues he could give without tipping his hand too much. "There's no clear entry wound on the face."
Carefully as he could, Tim slipped some dental tools from his utility belt. His parents hadn't taught him much, but they had taught him the importance of taking his time to do delicate work with delicate tools. In fact, the tools he was using now had come straight from Janet's field kit, from the time she had taken painstaking care to clean artefacts before taking them back home. It felt strangely therapeutic to use the hook to lift up the flaps of skin that had once been the Joker's lips, taking the small mirror and looking inside the gaping mouth.
"Bullet wound to the back of the palate. The gun must have been placed inside his mouth."
"There was no evidence of restraints," Bruce muttered, the growl still present in his words but softened in his confusion. The looming shadow of Batman fell upon Tim's shoulders as his father carefully bent down beside him, peering over to see what Tim could.
"Did the GCPD find the murder weapon?" Tim asked, catching the way the Joker's hands were curled up, as if he was still holding the gun that was now missing from where it should be. When Bruce didn't reply, Tim reached out to Barbara, thankful that they were all on an open channel with her, so he didn't have to move his hands from their position. He did not want Joker rot on his hands. "Oracle? Can you search the preliminary report for any mention of a gun, or the initial picture the officers walked in on?"
"Sure thing, Red," Came Oracle's mechanised reply, and it was only a few seconds later that she gave them an answer. "Officers reported finding a gun held in Joker's left hand, and they bagged it for evidence before calling the Commissioner for backup. It's currently inside the evidence locker, tagged JK-03-26."
"I can go and retrieve it, Oracle," Dick chirped, stepping back from the doomsday machine with a satisfied nod. "That's the scans complete here. Once the body gets moved, I'll call Hood up and we can destroy this thing together."
"Take Robin with you," Bruce requested, holding up a hand to stop the protesting from their youngest member. "You need more experience around the station. They need to be able to trust you to do the job."
"I am more competent than any of those officers," Robin protested, but he didn't protest to stay when Nightwing beckoned him down. Instead, he swung down to Dick's side with no more complaining, asking about the filing system the GCPD used, and taking shots at them for the way their weapon evidence kept 'disappearing'.
"You should teach him more of the detective side of things," Tim muttered as Dick and Damian's voices faded down the tunnel that took them back out into the Gotham night. "Don't just push him onto Dick whenever you want to talk to me."
"Dick still doesn't know the motive you would have had for doing this," Bruce returned, trying to catch Tim's eye and keep the focus on himself. But Tim kept his eyes on Joker's hands, heart sinking when he caught sight of something that might make or break this whole charade.
"So you're coming after me first," Tim snorted, shaking his head. He was sure Bruce would have interrogated Jason first, but he supposed it made sense; Tim was the only one with a night off when Joker first escaped. "Time of death was established to be two weeks ago, right? I was being kidnapped by my team."
"They could be covering for you."
"And risk exposing the secret to my civilian boyfriend?" Tim pointed out dryly, rolling his eyes behind his mask. After all, the best way to lie to Batman was to believe in everything he was saying. "I can give you the whole breakdown of the week, with pictures to back up every minute."
When Bruce stayed silent expectantly, Tim nearly threw the dental mirror at his dumb pointy head.
"You better fucking make this up to me out of the cape," Tim threatened before straightening up, closing his eyes as he thought back to the best week he had in a while. "My boyfriend and I picked up Superboy, Wondergirl, and Impulse at the airport on Monday. We timed it to make it appear as though they had flown on civilian aeroplanes instead of flying or running themselves. It was around midday when we gathered everyone, so I took them to lunch at The Vine, before we went to the zoo. I have my ticket in my scrapbook along with the photos. Tuesday, we spent exploring Gotham, showing my friends different sights that they wouldn't have seen because of the 'No Meta' rule, which is still xenophobic, by the way, and we got into mild trouble with the Maronis, but that was because of Impulse."
Ignoring Bruce's muttering about how his stupid rule was to protect Metahumans, Tim pulled up a link to Bart's private Instagram, showing Batman the photos they had strategically taken around Gotham and with each other. There were multiple instances of Bart photobombing and pulling crazy poses with all four of them, but Tim's favourite was Kon sticking his face between Bernard and Tim. He had been whining about how 'Mum and dad didn't buy him anything', and Bernard had played along, scolding Tim for 'neglecting their boy' until Kon was bright red and Tim had lost a lung from laughing.
"Wednesday was that nasty storm, so we stayed in, had a lazy day and nearly killed each other in Uno. On Thursday, you told me that Joker had escaped, but I couldn't disappear without looking odd to my boyfriend because I had taken the week off to spend time with them. So we went to the theatre and the opera house, so I could look around but still look normal. Superboy denied that Joker was there, and Wondergirl and Impulse were on high alert the whole time. Friday, my boyfriend and Superboy had a cooking competition before they had to leave, and the weekend I spent getting ready to go back to work and fucking my boyfriend because I wasn't about to do that where Impulse could hear. That good enough for you, Bats?"
"…I didn't need the last detail," Bruce coughed, gruff and embarrassed and looking like he wanted to die rather than think about one of his sons having perfectly consensual sex with his boyfriend. "… You're being safe?"
"Yes," Tim stressed, rolling his eyes yet again. "After Robin, you have no right to lecture any of us about that."
"If you're already at that stage, we should meet him," Bruce continued, as if Tim hadn't spoken, trying to get them away from the topic of safe sex like he was a drowning man searching for a lifeboat.
"Maybe learn how to talk to your kids before you talk to the people they love," Tim snorted, shaking his head as he began to walk away. Hopefully, Bruce wouldn't see the strands of blonde stuck where Joker's nails used to be. "Because, and I'm sure Oracle can back me up here, most of our partners can't stand the man behind all your masks."
"Spoiler will also attest to it," Barbara confirmed, anger lacing every word as Batman realised Oracle had still been listening in. Tim just hoped she had disconnected the rest of their family whilst sending a heads up to Jason, Duke, and Dick. Sure, Dick might not be the obvious choice, but he had killed the Joker before, so he was also on the suspect list. "I can also pull the records of that week, Batman, and Red Robin's tracker was on the entire time. The only time he was anywhere near Amusement Mile was when his boyfriend was showing them around Gotham U's campus."
"Thank you, Oracle," Bruce grunted, but Tim didn't turn back to look at the expression he must have been making.
"I'm going back to patrolling. Let me know if you need me to point out the obvious again."
"The obvious?"
"The Joker shot himself," Tim called back, shrugging as he headed back into the tunnel to get away from the Bat. "Trajectory, impact, and the gunpowder staining his hand; Joker committed suicide, Batman. Sorry that you can't put one of your kids in jail again."
"So, his body's been found?"
"How do you know already?" Tim asked as he hopped down the last step into his boat, shutting the security door behind him. Bernard was at the little stove, stirring something that reminded Tim of how hungry he was after a whole night of patrol. It smelled absolutely divine, but it still paled in comparison to seeing his boyfriend, up and about at four in the morning, cooking to welcome him back home.
So far, despite Tim's fears, nothing had happened to Bernard now that the secret was out in the open. Instead, Bernard actually asked about his cases, helping him see things from a different perspective whenever Tim's brain was crying out for sleep. He didn't have to hide the way he had helped Tim back when he was keeping his secrets, even from Tim; the decaf energy drinks, sliding a blanket over his costumes before sheepishly remembering that he could actually see them now, and, of course, the home-cooked meals.
Bernard had always given him leftovers of recipes he was trying, things that were conveniently easy to heat up on the shitty stovetop Tim owned, and he was always awake 'on a morning run' around the time Tim usually got back from patrol. But now, Bernard didn't have to hide that, staying over even more and kissing Tim good luck whenever the vigilante had to leave, whilst Bernard went to bed. Tim was sleeping better, eating better, and genuinely feeling far better than he had in years. And it was all thanks to the boy who was grinning slyly over at him from a pan of wholewheat pasta.
"Police radio," Bernard explained, nodding to the radio that was clearly rigged to play the cops' voices as they directed one another to crime scenes. "Surprised you only went in today. He was found yesterday, right?"
"Had a party with Signal, Hood and Oracle," Tim explained, biting back a grin as he could see Bernard take that piece of information and chew it over on his mental conspiracy board. It was kinda fascinating to see someone work out the Bat's identities in real time, even though Tim had started off the easiest piece of the puzzle in Dick Grayson. But Bernard had started with Tim, and he didn't know whether his own identity would unravel as quickly as Dick's had.
"… Hood's the second Robin, isn't he?" Bernard asked slowly, stirring the pan as Tim came up behind him, slipping his arms around Bernard's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. "The one who was killed by, I'm assuming, the Joker?"
"You assume correctly," Tim confirmed, pressing a congratulatory kiss to the side of Bernard's neck, taking a moment just to linger there and bask in the sense of peace that had filled him from the second he stepped down the last step.
"Okay, so the Red Hood, Oracle, and the Signal have all had something traumatic happen to them at the fault of the Joker…" Bernard trailed off, brain whirring even as he absentmindedly held up a spoon for Tim to taste test the sauce. It was a vegetable-based bolognaise, and Tim nearly melted into Bernard's back with how good it was. But just as he was about to complement it, Bernard let the spoon fall to the counter with a despairing groan. "Please. For the love of the Riddler, tell me Batman isn't fucking Bruce Wayne."
"How'd you figure?" Tim asked, neither confirming nor denying, as he hid his smile in Bernard's shoulder.
"I was thinking it was weird that Batman and Bruce Wayne both had a dead kid," Bernard said in a deadpan tone, jostling his shoulder as he tried to peer at Tim's face. "Babe, stop hiding, I'm having a crisis! The butts actually match?"
"Bat's has padding after Bluebird shot him," Tim pointed out, having gone out and bought all the Bluebird merch that had been made in honour of that moment.
"Tim, please. Tell me the World's Second Best Detective didn't fucking adopt every partner he ever had!"
"Second? Who's the first?"
"You, dumbass! Though I'm starting to doubt it," Bernard laughed, finally switching the pasta off and plating it up before spinning around in Tim's arms. Now, Tim could see that smile up close, and he couldn't stop his own smile from forming when Bernard reached out to pull him closer.
This was something he never thought he'd have; standing in the kitchen of a place he owned, with a person he loved, and completely at ease with every side of him. After all, who could have loved J.J., Robin, and Timothy Drake-Wayne? But Bernard had answered him easily, fitting into his life like a long-lost song he'd been trying to remember for years.
"He hasn't adopted all of us," Tim muttered into Bernard's lips, knowing his boyfriend would forgive him for getting distracted. Biting down softly, Tim gently pulled at Bernard's bottom lip, smirking with pride as he felt his boyfriend fold into his arms. "Just most of us."
"You, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Cassandra Wayne," Bernard listed off, dazed but still determined to work it out. That right there was just another reason for Tim to love him; the obsession with figuring out the answer, even if there were much more important things to focus on. He hadn't understood why Bernard had found his 2 am ramblings so cute until he had seen Bernard do the same damn thing. Now he could readily admit that they were adorable when coupled with Bernard's wild hair and wilder eyes. "Wait, which one was Cassandra? She doesn't make many public appearances - is she the creepy Batgirl? The one with the sewn-up mouth?"
"Batgirl, Black Bat, Orphan," Tim shrugged, grinning at the thought of his sister and how she was scheduled to come home soon. The Joker's death might even speed up her arrival time, prompting Batman to call his daughter back to help sort fact from fiction. "She's had a lot of names."
"Oh my fucking god," Bernard groaned, pulling away only to shove a plate back into Tim's chest. "Take this and eat something whilst I despair over how fucking dramatic your family is."
"And you haven't even met Jason yet," Tim snorted, doing as he was told. He gratefully took the plate of spaghetti to the tiny table where Bernard had plotted murder just a few weeks ago. A murder he had finally gotten to witness the aftermath of, and part of him was itching with the need to know how Bernard had managed to pull off such a convincing suicide. But the other part of him, the romantic side he had long thought dead, was telling him to let things lie. After all, he wanted Bernard to get away with this murder, so the less Tim knew, the better for them both.
Instead of joining him immediately, Bernard put the kettle on the stove, preparing a cup of tea for Tim and a cup of coffee for himself. The tea would likely send Tim straight to sleep, which he was looking forward to with every passing second, whilst the coffee was to get Bernard through his early morning classes. But then he'd have the whole afternoon free before culinary night school, coming home just before Tim was due to head out for patrol, and then they'd have the entire weekend free for each other. Smiling into his pasta, Tim felt his cheeks warm as he contemplated how domestic their life had gotten as soon as they held no more secrets from each other. And as Bernard placed a cup of sweet-smelling tea beside his plate, Tim didn't want to stop the bashful smile from deepening his blush.
"Do you want to do something this weekend?" He asked once it looked like Bernard was finished with his minor crisis.
"I thought Bats would have wanted you on the case?" Bernard double checked, screwing up his face as he mouthed the words Bruce Wayne and Batman over and over, trying to make them make sense as the same person.
“He’s already tried to interrogate me,” Tim waved the question away, finally getting stuck into his dinner/breakfast. When Bernard looked at him, eyebrow raised to the ceiling and disbelief dropping his jaw, Tim just shrugged. He had a solid alibi, and so did Bernard. As long as those blonde hairs weren’t actually a giveaway… “Did the Joker do anything to you?”
“He grabbed my hair, which Dionysus wasn’t pleased about,” Bernard mentioned slowly, pondering the Joker’s last moments and sending dread trickling down Tim’s oesophagus. “Oh, he’s saying that he took care of it? Any idea what that means?”
“I found blonde hairs in Joker’s knuckle bones and fingernails,” Tim confessed quietly, wondering whether this was another piece of evidence he could disappear from under Bruce’s nose. He would have to, if it weren’t for the god in Bernard’s chest. “What does he mean, he took care of it?”
“No idea. Shit, I should have checked his hands before I left.”
Bernard sounded so angry at himself, frowning down at the hands that had brought Tim so much peace of mind, that he had to reach out and bring them out to his mouth. Pressing soft kisses against scarred knuckles, Tim stared into soft blue eyes, for once not thinking he was imagining the barest flash of purple he could see within their depths. No matter what Bruce found out, he would protect this, even if it meant a thousand lies. Tim would protect everything they had built together, this fragile peace that set his heart ablaze and his mind spinning.
“Hey, it’ll be alright,” Tim tried to say, pulling lightly at Bernard’s hands until he slid into the seat beside him. Once he was seated, Tim wasted no time in slipping one arm around his waist, bringing his boyfriend closer until he was nearly sitting in his lap, pressing swift kisses to the corner of his lips, his cheeks, his jaw- wherever he could reach. “No matter what, you’ll have me. You’ll always have me.”
Fifteen.
Fifteen matches for the hair Bruce had plucked from liquidated muscle. And over half of them were heroes, not to mention the three that Bruce knew for a fact were dead.
He had thought the hair would be a lead, something he could follow until he knew for sure that his city was safe from a psychopath even worse than the clown. Sure, three of his kids were celebrating (four if you counted Barbara, which he did, for all he knew he'd never be a father figure to her), and Bruce didn't begrudge them that. He understood, deeply, the relief that he could see in Jason's smile, the peace that sat underneath Tim's eyes instead of shadows, and the radiant hope that was clear in every move Duke made. He had wanted to weep when he had heard the news, the surety that Joker would never hurt another of his children crashing through him until he had nearly toppled off the rooftop he had been perched on.
But Batman had to be practical, logical, analytical, even when Bruce wanted nothing more than to gather all his precious children into the biggest hug he could muster.
So, instead of voicing the joy and joining his children in jubilation, Bruce had to treat this like it was just another case. Just another man murdered, and a murderer on the run; a story he knew intimately well.
"What's the verdict?"
Bruce let out a sigh, running his hands down his face as he turned his seat, tired eyes resting on his third son, and his leading suspect.
All the others had alibis that Bruce could personally either verify or inspect. But Tim had been cagey about this boyfriend of his, to the point that without Stephanie, Bruce wouldn't have known Tim was dating again. Bernard Dowd had cleared the background check Bruce had run the minute he worked out who made his son smile like that: a straight A student, a bit of a tool in middle school, but Tim had set that to right, and a science major at Gotham University who had managed to pass the psych evaluation. All good things on paper, yet Bruce had still not met him; that left him suspicious as an alibi to murder.
"A dead end," Bruce admitted, pulling up the data with only the barest hesitation. If Tim had committed the killing, then showing him the evidence would only give him a chance to scramble it even more. But if he hadn't… Bruce needed his eyes to make some sense of this mess. "Fifteen results for three strands of hair. It should be impossible for that amount to be produced."
Tim leaned over his shoulder, peering up at the computer with barely hidden shock, no doubt reading the list of names the computer had spat out with the same incredulous disbelief that Bruce had. After all, Janet Drake was apparently a suspect, and Bruce had seen her die with his own eyes.
"Whilst I'm sure my mother would absolutely kill the Joker if she could, her grave is still intact," Tim muttered, stealing the mouse from Bruce's hand and setting the computer to run the tests again. "Plus, no matter how much Ra's wants my babies, reviving my mother would not be a sound way to get them."
Tim spoke like that was a normal thing to say, and not like he had fried his father's brain with just a few short words. Bruce was left leaning back in his chair, blinking at his son in distant horror as he heard Dick fall from a rafter. Whatever dramatic entrance his eldest had planned was utterly ruined by what his brother had just spoken into the world.
"I'm sorry, he wants what?" Dick demanded, picking up Bruce's slack whilst he struggled to get his brain back on board with the present. And squashing the urge he had to blow up the Lazarus Pits once and for all so that the decrepit old husk stayed dead. It was an urge he had gotten very good at suppressing over the years.
"My babies," Tim replied, his teeth clicking with distaste as he waited for the results to load back up. "He didn't get them, Cass made sure of that. But I can't rule out the Lex Luthor route, so it wouldn't surprise me if he tried to mess with my DNA somehow."
"It's not your DNA at the crime scene," Bruce felt the need to point out, even if inside he was screaming to gather his son and his daughter into the closest, cosiest room in the Manor until he could be reassured that they were both as safe and sane as they could be, given their profession.
And maybe interrogate them over what the hell had happened that they weren't telling him?
"I can see that," Tim snorted, scrolling through the list of names that reappeared on the screen with a dazed sort of disbelief. "Barry Allen, Dinah Lance, Alan Scott- Alan Scott's been dead for at least ten years, what the fuck?"
"Same with Bette Kane," Dick read, coming up to stand behind Bruce's other shoulder, an apology clear in his words as Bruce was reminded of his cousin's death. As much as he might want Kate on this case, as much as it might take their whole family to work it out, this was a detail she could live without. Twins were never meant to be separated, not in the way Kate and Bette were. Not permanently. "So, Bette Kane, Alan Scott, Janet Drake; any other deceased blondes that definitely couldn't have been killing the Joker?"
"Nope, just a list of heroes with the exception of James Jesse, Harleen Quinzel and Vikki Vale," Tim mused, reaching over to pull up their profiles next to the DNA results. "James Jesse went by the moniker of The Trickster when he was a Flash rogue-"
"And has since turned over a new leaf and works as a criminal interpreter for the FBI," Dick cut in, shrugging when both of them turned to him in curiosity. "Wally keeps up with the Rogues that turn good. He's got tickets for Hartley's symphony in two weeks, and he played darts with James last night."
"Pied Piper? What sort of music is it?" Tim asked, instantly recognising the names that Dick dropped. Bruce could easily remember the teenagers who hung around with Barry's rogues before they grew into their own alongside Kid Flash. Hartley Rathaway, rebelling against the homophobic parents who threw him out yet kept his sister under lock and key as collateral, and James Jesse, misdiagnosed and mis-medicated for the slew of mental health issues that the boy had. It shouldn't surprise him that Wally West was still keeping an eye out for them, but it gave him a small kernel of hope; if those two could turn good, then maybe some of Batman's rogues could still be turned towards the light.
His two sons continued their conversation about the Pied Piper's new musical career, but Bruce was only half listening, scouring through the list of names in the hopes of finding a connection. But other than the fact that they were all blonde, there wasn't much to go on. Harley would be crowing from the rooftops if she had managed to kill her ex, so it was unlikely to be her, though not impossible. But the rest? John Constantine, Barry Allen, Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Kara Zor-El, Arthur Curry-
All blonde, all heroes…
But no Spoiler?
Pulling up the Justice League database, Bruce did a quick scan through of its members, highlighting any and all blonde members. Other heroes knew better than to step into Gotham without the Bat's permission and oversight, but if one hair was matched to fifteen different people and not the only blonde member of the Batfamily…
Something felt too much like a coincidence for Bruce to trust it on first glance.
"Where's Stephanie?" He grunted, halting the boys' conversation as they both turned to look at him.
"Classes, probably?" Dick guessed, shrugging like it wasn't a big deal to not know where one of their own was at all hours of the day.
"I think she said something about a field trip this week, though," Tim hummed, pulling out his phone to no doubt check in with her. "Why?"
"She's the only blonde hero that doesn't show up on this list," Bruce explained gruffly, turning back to the screen so he didn't see the anger he knew would be on his son's faces. He didn't enjoy accusing one of their own, and he had hated every single interrogation he'd had to pull between Tim, Barbara, Duke, and Jason. God, Jason's had been the worst. "I want to know why she was excluded, yet the dead weren't."
"Maybe we should be focusing on why the machine is spitting out fifteen results instead of one, rather than interrogating our allies," Dick suggested, sarcasm lying heavy in his tone.
"Also, hate to be that person, but we also don't even know if this hair is connected to Joker's death," Tim pointed out, swapping his phone for a packet of gum, immediately popping in three and making Bruce wish for a machine that could check on the state of his son's stomach. He did not want to think about Tim accidentally swallowing any of that stuff. "Everything from the Joker's position to the hole in the roof of his mouth; they all point towards suicide. The blonde hair could be from Joker's last victim, and we might need to start thinking about what encounter could drive Joker to do something like that to himself?"
"Did you manage to procure the weapon from the GCPD?" Bruce asked his eldest, turning in his chair to look Dick properly in the face, mulling over Tim's words in the back of his mind. Because whilst his third-youngest was correct, all evidence was pointing towards suicide, something just didn't feel right. Batman had been fighting the Joker for years, and whilst there had definitely been something going on in Joker's brain, it had never manifested in suicidal tendencies. Unless he counted the perverse insistence that Batman be the one to kill him.
Joker had lived to cause as much chaos as possible, with the ultimate goal of his life ending at Batman's hand. It was what he had taunted Bruce with, had done everything possible to tip him over that edge, and hurt so many people, all for the end goal of dying and breaking Batman as he went.
The Joker wouldn't have killed himself, not without some plan for this to come back and torture Bruce.
"Yeah, was just about to dust it for prints because for some reason, that hasn't been done yet," Dick snorted, rolling his eyes before placing the clear evidence bag down beside Bruce's keyboard. The clear evidence bag that showcased a gun that couldn't have been at the scene of the crime. Distantly, he heard Tim's slow intake of breath, hiding the horror Bruce knew he had to be feeling at seeing that gun again. "Bruce? You okay?"
He couldn't even reply to Dick's question, frozen still in a moment of time that he never wanted to revisit again. Watching as his child turned tortured eyes on him, Bruce couldn't even see the barrel of the gun when he could see the tears running through clown-white face paint. His poor son, the boy Bruce had started to love just as deeply as he loved the two that came before him, just for the Joker to come back and stab a poisoned dagger into the barely closing wound on his heart.
Distantly, he was aware of himself pulling up the cameras he had installed in the weapons vault, soon after Damian started sneaking in to train with weapons he had never touched before. He had seen the gun there, in its glass case, when he had put up that camera; he knew he had seen it. But scrolling through the footage, there was no evidence of the gun ever being in that case, even as Alfred carefully dusted along the corners, deliberately not looking at the empty space where there should have been a weapon.
The chair hit the floor with a clatter as Bruce dived down to the floors below, tucking himself into a roll before sprinting for the vault, not even hearing the clatter of his sons as they leapt to follow him. He needed to see, to make sure with his own eyes-
There it was. The perfect replica of the gun upstairs, held behind glass, where it shouldn't have been capable of hurting Tim again. But as Bruce stepped closer, he began to see the trick that had lain in wait for him to discover for who even knew how long? A tiny projector, stuck to the inside corner of the glass and mostly hidden by the solid image it was projecting.
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Dick demanded, and Bruce just knew his son had his hands on his hips, ready to start scolding them if they didn't quickly give him what he wanted. Dick never liked being in the dark about things, understandably. But this wasn't Bruce's secret to tell, turning his back on the hologram to watch his rapidly paling son.
"Tim…"
"I put it there," Tim whispered, not moving his eyes from the glass case despite the fact that Bruce's bulk was keeping it concealed. His eyes were distant, far away in memories both of them would rather forget. "I locked it up. I- You think I would ever want to see that thing again? Bruce-"
"It's okay, son," Bruce quickly reassured him, stepping up beside Tim until he could guide his frozen child into hiding his face against Bruce's thick turtleneck. "It's okay. I believe you. We'll figure out when the switch happened, and I'll keep that gun far away from you. You're safe, Tim."
A broken laugh fumbled from lips shaking with terror, and Bruce felt his whole soul sink at the hint of Junior he could find in the hitching breaths.
"I'm safe because he's gone," Tim giggled, even as his tears began to soak through Bruce's shoulder. "He's gone. Gone like before. But he's never coming back. I'm safe, safe, safe, little bird in a little cage-"
"Tim?" Dick reached out, a steadying hand on his little brother's shoulder that froze the teenager in Bruce's arms. The laughter cut off abruptly, no words escaping white lips as dead blue eyes stared without seeing. Dick looked to him, completely lost and growing more frustrated by the second.
But Bruce had promised his silence to Tim, and he wouldn't budge, even when all the bad was being brought to light again.
"Timmy? Baby bird, what's wrong?"
"… Dad, I'm tired," Tim whispered, before slumping fully into Bruce's hold, eyes shut and mouth slack, teeth marks blooming on his bottom lip.
"…Did he just fall asleep?" Dick hissed, moving his hand to support Tim's back as his head rolled backwards.
"That's your brother's superpower," Bruce grunted, bending slightly until he could pick up his third son, cradling him close as he strode away from the vault and all the nightmares that gun held in its barrel. "Whenever he's not fighting sleep, he can fall asleep at the drop of a pin."
"I thought he was just working himself to exhaustion?" Dick asked, following beside him as he brushed his brother's bangs from his face.
"It's probably a bit of that too," Bruce admitted, thinking back to all the bizarre places he'd found Tim sleeping back when he lived in the manor. No matter what Alfred said, finding Tim curled on top of the fridge definitely beat the time the old butler found him in the washing machine. "It has saved us from having to drug him, though. He doesn't need sleeping pills; just his brain to quiet enough for him to drop off."
"Or if he needs an out of an awkward conversation," Dick snorted, shooting a look at Bruce that almost had him caving. But this promise was worth more than upsetting his eldest, no matter how it hurt his heart whenever Dick was angry with him, even when the anger was justified.
"Dick… I know this isn't the answer that you want, but I can't tell you that story," Bruce sighed, knowing he deserved the glare Dick's face fell to, but that didn't stop it aching all the same. "That's Tim's story to tell, and I have to respect that choice."
"Why do you respect that but nothing else?" Dick snapped, looking two seconds away from stealing his brother from Bruce's arms, running upstairs with him and shaking him awake until Tim could speak clearly. "You don't respect my boundaries, or Jason's, so why are you-"
"I'm trying," Bruce stressed, relaxing his grip on the teenager in his arms so he didn't accidentally hurt him.
He knew, intimately, how many times he had failed his children; by not listening, not trusting, not talking. No matter how hard he wished it, Bruce was never going to have the relationship he once had with his two eldest sons. Too much bad blood and bitter resentment had been left to fester, though he was trying to be better now. He didn't have any bugs in any of Jason's safe houses, nor did he internet stalk Roy Harper just to make sure the redhead was treating his lad right. He was trying to listen to Dick more, show him how proud he was of the man his boy had grown into, but it was hard not knowing how he was doing every minute of the day. He wanted his children to be happy, and he thought that, if he could control every variable, surely then their happiness was assured.
Tim had taught him better. His bright boy, who saved his life more times than Bruce could count, and who managed to have the balance between knowing everything that was happening with his people, and somehow respecting their privacy. Even when he was fighting tooth and nail with Damian, they both knew so much about each other, and Bruce could see the mutual respect there, even if neither boy would admit it.
Bruce couldn't betray Tim's trust. Not when he was finally learning that given trust was so much more precious than invasive prying.
"I don't want to lose any of you, ever again," Bruce admitted, looking into the clear blue eyes of his eldest and doing his best to keep himself present. He couldn't afford to hide away behind the Batman, not when his kids needed him to be Bruce. "I was so used to doing things alone, first with you, then with Jason; I know now that how I introduced the two of you was wrong, and I am sorry for that, but his first few years were just with me and Alfred. It wasn't until Tim dragged you home, and then Stephanie and Cass, that I started to understand that a larger family meant I didn't need to be the only one keeping an eye on all of you. I didn't need to monitor your homes because you'd invite your siblings around, and they could tell me that you were safe and happy. I didn't need to interrogate Jason because Barbara knew the best way to get him to open up without setting off his rage. I'm trying, Dick… I'm sorry it's not quick, but I promise you, I do want to be better. I don't want to chase another child away because I'm not able to be the father you all need."
"…I think that's the most I've heard you speak in a month," Dick finally said after a long stretch of silence, weighed down by eyes that said everything that Bruce ever needed to hear. With a heavy sigh, Dick looked at his younger brother before reaching out his arms to tuck beneath Tim's back and knees. "I've got him, B. I'll wait until he can tell me himself. You've got to figure out how much of that gun's backstory you can tell for it to relate to the case. But if I'm honest, I'm quite happy to label this as a suicide."
"Joker wouldn't have gone out that way," Bruce muttered, unable to put it neatly into the box that both his sons were agreeing on. He knew it was more than that, and the mystery would not let him lie, no matter how easy it would be to take whatever Joker's killer had done as a mercy.
“No,” Dick agreed, despite how much easier it would be if he had. “But you need to know when to let this one go, B. If you prioritise him over your kids again, it will be the final time.”
“I know,” Bruce said softly, brushing Tim’s hair back from his forehead before reaching out to squeeze his eldest’s shoulder. What would he be without Dick Grayson? “I just want to make sure you’re safe. I can’t do that if I don’t know what killed him.”
"What do you mean you're going radio silent?"
"I mean, I'm going radio silent," Tim repeated, rolling his eyes as Dick's frantic voice echoed through his phone. Bernard was laughing at his exasperated expression, even as the blonde boy hiked a backpack higher onto his shoulder. Trusting the older boy to lock up properly now that Tim had been able to actually show him all the defences on his boat, he focused back on reassuring his older brother that just because he was dropping out of the chats for a while, it didn't mean he was dropping off the face of the planet.
"This is the first weekend when Bernard and I aren't busy, so we're going out. Do I need to pre-approve my dates with Bruce now?"
"No, Tim, obviously not," Dick sounded tired across the connection, clearly checking himself as soon as the comparison was made. Dick could be concerned for their siblings, but Tim drew the line when he started demanding information like Bruce. It was a habit they could all slip into, and one that no one would tolerate for long before tempers snapped. So they'd all check one another when they were giving into the Bruce-isms too much. "It's just the timing-"
"The timing works for us both, and it's not like anything is going on right now," Tim shrugged, knowing for a fact that there was nothing to prevent him from going out as a civilian and, as far as Dick knew, his boyfriend didn't know about the hero obligations that might have kept Tim grounded. "I'm just going to be showing Bernard some of my favourite photo spots, and then we're going to have a picnic; nothing crazy or dangerous, I promise."
"That would be more reassuring if I hadn't seen some of the lengths you'll go to for a good shot," Dick snorted, the clatter of mugs coming through from the background as his brother no doubt started making himself some coffee. "Can I let Dami know you'll be out taking pictures?"
"Sure," Tim agreed easily, almost looking forward to the conversation that would surely follow. His little brother's talent for art had been one of the first bonding moments they'd shared, when Damian had unknowingly given a glowing critique of one of his photographs. Alfred had told him later that Tim was the photographer, and Tim swore he'd never known peace since. Still, it was better than having a tiny assassin trying to stab him over and over again. Now he just had his little brother bugging him for pictures every time he went out on the streets. "I'll send any good ones over to him for references."
Taking a deep breath, Bernard came up over his shoulder and slipped his hand into Tim's. Tim focused on where he was, taking in the sea air filled with Gotham smog, and felt surety settle in his bones like steel. He wanted to do everyday things for once in his life, and he wanted to take his boyfriend around a city they both loved, vigilante business be damned. If an emergency happened, he would be there, but right now, his priority was his boyfriend and his strenuous grasp on the peace he'd been craving for so long.
"I'll talk to you later, Dick," Tim said into the phone as Bernard squeezed his hand. "We're going to make the most of the sun whilst it's hanging around."
Hanging up on his brother, Tim turned his smile onto the boy who had saved his sanity in more ways than one, gesturing to the steps and letting Bernard lead the way out of his boat. Though really, with how often the blonde had been over for the past two-going-on-three weeks, maybe Tim could start referring to it as their boat?
…Maybe not just yet.
Unless Bernard also thought like that? Tim suppressed a groan as he was tugged down through the marina, trying not to think back to the panic he'd been in on whether to call Bernard his boyfriend or not. He did not want a repeat of that, thank you very much.
But maybe it was something to think about, as Tim checked his bag one more time, making sure his camera was secure, before speeding up to walk side by side with Bernard.
“Everything alright?” Bernard asked, squeezing his hand as Tim took over their walk, beginning to lead the blonde away from the familiar boats and water and further into the city. Tim hadn't been kidding when he said he was taking advantage of the good weather, catching the way the sun gleamed off the far-off skyscrapers whenever there was a break in the cluttered houses by the road.
"Just my brother," Tim explained, rolling his eyes lightheartedly as he started to map their route in his head. Sure, it always took longer to get around the city on foot, but he wanted Bernard to have the whole experience. He was taking his boyfriend on the route he used to take to snap pictures and stalk his family before they became his family; it was such an essential part of the past Beranrd was slowly learning about, and Tim wanted to share it. Especially when the blonde had been working so hard on his parkour skills lately.
He wasn't quite ready to admit what he'd been thinking about to Bernard.
"He's worried about me going radio silent."
"Because of the corpse?" Bernard checked, talking in general so that no eavesdropper would get suspicious. Corpses were a dime a dozen in Gotham, but there was only one Joker.
"Yep. They currently have a list of fifteen DNA matches and nothing else to go on. So they're stumped."
"Fifteen?" Bernard checked, gaping slightly as Tim shrugged. He didn't know how Dionysus had fucked with the DNA in Bernard's hair, but he was eternally grateful that it had been done.
"Yeah, and the only connection to me is apparently my mother. Which, whilst I do think she would kill most of the people that have hurt me over the years, she is still very much dead."
"I don't know," Bernard mumbled, grinning out of the corner of his eyes. "I keep feeling like I'm getting glared at whenever I sleep at my apartment. Would your mother haunt me?"
"She wouldn't," Tim stressed, rolling his eyes at his over-dramatic family. "My dad and brothers? Different story."
"What about your sister?"
"You wouldn't even sense her coming for you. Luckily, she likes me being happy too much to be overprotective."
Thankfully, they were able to leave behind the topic of Tim's ridiculous family as they headed further into the city. Most people around the Narrows knew Tim in some way, whether through knowing him as a kid or recognising him as the face of the Neon Knights program, which was trying to provide better housing and support for them all. But whilst the people who knew Tim Wayne would look at him with suspicion and reluctant respect, people who knew little Timmy from the Alley were quick to shout hello, coming up to him just to ask him who the hell Bernard was. The minute Tim made the mistake of saying his boyfriend, three street kids lit up in glee, darting away into alleys to spread the news, and Tim just knew he'd be getting a grilling from Rebecca, Tony, and Julian. Those three had been the only ones to really look out for him when he'd been a kid with too big eyes and a too expensive camera to be anywhere near the streets.
They would just love to hear he had a boyfriend. And with that love came teasing that Tim knew he wouldn't be able to escape.
That was for future Tim to deal with, though. Present Tim only cared about the church they were approaching, turning to Bernard with a grin that promised danger and finding one mirrored right back at him.
"The bell tower has the best view of this whole area," he said, pointing towards the stone tower with barely contained excitement. Squeezing down on his boyfriend's hand, Tim started pulling the older boy in earnest, jogging up to the house of god and only feeling slightly bad about not going inside. Just because Tim wasn't Christian didn't mean he wanted to be disrespectful. Maybe there was something disrespectful in climbing a church. Still, nobody had done anything to him in the ten years he'd been doing it, so Tim took the forgiveness as permission and began to point out all the handholds and gargoyles that provided excellent rest points.
"Don't worry; I won't let you fall."
Bernard didn't look entirely convinced, but as Tim went first, he could feel his boyfriend's gaze lasered on his hands and feet, for once not being distracted by his ass or face as Bernard tried to learn the route.
The first few seconds were dicey as Bernard learned how best to grip without ripping his nails off, and where his slightly longer reach might come in handy. Tim hung back, dropping back down whenever it looked like Bernard was getting lost, hanging by his boyfriend's side as he pointed out the obvious handholds. As they climbed, Bernard's face began to flush, unused to this kind of physical exertion. But his eyes were gleaming, and a smile broke across his face as they finally reached the top of the bell tower, settling on the ledge that exposed the dormant bell as the entire Narrows spread out below them.
Packed together like concrete sardines, the landscape below them was a sea of urban beauty. Graffiti, billboards, and neon lights brought colour to an otherwise dreary scene of greys and blacks. Even from up in the tower, they could see people scurrying around below them, friends and neighbours meeting up on street corners, the homeless sheltering under bridges and in doorways, and of course the street kids, roaming around in gangs and breaking through crowds with crows of triumph as they stole whatever they could get their hands on. It was alive here, despite the way death lurked in every shadow. But in the light of the sun, all Tim could see was the conviction he held towards keeping this place safe.
"Wow," Bernard breathed, looking around as if this was the first time he'd ever seen this neighbourhood. But Tim knew it was the change in perspective that was taking his boyfriend's breath away.
"Yeah," Tim agreed, setting his camera bag down behind one of the pillars to keep it safe. "Everything looks different from the rooftops. Makes you see why Red Hood protects this place, doesn't it?"
"Jason was from around here, wasn't he?"
"Crime alley," Tim corrected, pulling his camera from his bag and fiddling with a few of the settings. "The border between the Narrows and the rest of the Bowery. You can almost see it from here; see where the buildings kinda open up? It's the largest alley in this whole area; everything else got clustered around it. Doesn't mean it's the top real estate since someone gets stabbed there maybe three times a day. But you'll never find a tighter-knit community in the whole city."
"Do they know he's still alive then?" Bernard asked, peering over the tops of buildings before disappearing from Tim's sight as he held his camera to his eye, peering through and seeing a whole new world to share with his little brother. Damian was accustomed to painting from his memories or from the grounds surrounding the manor; he hadn't ventured into the urban jungle that was their home, at least as far as artistic expression was concerned. But he had complimented Tim's composition when he'd seen some of the early photographs he'd shot of their older brothers, commenting on how the colours of the Robin uniform seemed to shine against the dreary background of Gotham City.
It was the juxtaposition that had drawn Damian's eye, and now Tim went out to take pictures of Gotham's unique aesthetics as his brother's eye slowly expanded to find beauty in it all.
"I know they mourned him," Tim mumbled, focusing his shot on the gang of raccoons that were perched imperiously on a fire escape, surveying the trash cans below before they dived. "There's a mural on Memorial Drive, pretty sure Jason doesn't even realise it's there."
"The same place as the Waynes' one?"
"It's actually part of the same piece. The artist went back and added Jason to the wall; it was originally meant to be Martha and Thomas covering Bruce's eyes, but now they have their hands on Jason's shoulders instead."
"Wow."
"Yep. Bruce might know, but he's never said anything about it, and I know Jason has no clue. But he's immortalised as a Wayne, right with our adoptive grandparents."
The click of his shutter broke the silence that had settled between them, multiple frames capturing the raccoons' descent, sharp teeth exposed, and grabby hands stretched out to snatch up anything edible before the rest of the gang got a hold of it. Hopefully, there would be one in there that Damian liked."Why haven't you said anything to him?"
"It's just never really come up," Tim shrugged, pulling his camera away to flash a distracted smile at Bernard. He didn't really know how to explain the strange brotherhood he and Jason had, where they could rip each other apart about mutually dumb decisions, but avoided any of the soft things that they might want to say. Unless one of them was injured or incapacitated, then they could be as gentle and kind as they liked. "When he came back, he was angry; Bruce's evil ex had taken Jason in and trained him, filling his head with ideas on revenge against Bruce, and she really wanted to be rid of me. She wanted to use Jason as a tool to destroy our family so that when her son came along, he would go unchallenged in his quest to be Robin. Not that Bruce would have been in a good place for that after having two sons murdered by the son he thought was dead, but hey, Talia didn't really think of the emotional side of fratricide."
Talia may have been a tactical genius, but she didn't understand any emotion that she couldn't manipulate for her own cause.
"But that was a two? Three? Years ago now," Bernard pointed out, fishing into his own bag and bringing out some sandwiches as the sun chose that moment to hit them directly, warming their bones and the stone they were perched on. "You work with him, and you have his phone number. He calls you when he has nightmares, and you celebrated Joker's death together. He's your brother now, right?"
"Yeah, I suppose you're right." Tim reached over to take the sandwich Bernard passed him, leaning in to kiss his cheek in thanks. Ruminating over his family as he took a bite, Tim looked out towards where the mural of the Waynes was painted on the wall. "I think…if I wanted anyone to know, it would be Jason."
"How he died?" Bernard checked, knowing immediately what Tim was talking about without having to say his name. "You said the investigation was at a halt with the DNA results."
"And it's going to stay at a halt," Tim snorted, grinning as once again, the awe of what his boyfriend had done for him lit him up from the inside. "B's trying to figure out how the gun got out of the vault, for some reason Steph's his top suspect, and she has an actual alibi, and it was such a perfectly framed suicide that even I couldn't find a way to pin another person in the room with him. How did you do that, by the way?"
"What, got the Joker to commit suicide?" Bernard checked, as if he were surprised Tim even had to ask. And yes, he hadn't wanted to know the details when he'd examined the crime scene, but ever since he'd run the DNA test, his mind had been screaming at him for answers. It was so hard to resist it sometimes, and nothing he had done had given him the answers from a detective route; if Tim didn't know Bernard was the one behind it, he'd be tearing his hair out by now.
He must have been projecting his frustration, because the next thing he knew, Bernard was laughing at him, leaning his head on Tim's shoulder as the sunlight turned his hair a beautiful rose-gold.
"You know Dionysus gave me a few gifts," Bernard began, which Tim did remember thank you very much. Watching Bernard's eyes turn a deep royal purple had been startling, but the benefits quickly banished any surprise he might have felt. "One of those gifts is the power to mend and break minds, though I need to channel him to do it. So we just, fixed Joker's mind, and he was so horrified by what he'd done, that he looked for a way out immediately. So we gave him a gun and let him do his thing."
"So wait, Joker really did commit suicide?" Tim checked, mouth open in shock as he stared at his very blasé boyfriend, who just nodded like it was a normal thing to discuss.
"I wasn't going to give him the show he wanted," Bernard explained, like that would make things start to make sense again. As if learning that Bernard still had a substantial link to the god of madness that he could heal broken minds wasn't something that Tim was going to think about every second of the day from this point forward. "He was far too happy when I introduced myself as your boyfriend, and the amount of malice he had in his head was disgusting to Dionysus. He's much more content now that Joker's gone because he doesn't have this giant red mark on his radar."
"He was annoying a god?"
"Well, think about it," Bernard explained, waving his hands as he tried to illustrate his point. "Dionysus is the god of madness, so he can sense when people have mental health issues, from the benign to the dangerous. And the amount of anxiety Joker caused was basically like a bee had landed in his ear and wouldn't stop buzzing. So, while hearing me plot was amusing to him, he helped because he wanted to be rid of that annoyance. And he approves of how much I love you, so he wanted to help."
"A god approves of our relationship?" Tim repeated, unable to stop his incredulous smile in the light of Bernard's sheepish grin. "Well, I guess I can't make any more excuses for you not meeting Bruce then."
"He's Batman!" Bernard protested, like that was somehow scarier than an Olympian god. "I helped kill his greatest nemesis."
"Joker wished he was B's greatest nemesis," Tim snorted, not wanting to give Joker any more credit than he got, especially now that he was dead for good. "He does want to meet you, though. I told him to work on his interpersonal skills before I brought you over, just because you can't hold your tongue when someone upsets me."
"I shouldn't have to! If someone upsets you, I think it's more than fair for me to turn into a supervillain in retaliation."
"Even if that person's my dad?" Tim checked, laughing as he cupped his fingers below Bernard's chin, tilting his head up from his shoulder.
"Babe, your dad is lucky he's dead or I'd have some choice things to say to him," Bernard smiled, leaning up to close the distance between them in a soft, sweet kiss. It didn't matter what they were discussing up there in the sky, or the potential meeting of Tim's family. All that mattered was each other, and Tim found himself falling just a little but more in love as Bernard carded his fingers through his hair.
Pulling back until they could see each other's eyes, the two of them finally felt free as they both breathed deeply in the fresh air, no longer clogged down in the Joker's fear. Instead, they could laugh, talk, and smile without pain, looking forward to their future with the certainty of forever etched into their bones.
After all, it wasn't just anyone who could kill for another. Just as it wasn't anyone who could love a killer.
"But seriously, if Bruce says something that upsets you, I will string him upside down from a chandelier for all of Gotham to laugh at."
"Seems like a fair deal to me."