Girl Wonder

A/N: sequel to something which I haven't written yet, in which comics!Tim goes through RotJ

Tim isn't the same. Nobody else notices it, not really, but Cass does. It's written in every move he makes that he needs help and he knows it. But he can't give up being Robin, not if there isn't someone to replace him, and he can't get help if he's Robin because Batman needs a certain kind of Robin, and if Tim was getting that help he wouldn't be the type of Robin Batman needs. Cass thinks about it for a while and then asks Tim what Robin is, and he replies with his body. Robin is bright, and happy, a foil for Batman. He keeps Batman sane, reminds him that the world isn't all darkness and death. Reminds him of what he's fighting to save.

Cass goes away and thinks. She remembers Steph, the way she moved. The way Nightwing moves. The way Tim moves when he's around Batman. The way they smile. The way their bodies scream for Batman to cheer up and the way Bruce subconsciously responds a little, the way he doesn't when it's just her. The way they love the jumplines, say it so loudly with their bodies that she isn't the only one who can see their joy even when they don't say anything. While she and Batman come out of the shadows to silently knock everybody out, Robin is the diversion, the brightly-colored target who hops in the thick of things, smiling and teasing and laughing. She isn't certain she can talk as much as she should to be Robin, but every Robin is different. She can laugh. And it won't be the first time she's been a target.

She goes to Barbara. "Need Robin clothes."

"Tim has plenty of uniforms," Barbara replies, turning from her constant surveillance. One of the views on her monitors is always of Tim, now.

"Not Tim," Cass says. "Me."

Barbara blinks behind her glasses. "Cass…you're Batgirl. And there's already a Robin."

"Tim needs help," Cass says, and Barbara already knows. She's been monitoring him constantly since his ordeal, and has noticed things that others haven't. She's seen him when he's alone. She nods and helps Cass design her own Robin uniform.

***

Cass shows up at the cave in her new uniform, and smiles at the startled faces. Smiles like Robin smiles and like she smiles, with her whole body.

"Batgirl, what-" Batman says.

"I'm not Batgirl," she says, making sure to say every word. "I'm Robin."

All the tension that's been running through Tim all this time drains away, or at least all of the tension which came from not allowing himself to get help. Batman isn't looking at him, though. He still thinks Tim wants to be Robin. He's marshalling his arguments when Tim speaks.

"Robin," he says. "Thank you." She smiles again as he peels of his mask. Even Batman can see that he's wrong now that he's dropped the mask he's been keeping over himself and his psyche for months.

"Tim?" Batman says quietly.

"Batman needs a Robin," Tim says. "But he needs a sane Robin, or at least one saner than I am right now."

Symmetry

It seems fitting that he should die here, in a setting so similar to how it all began. He can still hear the gun roar in his ears, both the one from so long ago and the one that's just been fired. He wears Kevlar, but even that can't stop a gunshot at such close range. Everything seems distant, but this isn't the first time he's been wounded so he tries to keep moving towards the mugger. His foot, clumsy from pain and blood loss, slips on a pearl slick from the puddle of blood already spreading from the bodies. He goes down hard, his muscles not responding to his attempts to fall right.

He knows this is the end for him. Nobody else knows yet, but Oracle- Barbara- is scrambling a team and he knows his body won't be left on the pavement of Crime Alley. He wonders if there will be another Batman, since neither Dick nor Tim wants to be his successor. His eyes linger on the expression of the boy who just lost his parents, and he knows there will be, even if he never takes the name. He doesn't know if he should smile or cry as he slips into the darkness.

Novelty

He publishes under what is obviously a pseudonym. Given the coded messages strewn throughout his books, some of the more obsessive of his fans spend months trying to decipher what the name means, trying to figure out who he really is from his choice of name.

The pseudonym is random.

The only one who deciphers the true code, or even determines its existence, is a ten-year-old boy, but since he'd long since found out that the real person who writes the bestselling, impeccably-researched crime novels is Bruce Wayne, nothing changes.

Alfred and Dick still don't know that not all of Bruce's computer time is spent chasing down criminals.

Garden

He doesn't ask anybody for permission. He could, of course; however rarely the former inhabitants saw each other, they still had each other's contact information. In the space of a few hours, Vandal and Shade and Eel and Slade could be there for a conference. He's not particularly fond of them, but he knows it would be the right thing to do to ask their opinions. Earth isn't his alone, after all. Technically. He doesn't bother, though. Earth is his in all the ways that matter, and he knows the others will just pass his rudeness off as just Bruce being Bruce (it was ridiculous to maintain a secret identity when it was only them, when he doesn't have anything to protect even from those he'd once called his enemies). On the empty plain where once a great city had stood, he sets to work.

It's delicate work at first; on most worlds, life had evolved slowly and naturally and had built the atmosphere as time passed, changing the world and being changed by it. It would be difficult for his plants to throw off the balance of gases in the air; after all, it's such a large planet and his garden is so small. But he's thorough; he plans to at least visit for the rest of his life, however long that might be. If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, he's going to invest his attention, his diligence, in that ounce of prevention.

He creates a perfectly balanced ecosystem, hand-selecting everything down to the microbes, and tends it by hand until it's stable and robust and alive without need of his help. Nothing in his garden would be familiar to somebody acquainted with only what had been Earth biology, but there's nobody by that description any more. And much as he would love to see roses again, it's a relief just to see something alive on this planet again. Over a few short years, the former location of Gotham City becomes a wilderness even Isely would have been happy with, although the trees will take longer to really be trees. It's all right, though. He can wait.

***

The next reunion goes smoother than he'd expected. He had, after all, started in Gotham. For all that Gotham doesn't exist any more, still nobody dares try to tell him what he can and can't do in it. Gotham is his in a way nothing else has ever been, in a way that defies not only what's normal, but possibly also what's possible. The others have all moved on with their lives, with the exception of these occasional remembrances. He's the only one who stays.

Shade gives him clippings from his own garden, and he knows he has implicit permission (not that he needs it, but it's the thought that matters). His garden spreads through careful cultivation and species selection to encompass the world.

Memoriam

He flies in and lands on the empty plain. There's nothing but this wasteland as far as the eye can see. The only difference seeing it from space had made was that there's water in other places. Even the Event hadn't gotten rid of those, even though it had wiped out all life on the planet, except for a few of the more robust microbes and a small percentage of the metas and aliens who had called Earth home. None of them had even tried to pick up the pieces and rebuild civilization on this planet, even those who were most attached to it. There was too much pain and too little life here to even think of trying.

His boots crunch on the gravel. They're the same boots, or at least the same design (if it had been the same exact costume it would have long since crumbled into dust), he's worn for a long time. The whole costume is the same; he can't be bothered to keep up with the rapid change of fashions anymore, not when the years, the decades, blur together like the days had used to when he was younger. The centuries haven't yet lost their slowness in his perception, but he can tell it's only a matter of time. He fears he's lost touch with humanity (or whatever, since there aren't any humans any more unless you count a few immortals; other languages have words which are more encompassing, but he still thinks in English, even after all this time since he last heard it spoken even by himself); their lives seem so ephemeral to him now that he doesn't even try to connect any more. Not that it matters; he doesn't do the heroing thing any more, hasn't since the Event no matter how often he'd been asked. It just didn't seem right to try to save somebody else's world when he'd failed so miserably at saving his. And it had been his (perhaps it still is), no matter how little he'd fit in while it had still been alive.

There had once been a city here, but it's impossible to tell from just looking at it. Enough time has passed that even the buildings have been eroded to rubble. The Event had been so thorough that it had taken a long time; there had been no plants to cover the walls and tear them down, no animals to break the windows. For years after the Event the city had been a still life. Cold corpses had laid where they'd fallen in a grotesque parody of life, children playing, mothers in the process of preparing dinner, crime stopped in its tracks. With few bacteria left to decay the corpses, he'd had ample time to see everything before it had faded with what had seemed cruel slowness: every person he should have been able to save. His friends. His loved ones. People he'd known only vaguely. People he'd never met and never would meet. But eventually they were unrecognizable even to him. And then they were gone, and he almost wished they weren't because even seeing their bodies everywhere was better than seeing the city so empty, so devoid of anything that even resembled life out of the corner of the eye. He'd left Earth then, and only returned at intervals to remember, as one of the few who could, one of the few who still can.

The spot isn't marked. It never had been, but for anyone but him it would have been easier to find with the aid of streets and of buildings to use as landmarks. He's made the journey so many times that he never has even a moment of doubt about the location. He doesn't even step over the invisible lines delineating where the sidewalk ends and the buildings begin. He reaches his destination and closes his eyes at the rush of memory of years past, of the distant past, of those who'd died.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his voice harsh from only rare use. It sounds overly loud to his ears, even over the strong wind which had always been blocked by the buildings before they'd been eroded to rubble so that it could only be felt on the rooftops. He feels tears stinging his eyes, as he does when he comes here every year. "I'm sorry."

He pulls two flowers from where he'd secured them under his belt. They aren't roses; all the roses were destroyed at the same time everything else that mattered to him was destroyed. But they're the closest he can get. Gently he places them on the ground and walks back to the sleek black ship.

A Good Day

It's been a year since the end of the war. Bernard's accustomed, now, to seeing men and a few women with haunted eyes who dive for cover at any sudden loud noise, an adaptation which had been perfectly logical, perfectly natural, when they were in the warzone but which is out of place even in Gotham. Bernard's gotten over it for the most part. He still twitches when he hears fireworks or gunfire a few streets over, but he manages to stay upright. He doesn't think anybody who wasn't there even notices him react any more. But he was only a medic, doing triage not quite on the front lines. Most of the people he'd known over there, even the ones who'd come back before he had, still reacted more.

He'd never expected Tim to be one of them, but then again he'd met a lot of people he wouldn't have expected to be soldiers serving in the war. And he'd never known Tim very well.

He hasn't seen Tim since Tim's dad died, right after the gang war, so when he sees him walking down the street he isn't entirely sure it's actually him. Tim moved to Blüdhaven, why would he be back here? But something about the way he moves makes Bernard willing to risk embarrassing himself. It's not like it would be the first time.

"Tim?" he says hesitantly.

The man's eyes snap to his, and wow, how could he forget those blue eyes that seem to pierce into your soul? "Who wants to know?" He seems different, and not in a minor way. The Tim he'd known (he's sure this is Tim, now) had been the complete opposite of confrontational, breaking up fights he hadn't even been involved in. This Tim seems willing (eager?) to fight.

"It's Bernard, Bernard Dowd," Bernard says. "C'mon, Tim, I know I've changed, but I don't think it's been that much." He gives the grin he didn't feel like giving very often anymore because he knows (hopes) Tim would recognize it.

"Oh," Tim says slowly, relaxing. "Sorry, my memory's kind of…" he gestures vaguely toward his temple.

"Plus I doubt the scar helps," Bernard replies, fingering the raised skin where shrapnel had almost taken his eye out in a familiar motion. Sometimes it's hard to keep his fingers off of it, even though he knows that the more he touches it the more attention it draws to itself.

"Scars are…nothing major," Tim says, rubbing at his neck. His collar moves under his hand and Bernard sees a truly nasty scar across his neck. How had Tim even survived that? It looks old, though, so Tim didn't get it in the war unless he was one of the lucky few who got treated by one of the few metas who can heal. He doesn't have any problems not staring at the scar, which is rare even now, with so many people who were wounded in the war walking around. With his scar being so visible.

"You want to grab a cup of coffee?" Bernard asks. "Or whatever?"

"Sure." They're falling back into the old patterns, a little. Neither of them is the same, or even close, to who they'd been when they knew each other before, but it's easy enough to pretend they are. If he doesn't look at Tim's eyes darting all over the place. If he doesn't look at the windows, at his scarred reflection. If there aren't any loud noises to make them jump.

They order, and Tim chooses the table in the best strategic position, away from the large windows at the front of the shop but right next to the side exit. Where he can see everything that goes on in the coffee shop and can duck out quickly if he needs to. At first Bernard thinks this unconscious positioning is new, something he picked up in the war like so many others had, but when he thinks back to high school he realizes that whenever Tim had chosen their table he'd always chosen one like this. Bernard had never realized because he'd never had to think about how to avoid getting killed back then. Maybe Tim always has.

The silence stretches out awkwardly, and belatedly Bernard remembers that he'd always been more of a talker than Tim had been (how could he forget something like that? He'd always talked a lot). "So, Tim, what have you been doing?" he winces, knowing that can be a really bad question to ask people who were in the war. "I mean…" He can't think of anything to finish his sentence with.

Tim fidgets with a napkin, but there's something off about his fidgeting, about the way that he's completely still except for his fingers. He wouldn't be moving more than one of Gotham's gargoyles if he wasn't shredding the napkin very precisely. Bernard can't remember ever seeing Tim fidget like this (or at all). Seeing even this completely normal fidgeting on Tim is like seeing some of the more messed-up people he'd encountered trying to act normal. Like they know there are some things normal people do, so they do them, but something about the actions is just off. Nothing you can point to and say, "That's wrong", but just something that sets your teeth on edge and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

After a moment he realizes Tim isn't going to say anything. Maybe what he'd done is classified. Maybe he can't remember (he did say he had some memory issues, after all). Maybe he just didn't want to talk about it. "I was in the war," he says to make conversation. Not particularly cheerful conversation, of course, but what else are they supposed to talk about? Bernard, at least, hasn't found civilian life particularly engaging since he got back, and it's hard to just forget about something you've lived for years. "Just a medic, but, you know, I was there."

Their drinks are ready, and Tim goes and gets them without a word. Tim has always taken his coffee black (of course), but he raises his eyebrow at Bernard when he sees that he isn't the only one, now. There's a large difference between this and the triple grande vanilla non-fat with whip lattes he'd practically lived on back in high school. He blushes. "I don't really have a sweet tooth anymore," he explains like he needs an excuse for his tastes changing. Tim nods shortly and they drink their coffee in silence for a while.

"I wasn't," Tim blurts, and it takes Bernard a moment to remember where their conversation had left off. Tim doesn't look up from his coffee, and he doesn't seem inclined to say anything more.

"Then how'd you get like this?" Bernard asks. "I mean, no offense, but you look terrible."

Tim twitches, or maybe flinches. "I can't." He clears his throat. "I can't talk about it."

"Well, I hope you're talking to somebody about it," Bernard says.

"No." Tim looks up, finally, his eyes wide. "Nobody else needs to have my nightmares."

"Do you at least have somebody looking after you?"

"As if I could avoid it."

"And they let you just wander around the city? You look like you could have a flashback at any moment."

Tim laughs, one short ha! which contains no amusement whatsoever. It sends chills down Bernard's spine. "None of my flashbacks are lethal. Besides, they're keeping a very close eye on me even if it doesn't look like it." He waves at the security camera as if he thinks somebody's watching the feed in real time. With how weird Tim's acting, Bernard isn't sure if he believes Tim's delusional (which would be the safe bet in normal circumstances, but if Tim wasn't in the war who knows what he got mixed up in that messed him up so badly) or that somebody really is watching him. It's theoretically possible, since a lot of security cameras are now police-accessible over the internet, but it's very unlikely.

He's worried about Tim even after seeing him again for such a short time, but he isn't his mother, so he drops the subject. Unfortunately, that means they have nothing to talk about. Again. Bernard's always filled in the empty spaces in conversations with gossip, but he hadn't kept in touch with anybody from high school, so they don't know any of the same people any more.

Tim tenses in an all-too-familiar way when two women wearing head scarves sit down at the table next to theirs, speaking what sounds like Arabic. Bernard tenses too, ready for Tim to have a flashback. Hearing Arabic is one of the bigger triggers, in Bernard's not limited enough experience. And just because Tim claims he wasn't in the war doesn't mean he was telling the truth. But Tim relaxes as much as he has during the rest of their conversation after a second and drains his coffee.

"I should go," he says dully. "If I'm not back for my meds at 4 they'll start stopping me when I leave."

Bernard stands up and follows him out, still sipping at his coffee. "Can I call you?" he asks. "Or you could call me."

Tim shakes his head, just a quick jerk to the side. "Today's a good day. They're rare."

"They won't always be rare."

Tim's expression is guarded. His eyes only meet Bernard's for a second before resuming their darting around. Bernard thinks that, if it were anyone but Tim, he'd have an expression of hope. He doesn't know if Tim knows how to do emotions any more, or even fake them the way he'd used to sometimes in high school (Bernard wasn't supposed to notice, but sometimes he'd caught Tim out of the corner of his eye, expressionless, although he'd always been all smiles when Bernard had turned to him). He fumbles in a pocket and sorts through several scraps of paper before he finds the one he wants. That's new; Tim had never been less than organized (some, like Bernard, would say anal) back in high school. "Try this number," he says, shoving the paper at Bernard. "It isn't mine, but she might let you talk to me."

"Thank you."

"Don't get your hopes up."

Bernard opens his mouth to say something, but the sharp retort of gunfire cuts him off. He throws himself to the ground before he can even register that it actually is gunfire, not a car backfiring or somebody dropping a stack of plates. Tim doesn't duck and cover, though, he falls into a pose like he's ready to do karate on somebody, not like he's possibly in the firing range of a semiautomatic. Tim reaches for his waistband, and half of Bernard's thoughts are Please, God, tell me they didn't let him out with a gun and half of them are glad that he is armed (unless he only thinks he's armed, if this is some sort of a flashback and he actually doesn't have anything) because he can stop whoever's shooting.

But it turns out that Tim doesn't have a gun. He pulls something metal out of his waistband, and it takes a moment for Bernard to register that it's a shuriken, or rather several shuriken, and by that point they're flying through the air, the sun glinting off of them and half-blinding Bernard. He doesn't have time to think of even one reason shuriken are ineffectual in gunfights before they've lodged in the gunman's hand and arm and demonstrated that sometimes, at least, shuriken can be effective.

There's a sudden strong wind and suddenly there's a man in front of Tim, who's looking around frantically and clutching another shuriken. "Tim," the man says in a soothing voice. "It's okay, you got him. There isn't anybody else. You're having a flashback. Concentrate on my voice. Come back to the real world."

All at once the tension drains out of Tim, leaving behind a weary confusion. The shuriken drops from his limp hand. "Bart…?" His voice wavers.

The man puts his hands on Tim's shoulders and looks into his eyes. "It's me." Tim's frantic eye movement (trying to watch everything at once) seems to have stopped, perhaps because he's with somebody he trusts. It hurts, a little, to know that Tim doesn't trust him, but he hadn't expected anything else. They'd only known each other for a few months back in high school, after all.

"I did it again, didn't I." It isn't a question, just a statement full of resignation. Tim's perfect posture has collapsed, and he slumps standing up, only the other man's hands on his shoulders holding him up.

"Sorry I was so late," the other man apologizes, even though he'd gotten there within seconds of the first burst of gunfire. "Barbara took a bathroom break at just the wrong time."

So they had been watching him! Bernard really doesn't want to know what Tim had been mixed up in, now. But Tim's his friend, or was anyway, so he picks up the shuriken and stands up. He isn't an expert on shuriken, but this one looks handmade, not like the ones he's seen in knife shops and in the possession of some of the guys he'd known during the war. He holds it out to Tim silently, since even the noise he'd made standing up had attracted their attention to him and he's being looked at intensely by a pair of blue eyes and a pair of gold. Tim accepts it just as silently, but the other man grabs his wrist.

"Tim…" he says almost warningly. Tim doesn't reply, just tucks the shuriken back where it came from and doesn't meet the man's eyes. The man gives up, sighs and throws his hands in the air. "Fine. Come on, we have to go." He turns and walks off, Tim following silently behind him.

Bernard watches them go, fingering the paper Tim had given him in his pocket. This was a good day for Tim. He isn't sure he can deal with that.

Some Comas…

The doctors had never expected Bruce to come out of it. Time and time again, they'd urged his guardians to pull the plug. First Alfred, until he had a heart attack and died. Then Dick, until he and Tim died in the same battle. In the years following they'd focused their attentions on Clark. Clark was, however, an eternal optimist, and so he came and visited Bruce frequently. Besides, he knew Bruce's views on euthanasia.

"I wish you'd pulled the plug while you could!" Bruce shouted, and threw his tray of food. Tried to, anyway; it only made it over the edge of the bed because it slid off.

"You don't mean that," Clark said. He was so relieved to have his friend back that even Bruce's anger was comforting. "You don't approve of euthanasia."

"I've recently had reason to change my opinion." The only emotion on his face was around his eyes. Clark's never learned to read that tell on Bruce; his cowl had been lead-lined after their first encounter, and he'd never had much contact with Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy.

"Why, Bruce?" Clark asked, his voice hushed. "You've always been so determined."

"Just go, Clark." He turned his face away from Clark in a clear dismissal. After a while Clark left. Bruce would snap out of his funk soon; he always did. Clark went to Asia to give aid to the people who found themselves in the path of yet another hurricane.

It was hours later before he next listened for Bruce's heartbeat. The familiar action had comforted him over the years; Bruce's heartbeat had always been there, strong and steady.

This time, it wasn't.

Clark rushed back to the hospital. Bruce had just masked his heartbeat somehow, right? He'd done that before, when he was in costume (uniform, Bruce insisted. "We aren't kids going trick-or-treating."). But even the knowledge of that didn't stop his heart from clawing its way into his throat, didn't stop him from being as terrified as he'd been when Bruce had first slipped into the coma.

When he got to the hospital, there was a man hosing off the sidewalk. The runoff was red, fading to pink as he watched, and he knew.

***

"I wish you'd pulled the plug while you could!" Bruce shouted, and tried to throw the tray. It should have flown across the room to the wall beside Clark. The Jell-o and the drink and the unidentifiable main course should have run down the wall, making a mess for some hapless candy striper or janitor to clean up, but his muscles had atrophied while he was in the coma and it only slid off of the bed. He hoped it had at least gotten Clark's shoes dirty, but it probably hadn't. Clark was always lucky that way.

"You don't mean that," Clark said. He looked happy. He looked like he thought Bruce should be happy, like he should just forget about Alfred and Dick and Tim and the Mission he'd never be able to do anything about again because his muscles have atrophied and besides he's too old. "You don't approve of euthanasia."

When he thought about all the pain he could have been spared by just not waking up…"I've recently had reason to change my opinion."

"Why Bruce? You've always been so determined." Clark knew why he'd always been so determined. He knew it had always been the Mission. Why couldn't he see how little Bruce had without that? He didn't even have his family.

"Just go, Clark." Bruce turned blindly towards the window, hoping Clark would leave soon. The last thing he needed was somebody who didn't understand hanging around. Some interminable period of time later, Clark took the clue and finally left.

When the television started showing Superman helping out in Asia, Bruce made his move and stood up. He'd worked with Clark often enough to know that this was one of the few times he wouldn't be listening to him with at least half an ear; Clark could be downright stalkerish at times (Bruce knew it was the pot calling the kettle black, but that didn't change the truth of it). Even the few steps to the window were nearly impossible; his legs were trembling with exhaustion by the time he reached it. But he'd soldiered on in the past. Besides, this was the last time he'd have to.

With trembling hands he opened the window and stepped out onto the ledge. The wind whipped him familiarly, almost comfortingly. This is where you belong, a little voice in him whispered. He thought of Alfred, of Dick, of Tim, and jumped.

He'd never called this flying like the others sometimes had. It had some similarity, but he'd never allowed himself to forget that it was nothing more than falling, even with the grapples and de-cel cable. Always before he'd slowed his descent with a cable or by grabbing onto something, or had been caught. This time he didn't save himself. This time no arms caught him, no brightly garbed superhero swept him into the sky in a rush of adrenaline and a quasi-embrace.

The only embrace he found waiting for him at the lowest point of his fall was that of his parents.

Sprain

"Hey Frank," Dick called as Frank entered the gym. Frank looked around, but he couldn't see where Dick was. "Up here." Frank looked up to see Dick balancing on one hand in the rafters.

"Hi Dick," Frank replied. "Should you be doing that?"

"Why not? As long as I use my hands instead of my legs there aren't any problems when I'm up here."

"You could fall and get killed."

Dick snorted. "From this height? Couple of broken bones and that's it." Either Dick's dealt with a lot of jumpers or he's thought about this way too much. He looked at Frank and sighs. "Fine, if it makes you feel better I'll come down." He started to move across the rafters, still balanced perfectly on his hands. Suddenly, there was a clank and Dick and the bar he'd been balanced on both started to fall. Dick grabbed something from his belt and threw it, and as it trailed out Frank saw that it was rope of some sort, with a weight on the end Dick threw. That end wrapped around one of the rafters and Dick swung down as if he was Tarzan or one of those swashbuckling heroes swinging from the chandeliers, except he did it better in some indescribable way. And yeah, part of it was that this is real and not just some actor pretending he's a hero, but another part of it is just that Dick looks right doing this. Even in the short time he was airborne some of the tension Frank hadn't even known was there until that very moment, tension which had always been there oh-so-subtly, melted away. And then Dick landed and rolled like he was used to doing it (and maybe he was; after all, he had that trapeze which he'd obviously used in the past, and he did a lot of gymnastic even now), only something obviously went wrong because when he came out of the roll he clutched the ankle on his good leg.

"What's the matter?" Frank asked.

"Sprained my ankle," Dick said in an everyday tone of voice, like he sprained his ankle all the time. "Do you mind getting the first aid kit for me?"

The first aid kit here is, of course, every bit as well-stocked as the one at Dick's apartment, but Dick just gets out an Ace bandage and uses it to wrap his ankle.

"How do you know it's a sprain and not a break?" Frank asked. "Maybe you should go to the emergency room."

"No," Dick growled. "This isn't an emergency. And trust me, I can feel the difference between a sprain and a break. I've certainly had enough of each." He started to stand up.

"What are you doing?" Frank demanded. "You can't walk like this."

"It's only a sprain," Dick said, exasperated. "I can handle a little pain."

"If you try to walk on that I'll tell the captain you didn't go to the doctor about it."

"You wouldn't." Dick sounded disbelieving.

"I would." Normally trying to stare Dick down is an exercise in futility, but Frank was sincere and Dick actually backed down.

He sighed. "There's a wheelchair over there somewhere." He waved off into the esoteric equipment corner of the room. Most of the equipment there was so obscure that Frank didn't even know what it was, much less how to use it. He had no doubt that Dick not only knew what it all was, but also that he was a master at using it. Even that corner of the gym is laid out neatly, though (he'd never thought of Dick as a neat or organized person, and he certainly wasn't with his files of with his desk, so perhaps he'd learned gym organization etiquette from somebody who was obsessive about it), and he finds the wheelchair quickly.

It wasn't one of those institutional wheelchairs they force you to use in hospitals. No, it was a wheelchair which looked like it was meant for heavy use, for somebody who would be stuck in it for the rest of their life. The handles were removable, and Dick removed them as soon as he wheeled it over.

"Thanks," Dick said shortly, reluctantly, and left the gym.

A Conversation

"You didn't have to bring it in person, Dick," Barbara said as a thick file folder plopped down on her desk.

"You know, Babs, just because you've got the GCPD nearly paperless doesn't mean other departments are too."

"Hey, it wasn't just me! The Wayne Foundation donated a lot of the equipment. If they'd donated money it would have been spent on things like body armor, not that they didn't donate money too."

"The Wayne Foundation gives computers to the police? Color me shocked," Dick deadpanned.

"I know, you'd almost think somebody on the board has a vested interest in having all of our files available electronically."

"Gee, I wonder who that could be."

Trust

"Close your eyes," Bernard says. He's trying to do the voice Tim uses sometimes, the one he can't help but obey. When Tim does it it's possibly the sexiest voice in the world and drives Bernard crazy, but he knows he can't do it correctly. A tiny smile plays at the corners of Tim's mouth. "Come on. Close 'em." Tim pauses just long enough to convey that he's doing it because he wants to instead of because he was ordered to and then closes his eyes.

Bernard leans forward and kisses Tim. Tim grabs him around the back of the neck and tries to pull him, to pull both of them, down, but Bernard has other plans and resists. There's no way he's going to object when Tim deepens the kiss, but he has other plans so too soon (it's always too soon, there's nothing he loves more than Tim but they can't be together 24/7) he breaks off the kiss and goes over to rummage in his nightstand where they don't keep the supplies because if they did they'd never find them in anything like a timely manner.

He finds what he's looking for and turns back to Tim and rolls his eyes because of course Tim's opened his eyes again. "You were supposed to keep them closed."

Tim shrugs and smirks a little in that way that only Tim can smirk. It's the smirk Bernard only sees when they're alone together, or with a few of Tim's other friends. Before Bernard really got to know Tim, he hadn't thought there could be an open smirk, but this smirk is completely different from his closed, public smirk. "Should have said so." He closes his eyes and Bernard crawls across the bed to him and kisses him again and slips the blindfold on.

It's like a switch has been flipped in Tim. He'd been relaxed- well, as relaxed as he ever gets- and now he isn't. He looks like he isn't sure if he wants to fight or run, and the deathgrip he has on Bernard's arm makes Bernard think he's leaning heavily towards fighting. Bernard kisses him softly on the stomach and he makes a noise Bernard hadn't even known he could make. "Okay?" he asks, and he's worried because Tim just doesn't freak out like this, he just doesn't. But he seems to be frozen. "Tim?" Bernard tries to soothe him, smoothes a hand over his chest.

Tim nods jerkily, once, but he still isn't relaxing so Bernard takes it slowly, kissing and petting and licking and rubbing every inch of Tim. "Tim," he says softly as Tim finally unfreezes a little. He can tell that Tim has issues with doing this, but the fact that he isn't pushing Bernard away, isn't removing the blindfold, but he actually trusts Bernard to get him through them, to keep him safe when he's blind and afraid. "Tim." Keeping people safe, having them trust him like this, isn't something Bernard's used to. Tim's the one with the ninja fighting skills and the urge to protect everybody he sees. Bernard's just an ordinary guy. And that trust in him is possibly the most potent aphrodisiac ever.

A Mile in Your Shoes

Clark has known Bruce for almost as long as he's been Superman. He's seen Bruce grieve (everybody who's seen Batman has seen Bruce grieve), not just for his parents but for his children, all of them. He knows how much Bruce loved them, loves them even now, but after they'd died he'd at least been functional, if a little more violent for a period after each of the deaths. He's never seen Bruce like this.

Alfred was one of those people who you met once and you immediately liked them, immediately made a place in your heart for. Bruce had been raised by him. With exceptions that, when added together, amounted to mere months, Alfred had always been there for Bruce, had been there to comfort the nightmares which happened with disturbing frequency, had been there to cook and clean and be a parent for Bruce. Clark doesn't know if Bruce even knows how to live on his own. When he first hears the news, he winces at the thought of the bruises and broken bones the criminals of Gotham will soon experience. Then he sees Bruce at the funeral.

Bruce is as impeccably dressed as Alfred had always made him, perfectly enough that even Alfred would have been proud of his appearance…clothing-wise. Bruce has always been pale, the cost of doing most of his work at night, but now he looks as if there isn't a drop of blood in him. He doesn't give a speech, even though he's the closest thing Alfred had to a son. He doesn't speak at all. He seems to exude an aura which keeps anybody from approaching. He looks through everybody as if they aren't there, as if he has Clark's X-ray vision. When the funeral is over he leaves without saying a word to anybody. He doesn't look at Clark.

The next week, Batman never shows up to the JLA meeting. He's never late, much less absent, unless something major has happened in Gotham. When something major happens in Gotham it's on the news. There's nothing on the news. Batman always calls if he's going to be late or absent. They never get a call. Everybody is worried. Clark is the only one who's worried about Bruce's mental state rather than physical. Nobody knows Bruce as well as Clark does, now. That thought is like a knife in his heart. He can only imagine what it feels like in Bruce's. Clark promises to check up on him and heads to Gotham.

What he finds is…not good. Bruce is eating, and it seems like he's just taken food out of the refrigerator at random. Clark hopes that's the case, because otherwise Bruce is eating a raw onion by choice. He knows Bruce has never been picky about food, especially after No Man's Land, but he's never seen him eat anything quite this revolting when he has a choice. Even if the refrigerator was empty (it isn't) Bruce could go to the grocery store, or call for takeout, or something. Bruce finishes eating and turns to leave the kitchen, and Clark catches a glimpse of his face, which is just…blank. There isn't a hint of emotion on it, not even that small amount he allows when he's being Batman. It's as if he's completely emotionless. That scares Clark more than Batman ever has, more than knowing that Bruce has access to kryptonite. It scares him more than knowing that Luthor has access to kryptonite.

He goes home to Lois, but he can't get the image of Bruce out of his mind. Bruce's coping mechanisms have never been normal (his first involved dressing up as a bat, after all), but before this they were always successful. Bruce couldn't, wouldn't, ever be normal, wouldn't ever be quite sane, but at least before this he'd been able to pretend. Before this he'd been able to deal with his issues at least to the extent that he could get up and function in the world. Now, he isn't coping at all, just sitting there and staring into space.

Lois suggests he should take care of Gotham while Bruce is how he is. "When he comes out of it he'll growl at you," she says. "But secretly he'll be grateful. You should fill his refrigerator too, and if he bitches at you later about not eating onions and moldy carrots and spoiled milk you can always tell him to pay you back." She puts a hand on his arm and looks him in the eye. "Just because you're his best friend doesn't mean there aren't other people who are worried about him."

So Clark refills Bruce's refrigerator (Ma is glad to help him prepare some actual meals) and begins stopping crime in Gotham. It feels wrong to do it at all, much less without Bruce's permission, without his orders. Gotham is Batman's city. Clark isn't the only one surprised that Superman is operating in Batman's city. The ordinary criminals react the same to him as they do anywhere else, but the major-leaguers seem almost disappointed every time they see that he isn't Batman. He knows the feeling.

He's distracted at work, listening to the heartbeat of a man in another city who never moves more than he has to, whose heartbeat retains the same even pattern throughout the day. He passes it off as being worried about a sick friend; the best lie is a truth. He lets the JLA know that Batman is indisposed and will be for the foreseeable future. They ask him questions but he doesn't answer them, merely informing them that it's personal. They ask him when Batman's going to return, and he doesn't have an answer for them. Increasingly, he fears that the answer will be "never".

It's been months since the funeral. Clark's been checking up on Bruce every day. The only change in him has been the length of his unshaven beard, the appearance of his clothes, and his odor. Bruce hasn't shaved, changed, or showered since before the funeral. Clark decides that enough is enough. He can't stand seeing his friend like this any longer.

He places himself in Bruce's path back to the chair from the kitchen. He almost thinks Bruce is going to run into him, but he stops before that happens. He doesn't raise his eyes. He doesn't speak. At this point, Clark would be glad to even hear one of Bruce's territorial growls, one of the ones that mean he's messed up, anything. His wish isn't granted. Bruce is silent.

"Bruce, this has to stop," he blurts out. He kicks himself mentally, not wanting to give Bruce the chance to misunderstand anything he says. "We know how much you miss Alfred, but it's been months since you've done anything but sit in that chair. We're worried about you." The last is almost a whisper, not because he's afraid of admitting his feelings but because it can't contain the true depth of his feelings. He reaches out a hand and puts it on Bruce's shoulder. Bruce hasn't been touched by anybody in months. Clark can't go even a day without touching and being touched. He can only imagine what it's like to have nobody to hug you, to not have brushed skin to skin even incidentally for months.

Bruce's heart rate and breathing speed up. Clark knows that if he could see Bruce's eyes, they would be dilated. In a move almost too fast for even Clark to see he reaches up and grabs Clark's hand and uses it to throw Clark into the wall. There's a table with a statue (doubtless something priceless) in his way. He's so surprised at what Bruce did to him that he lies in the wreckage for a moment. Bruce turns from Clark and goes through the door into the room with his chair. Clark gets up and looks at Bruce, and he's sitting in the chair as detached as he's been these past few months, staring into space. He's also shaking. Bruce has never gotten the shakes after combat, especially something as minor as that. This is not a Bruce who Clark thinks he can fix on his own.

Clark calls the Gotham police and asks them to check up on him, saying they'd had an interview scheduled but when he'd rung the bell there hadn't been a reply, and that Bruce hadn't answered his phone calls either. "It's probably nothing," he says, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. "But nobody's seen him in months, and better safe than sorry, right?" When he hears them head out to the Manor (Jim Gordon's going too, because if it turns out Bruce is all right he's the best person to put a good face on things) he keeps one ear tuned to the conversation, to their cries for Bruce as they walk through the Manor, to their shock at finding Bruce so disheveled. He hopes none of them touches Bruce, since his combat reflexes seem to kick in when he's merely touched now. He knows they won't be able to restrain him if that happens, no matter how much backup they call in. He's ready to go to the Manor at a moment's notice if he hears that happen. He doesn't want Bruce to get shot, and he doesn't think Bruce knows how to stand down when he's in that state.

He hears the sound of Bruce's fist on Gordon's nose and is halfway to Gotham before Gordon gets up from the driveway. Fortunately Gordon convinces his men that Bruce doesn't need to be handcuffed, so Clark doesn't have to intervene. He wonders why Gordon is breaking procedure for a man he thinks he's only met in passing, especially one who's just punched him in the nose. He keeps an eye on Bruce with his telescopic vision until Gordon locks him into a cell at GCPD headquarters for observation and heads home.

"I just feel so useless," he says to Lois. "I can take down criminals and set things on fire with my eyes and lift heavy things, but there isn't a single thing I can do for Bruce."

"You got him in the care of people who can help him," Lois says.

"Aren't you supposed to be the cynical one?" Clark asks. "Do you honestly think they can help him? Do you think he'd let them?"

She considers for a moment and slowly shakes her head. "Why did you call them, then?"

"Because," he sighs, "at least it's a change. And we might get surprised." He gives her a small smile. "Bruce is full of surprises."

The phone rings and he answers it because he's closer. "Hello?"

"Is this Clark Kent?" He hears papers shuffling on the other end of the line.

"Yes it is," Clark replies. "What's this about?"

"This is Commissioner Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department. Are you aware that in the event of Bruce Wayne becoming incapacitated you have decision-making power?"

Clark had almost forgotten about it, but Bruce had insisted he sign the document, "just in case". This is one of many occasions on which he's been glad for Bruce's contingency plans, even if he'd thought it was pointless at the time. After all, Bruce had already had several people sign the document; Clark was the fourth on the list. "Yes…" he says. "Why, has something happened to Bruce?" He allows the smallest amount of the concern he feels to leak into his voice.

"We were asked to check up on him, so we did, and he's currently under psychiatric observation."

"Psychiatric observation?" Clark asks. "I don't understand." He does, of course, but he still has to play the game.

"I'd like for you to come in and sign some forms to have Mr. Wayne committed."

"Is that…necessary?"

"I'm not qualified to make that decision, but in my opinion it is. Why don't you come see for yourself?"

"I'm in Metropolis, but I can make it out there tomorrow," Clark says, reaching for a pad of paper and a pencil. "Where do I need to go once I'm in Gotham?"

***

It isn't any easier to see Bruce like this in a jail cell rather than at the Manor. If he'd had any hope that the catatonia was merely a result of being in the Manor where Alfred had been for Bruce's whole life, it had died upon seeing him exactly the same in a different setting.

"Has he been like this the whole time?" Clark asks softly. It's one thing for Bruce to act like this in the Manor, but for him to just stare into space like that in such a public area…normally, Bruce's eyes would be trying to take in everything, roaming over everyone and everything looking for potential threats, unless he was pretending to be the billionaire playboy, which requires a different type of eye movement. In none of Bruce's normal modes did he just stare at a spot for hours.

"Unless he's touched."

"And if he's touched?"

"He only gave me a bloody nose, but not because it was the most he could do."

"That doesn't sound like Bruce," Clark says. "He doesn't like violence."

Gordon gives him a look that makes him wonder if he knows. "Maybe he took martial arts when he was younger and the reflexes just kicked in. I've heard stranger things."

"I suppose that's possible."

"Come on," Gordon says. "You have to fill out some paperwork."

***

"He's going to be sedated for transport for Arkham," Gordon says.

"Arkham?" Clark says. "Isn't that for criminals?"

"That's what it's best known for, yes. But it also has normal patients, and all of the best psychiatrists in Gotham work there."

"I see," Clark says, and makes a note to go down to the Batcave and see the feeds he knows Bruce has of Arkham's cameras. Arkham might have the best psychiatrists, but the guards are another matter. Even in Metropolis Clark's heard about the abuse they sometimes give the patients. Bruce can defend himself, but other than his extreme reaction to being touched he shows no desire to. There are other forms of abuse than the purely physical. "How is he going to be sedated, anyway? Since he reacts so violently to being touched."

"We never even thought of that."

"Can I try?" Clark asks. If Bruce attacks him, he knows he won't be hurt. He can't say the same of anybody else.

"It's against procedure…but yes. He obviously trusts you. Maybe he won't attack you."

Don't bet on that, Clark thinks.

***

He takes the syringe from Gordon. "I just stick it in his arm and press the plunger all the way down, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay." He steps into the cell with trepidation and starts talking to Bruce in a steady stream of words that are just there so he's saying something. He doesn't know if Bruce registers anything other than orders any more. "Bruce, I know you don't like sedatives but they're insisting you be sedated. You're going to be put in Arkham which apparently isn't just for criminals, but don't worry, I'll keep an eye on you. Okay, I'm going to use this on you now but I'm going to try not to actually touch you so try not to freak out." He carefully slides the needle into Bruce's arm without touching him. Within a few seconds Bruce slumps as if he's a puppet whose strings have been cut. Clark catches him gently before he slides off the bed. He doesn't move at the touch.

They take Bruce to Arkham in an ambulance and Clark follows in his car. At Arkham, he signs the papers to have Bruce committed. He has nothing else to do there, so he gets back in his car and goes to the Manor. He needs to contact some of Bruce's people, such as his lawyer Rachel Green and Lucius Fox, and he doesn't know how. Hopefully Bruce had an address book or a list of contact information on his computer or something. Clark isn't taking this well; he's freaking out about little things which he probably doesn't need to. Knowing Bruce, he has files on his computer with not only contact information but everything from where they went to college to their youngest child's favorite color, because Bruce is just that thorough.

Clark feels as ridiculous as he always does parking his car on the driveway in front of the Manor. It's dwarfed by the Manor and seems out of place. The Manor should have sports cars and limos parked in front of it, not a several years old Accord.

He hadn't noticed it before because he was so worried about Bruce, but the Manor feels empty. Not just Bruce-is-out-for the-day empty, but nobody-lives-here empty. Clark supposes that makes sense; it had always been Alfred who made this a home, who made it lived-in. Bruce had always spent much more time down in the Cave or on patrol (not to mention the various charity and business events he'd gone to) than he'd ever spent up in the Manor. Still, it's eerie to walk through the deserted Manor and know that he's the only person here, that Alfred won't come out of the kitchen with freshly-baked cookies, that Bruce won't step out of the shadows to growl at him for being here. He finds himself walking faster than he has to until he gets to the study and the clock and realizes that he doesn't actually know how it opens. The process has always been blocked by Bruce's body and he'd never thought to use his x-ray vision to look anyway. He'd never expected to need to get into the Cave this way without Bruce being here. He fiddles around with it for a little bit until he gets the clock hands into the right position (10:47; he doesn't have to wonder what significance that has to Bruce, not with who he is) and it opens to reveal the stairs leading down.

The Cave still feels lived-in, although Bruce has been absent from it for longer than he's been absent from the Manor. This is, perhaps, an effect of the bats, the real ones (will there be Bats ever again? Clark isn't so sure), which hang from the ceiling as they always do. The guano on the floor is a testament not only to their presence, but also to Alfred's absence. Everything is dusty here, as it is up in the Manor. Clark blows the dust off of the keyboard and wipes off the mouse. The monitors have various camera feeds and alerts displayed on them. The computers have been working as tirelessly as always these past two months, displaying information which nobody has seen. Telling the empty air about every crime committed in Gotham, as if it'll bring Bruce back from wherever he is in his own head.

Clark hasn't used Bruce's computers before, but fortunately the search function is relatively easy to find and he has Rachel Green's number in a matter of minutes (relatively being the key word; this isn't Windows, it's some sort of unique Bat operating system designed by Bruce or Barbara or Tim or all three, and he doesn't know his way around it). He decides to use the Manor's phone to call her; things might be easier if she sees the Manor's number on her caller ID. He writes down her number and Lucius Fox's. Mr. Fox undoubtedly deserves to learn about this from him, rather than from tabloids and rumors when somebody at Arkham speaks. Somebody at Arkham always speaks. He doesn't know of anybody else from Bruce's other life; Bruce never talks about it.

"Rachel Green," she answers her phone.

"Ms. Green, this is Clark Kent. You're Bruce Wayne's lawyer, right?" He knows she is, but he doesn't know how to say what he needs to say, not to a complete stranger.

"Yes…what's this about?"

"I don't really know how to say this, but he's been committed to Arkham."

"Arkham! But why? And why wasn't I contacted? How do you know about it?"

"I'm his legal guardian now," Clark says. "He had a…a thing, you were there when I signed it, and now I'm his legal guardian because he's insane. I don't know why you weren't contacted, though."

"What do you mean by insane?"

"He just sits there staring into space and attacks anybody who touches him. I don't think he's taken a shower since Alfred's funeral."

"Alfred?"

"Alfred Pennyworth, his butler."

"Oh! I remember him." She says something to somebody on her end of the phone.

"I just thought you needed to know," Clark says. "And…I don't really know what I'm expected to do. I never thought this would happen."

"Tell you what," she says. "Why don't I look in on him and we can meet tomorrow?"

"Okay, what time's good for you?"

"How about nine?" she asks. "You can drop by my office."

"Sure, I can do that. Can I get the address?"

***

Clark leans back in the chair and sighs, his calls to Ms. Green and Mr. Fox completed, and then he calls Lois and lets her know what's going on. Hearing her voice is reassuring. There are places which aren't the Manor, people who aren't as messed up in the head as Bruce. When he hangs up he notices that the Manor doesn't seem quite so eerie any more, nor so deserted. Nothing has changed but his perception of it.

He goes out for a quick flight, but there isn't anything more than a few robberies to stop, so he returns to the Cave. Might as well see if Bruce's monitors have picked up anything interesting. Bruce isn't going to be Batman for a while; he should probably familiarize himself with the computers so he can stop the crime Bruce would stop if he could, instead of just whatever he sees or hears. If Bruce ever recovers, he at least wants to be able to say that he did things the right way. For Bruce, that means doing detective work to the point of obsession. If that's what it takes then so be it. Clark isn't about to do a poor job just because it isn't how he usually works, and besides he's an investigative journalist. He knows how, even if it isn't what he's known for.

He tries to familiarize himself with the computers, but it's difficult without a guide, without somebody being there for him to ask questions about. Of course there isn't a user's manual or a help file or anything; that would be too easy. And while everything seems to be well-organized (of course), the information and the resources on the computers are extensive, with mission reports and profiles and forensic results all carefully cross-referenced and thorough and with summaries. There are records for everything from muggings to multiple-person battles, DNA information for small-time crooks as well as major foes.

Clark sleeps at the Manor that night, in one of the guest rooms, wishing he could be with Lois, that he didn't have to be here. If he didn't have to be here it would mean that Bruce was all right. He has to be here. He wakes up in the morning, makes himself presentable, and heads down to Rachel Green's office. She informs him of his rights and responsibilities and tells him a little bit about how Bruce usually manages this side of his life, or at least the parts that she's involved with. Clark is grateful that Bruce has pretended to be an idiot over the years; it means that most of the control of his affairs is already in someone else's hands, primarily Lucius Fox's. Clark has never dealt with many of the things that Bruce (or his fiduciaries) has to deal with on a regular basis. He knows he's in over his head, but he'd be even more so if he had to deal with them too.

"What you need to consider," she says, "is that he's a public figure. One way or another, this is going to come out, and you need to control that."

He understands what she's saying. "I need to call a press conference?"

"Yes. I suggest you plan it with Lucius Fox so you can spin the news so it has the least impact on Wayne Enterprises. Have you ever held a press conference?"

"I've been on the other side," Clark says, dodging the question. He's held press conferences as Superman, but not as Clark Kent. He suspects the experience will be different. Even reporters respect Superman (not that it keeps them from asking the questions, they just do it more respectfully).

"There's a difference between being the one asking the questions and the one answering them. You should probably have somebody else make the statement and answer the questions, just be there in the background."

"All right." He doesn't hesitate; he knows the kinds of questions reporters ask, can make a good guess as to what they're going to ask, and he doesn't want to face that barrage if he can help it.

"You should have it as soon as possible. Tomorrow."

"What if he recovers? Won't letting everybody know about this be bad for him?"

"To some extent. But I don't think he's going to recover any time soon. He's probably been like this for the past couple of months, right? And this isn't the sort of thing someone just snaps back from."

"I suppose you're right."

"Go, set it up," she says. "Visit Mr. Wayne, talk to his doctors."

"I will," he promises.

***

There is, of course, no change in Bruce. By now Clark has stopped half-expecting one. The hospital staff did clean him up and change his clothes while he was sedated, though, so he looks closer to presentable. The beard still isn't attractive, though.

"He's being officially evaluated today, but I don't think there's much we can do to help him," Dr. Arkham says. "Not until he breaks out of the catatonia."

"Do you think he will?" Clark asks.

"It's difficult to say. He may be like this forever, or he may break out of it in the next minute. We will, of course, have our best doctors working on his case, but I suggest you don't get your hopes up."

Clark nods, resigned. Bruce has always walked the line dividing sanity from insanity. It makes sense that when he finally crossed it, he went all the way. Bruce does (did? a little voice in his head suggests) many things in that manner. He spends an hour talking to Bruce, about nothing and everything. He doesn't know if Bruce hears a single thing he says.

***

That night, the Bat-signal goes up. Clark isn't Batman, but he's the closest thing Gotham is going to get. He lands on the roof of Gotham Central, feeling like an intruder, like he's the last person who belongs here. Here on this roof, here in Gotham, here answering a very specific summons which isn't meant for him. He lands, and the police look into the shadows, expecting one of the shadows to reveal itself to be Batman.

"It's just me," he says. "Batman is…indisposed." They look a little surprised at that, but he doesn't blame them. Until recently, Bruce wasn't alone. If he wasn't available, he'd send Robin or Nightwing. He didn't allow other heroes into his city if it could possibly be avoided. It can't be avoided any more.

Gordon recovers first. In fact, he doesn't seem very surprised at the news. Perhaps he knows who Bruce is. If he does, he's probably already figured out who Clark is. "Joker's on the loose," he says. "He kidnapped a busload of kids going home from school and is demanding that Batman show."

"Where?"

"The Happy Time Factory on 5^th and Loeb. Are you sure you can handle it?"

It's unusual for people to question whether Superman can handle a non-meta, but Clark knows how tricky the Joker is. "Yes."

Gordon nods, and Clark has the odd feeling that if he was anybody other than himself Gordon wouldn't let him go without an argument. He hopes he can live up to Gordon's trust in him. He's heard Bruce tell stories about the Joker. Most of them have very bad middles. The endings, of course, are always Bruce taking the Joker back to Arkham, but that doesn't make the middle have not happened. Some of the stories made him ill just thinking about them. He can only imagine what it's like to be Bruce, to have actually seen the horrors he'd described. In this business everybody sees bad things, but there's a difference between what most of them see and what the Bats had to deal with.

Sometimes Clark wonders what Gothamites are thinking. They voluntarily stay in a city which is dirty and corrupt and in which you can be killed for an accident of naming. Gotham has gone through a plague, an earthquake, No Man's Land, and a gang war in the past few years and yet people still live here voluntarily, still consider it home no matter what happens. And they know they can get killed over something as arbitrary as a business name, but still they name their casinos "Double Down" and their cafes "Alice's" and their factories "Happy Time". Clark knows what it's like to see a city as home, but Gothamites seem almost suicidal about staying.

Clark lands and walks into the factory. He can hear the children crying and he follows that sound. The school bus is parked in the middle of the factory, the kids inside of it.

"You're not Batman!" a voice exclaims. The Joker. "Where's Batman?"

"He couldn't make it," Clark replies. "Release the children."

"I don't think so," the Joker says, and his voice isn't filled with the mirth it had been. "If Batman refuses to come out to play, I won't play either."

Clark hears a click, but he's too slow to even figure out what the sound is before it's too late. The bus explodes in a rush of heat and light and flying pieces of metal. Suddenly there is no bus and no children and Clark is splattered with blood and chunks and he's trying to avoid thinking about what those chunks used to be but it's impossible with the evidence right in front of him. Clark doesn't get sick unless he's depowered, but he vomits on the floor in the corner. By the time he recovers the Joker's gone. He's failed completely, in a way he hasn't often failed.

In shock, he flies back to the Cave (he's surprised he can find it, with the condition he's in). How could he let this happen? How could he underestimate the Joker by so much? How could he be so arrogant as to think he can defeat Batman's erratic enemies easier than Bruce can? At the cave he strips out of his costume, knowing he'll never wear that particular one again even if the blood stains can be removed. He burns it to ash with his heat vision. He doesn't need a reminder of how he's failed; the image of the children he'd failed is seared into his brain. He stumbles into the Cave's shower, grateful that for all of the items down here there isn't a mirror in sight. He doesn't have to look at his face stained red with blood except for where his tears have etched clean lines. He stays in the shower obsessively scrubbing himself for long after the water swirling down the drain has lost its color. He feels like he will never be clean again and wonders if this is why the water heater down here is so large and the hot water lasts for so long. He knows it probably is.

It's too late for him to call Lois, so he goes up and lies down on the bed he's claimed as his. He doesn't think he'll be able to sleep but after hours of staring at the wall he finally falls into a restless sleep plagued by nightmares.

***

In the morning, Lucius Fox takes one look at him and cut him out of the press conference. Fortunately he assumes that Clark's mood is because of Bruce's condition, so Clark doesn't have to make anything up. After last night he isn't sure he could manage anything coherent, much less convincing. He goes to visit Bruce instead. When they're left alone, Clark checks to make sure there aren't any hidden microphones and that nobody's within earshot and then tells Bruce about his night. He has to tell somebody, and as tough as Lois is he doesn't want to tell her about it in the detail he has to tell somebody about it. He feels nauseous just talking about it, but he can't stop the flow of words. He knows that if Bruce is hearing any of this he understands, even if he would never talk about it if he was in Clark's position. Clark's heard Bruce having nightmares. He's read some of the worse mission reports on the computers.

He stays for an hour, talking to a person so still that he might as well be an inanimate object, and when he leaves it's easier to pretend everything's all right, to pretend that last night he hadn't seen a busload of children blown up. He hasn't forgotten, doesn't think he ever will, but it's easier to pretend. He thinks he understands, a little, why Bruce is more Batman than Bruce Wayne, why Bruce Wayne is so much of an empty mask. Bruce Wayne can't be upset about things he doesn't know about, will never learn about, and although Bruce puts on a façade of stoniness, everything he does is because he cares so deeply, because every death he can't prevent wounds him, is catalogued and added to his inventory of psychological scars.

Lois calls him after she's done at the Planet, and he tells her some of what had happened last night, how ineffectual he was. "Bruce could have saved them," he says.

"Maybe you should change your strategy then," she says. "Being Superman works everywhere else but what can I say? It's Gotham, with everything that implies. Batman's rogues aren't exactly sane. If they insist on being beaten by Batman…maybe Batman should make an appearance."

"But he can't," Clark protests. "Or we wouldn't be having this problem."

"Who says Batman has to be Bruce?"

***

Clark can't believe he's doing this. There's an unspoken rule that you never dress up in somebody else's costume and pretend to be them without their permission. Relationships are difficult enough when you only know about half of somebody's life without adding multiple people with the same codename into the mix. Add to that the fact that his results are completely different from Bruce's and, well, he shouldn't be doing this. But he doesn't think anything else will work, not with the Joker. When the Bat-signal is turned on this night Batman answers the summons.

The commissioner is alone on the roof tonight, once he dismisses the woman who turns on the light.

"Commissioner," Clark says, stepping out of the shadows. He's being as much Batman as he can be, but he isn't sure he's pulling it off well enough to fool anybody, much less the people Batman has to deal with on a regular basis.

"You're not him," Gordon says as if he's looking for confirmation.

"No," Clark replies after a pause. "How did you know?"

"When he gave me a bloody nose it all just fell into place. I've only seen one person make that move before. You're his friend, then?" Clark can't keep himself from making a small sound of dismay, and Gordon smiles a little. "Members of the GCPD are hardly incompetent, despite what the papers may claim."

"I never thought you were," Clark says. "He's always had the highest respect for you. Even if he isn't the best at displaying it."

"That's the understatement of the century."

"So did you only figure it out because you know where he is, or can my acting use some work?" Clark asks. "I need to convince the Joker."

"You can't be seriously thinking about going after him after what happened last night!"

"I have to," Clark replies. "I don't think he'll play any nicer with the police than he did with Superman."

That stops Gordon in his tracks for a moment. A repeat of last night is the last thing either one of them wants. "First of all, you should get rid of that expression, or any expression which can be seen through the mask."

Clark doesn't have nearly as much experience at being expressionless as Bruce does; in either of his guises he's free to show the world what he's feeling. But he can do it if he has to, so he does. After years of dealing with Bruce, Gordon has several more useful pointers.

***

Clark returns to the Cave. The only blood on the suit this time belongs to the Joker, who's back in custody for as long as they can keep him. He was successful, but he doesn't feel good about it. Sure, he may have stopped the Joker from killing any more, but that doesn't erase the deaths he'd caused last night. It doesn't absolve Clark from responsibility for them. He falls asleep in the chair with the computer running a constant slideshow of the kids whose deaths he couldn't prevent. He gets the impression that Bruce has done this a lot in the past, Alfred or no Alfred.

He wakes up to the sound of a doorbell. He isn't expecting anybody, and he realizes he doesn't even know what time it is. He's surprised when he goes up to the Manor and the sun is streaming in through the windows because it's afternoon. The doorbell rings again. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he mutters.

He opens the door. "Lois!"

"Smallville," she says. "You look like hell."

He has no doubt that it's true. He might not have been exposed to Kryptonite, but his nights in Gotham have taken a toll on him. "Come in. What are you doing here?"

"It's my day off, remember?" she says. "And I'm worried about Bruce and you."

"I don't know how he does it," Clark sighs. "Night after night of darkness and atrocities. I've been Superman for as long as he's been Batman, but I just don't see the sorts of things he sees."

"Maybe it was a fluke," she offers hopefully. "Just the Joker being himself."

He shakes his head. "Bruce keeps very good records. I looked through some of them and…it wasn't a fluke."

Lois is his rock, his anchor. When he's in her arms he can feel comforted, even after what he hadn't managed to prevent.

***

Clark leaves Lois at the Manor and goes out to Arkham to spend another hour talking to Bruce (and a little bit talking to his psychiatrist, who has some ideas to try which Clark doesn't believe will work but you never know). He knows this is quickly becoming a routine for him. He wonders how he'll manage to do this once his personal leave is over. Clark Kent can't visit his friend in Gotham every day, since he lives in Metropolis; the commute is too long. But he also can't just desert Bruce. Sure, it doesn't look like it's having any effect, but Bruce has always internalized things. For all Clark knows, his daily visits are Bruce's lifeline.

When he gets back to the Manor (after a detour to stop a few crimes in Metropolis) there are two cars parked in front of it. One is Lois's, but he doesn't recognize the other. He walks into the kitchen (which is somehow still, as always, the most lived-in room in the whole mausoleum) and isn't entirely surprised to find Gordon sitting at the table with Lois.

"I hope you don't mind," Gordon says. "I wanted to talk to you about a few things, so I stopped by."

"I don't mind," Clark replies. "After last night I was hoping to have the chance to speak to you when we're not both working."

"I'm here to help," Gordon says, looking him steadily in the eye. "As much as I can. I owe him that much."

"As do I," Clark replies.

Death of a Thousand Cuts

Everybody dies. It's a lesson he first learned when he was eight, when a mugger shot his parents and he knelt in their blood as he ran away. Since then he's been forcibly reminded of the lesson on numerous occasions, by everybody from random people he's too slow, too weak, too human to save (accidents he only hears about on the news after he goes off patrol, fires which are too bright for him to run into) to his colleagues (it doesn't matter that Clark came back, it doesn't stop the lesson from being driven home once again like a knife to his heart) to those he cares most about (the Case seems to stare at him, seems to cast shadows beyond what should be possible with the case's dim lighting). Each new death hits him like a blow, like a new cut on his psyche, making him die the death of a thousand cuts from the inside. Dick's death is just another cut. As is Tim's. As is Barbara's. Alfred's death is the last. The last straw, the last blow, the last cut. It isn't a coup de grace. There isn't any mercy in it.

He attends the funeral. He doesn't speak. He has no more words to speak. He doesn't know if he ever will again. It's a funeral, so nobody tries to touch him. He isn't grateful; he doesn't think he remembers how to be grateful any more. He halfway believes he would be grateful if he could. He doesn't think he could stand anybody touching him. He doesn't know what he'd do if they did. When the funeral is over, he goes back to the Manor and curls up in a chair. For the first time in a long time, he doesn't feel any desire to patrol when darkness falls.

He doesn't go to the Cave any more. He doesn't patrol or go to the JLA meetings or figure out the Riddler's newest clues. Some detached part of himself knows that people are dying because he doesn't, but he can't bring himself to care. He doesn't go to Wayne Enterprises or to charity fundraisers or answer the phone. That same detached part of him notes that Bruce Wayne has always been a flake, that he won't be missed. He can't bring himself to care about that. He isn't grateful. He isn't ungrateful, either.

Every once in a while his stomach growls and he'll stumble down to the kitchen and eat whatever comes to hand, cold. It all tastes like ashes, anyway. After a while the detached part of him notes that the food he's eating almost certainly wasn't in the refrigerator when Alfred died. The food he eats is no longer moldy and bears a distinct resemblance to the food found at the Kents' farmhouse. Clark, the detached part of himself thinks. He knows he would normally be upset to know that Clark is in his city. Bats are territorial. Is he a bat any more? He doesn't know.

He's heading back to his chair when there's something in his way, the red, yellow, and blue almost hurting his eyes after so much time in the dim colors of Wayne Manor. He hasn't bothered to turn on any lights since he got back, so it must be daytime. He doesn't raise his eyes, just waits for the obstacle to move. He doesn't say anything.

"Bruce, this can't go on," the obstacle says. He doesn't connect the name to himself. He isn't Bruce any more. Bruce is from before. He doesn't know who he is anymore. Maybe he isn't anybody. It would almost be a relief. If he could feel anything. He waits for the obstacle to move.

The obstacle doesn't move. "We all know how much you miss Alfred," it says. "But it's been months and you haven't done anything but sit in that chair. We're worried about you." Its voice is filled with concern. He has always known that Clark would worry about him, but right now he can't bring himself to care.

The obstacle raises an arm and brings a hand down on his shoulder, and then he does care, because he kills everyone who he touches, everyone he allows to get close. He killed his parents, and Jason and Barbara and Vesper and Dick and Tim and Alfred. He can't allow anybody to get close to him. There's a crack somewhere to his side where there used to be a table and a statue but now there isn't, and the obstacle is out of his way. He's shaking and he goes and curls up in his chair again and stares blindly out the window. He hears Clark get up. After a while he hears him leave.

Some amount of time later he hears the doorbell ringing and knocking on the door. Nobody answers the door, though, because there isn't an Alfred anymore. He wonders who's at the door. He wonders if they'll go away. When they'll go away. He doesn't move. He doesn't blink.

He hears the door opening and the police announcing themselves. He hears Jim. He hasn't seen Jim since he took a leave of absence after Barbara's death. He wonders how long Jim has been back. He wonders if he's noticed the absence of Batman. He doesn't want Jim here. Jim's already too close to him. No matter how hard he's tried to keep their relationship purely professional, Jim is somebody he feels close to. Jim is one of the few people he feels close to who are still alive.

He tracks their progress through the Manor by their calls (apparently they're looking for him). He doesn't respond to any of them. The detached part of him knows that he should be worried that they'll find the Cave, but he can't bring himself to care.

Eventually one of them finds this room, and him, and then they're all clustering around and talking to him and waving hands in his face. He doesn't do anything until Jim asks him if he can stand up. He thinks about it for a moment. He doesn't want to stand up, doesn't want to do anything, but he can see the alternative would involve them touching him. He doesn't want anybody to touch him. He doesn't want anybody else to die because of him. He stands up.

Jim reaches toward him, to touch him, to lead him by the arm, but he flinches before the hand gets near him and Jim drops it and asks him to come with them instead. That's all right, he doesn't have to touch anybody, so he follows as soon as he processes the request. He doesn't really care what happens to him as long as he doesn't have to touch anybody, as long as nobody touches him. They lead him out front and after a moment of debate open the rear door of Jim's car instead of that of the squad car because of who he is, and Jim gestures for him to get in so he does, but then Jim does the hand on the head thing and he can't stand it, can't stand the thought of being touched, and he loses control and then Jim isn't touching him anymore, he's on the ground and his nose is bleeding and he's looking at him strangely. He was told to get into the car so he does.

Everybody except Jim wants to put handcuffs on him then, and he shudders at the thought of how they'd have to touch him to put them on. But Jim stops them and says it looks like it's just being touched that causes a problem and that he isn't a criminal and they need to treat him with respect. He doesn't know why Jim says that after he gave him a bloody nose and knocked him down but he thinks he almost feels a glimmer of gratitude through the numbness. Nobody tries to put handcuffs on him.

Jim sits in the back with him and talks to him throughout the drive, but he doesn't hear the words. He knows he could look out of the window or calculate from the turns where they're going, but he'll find out when they get there anyway. He's been to all of them in the past, as Batman. He's watched video feeds from them, mainly of escapes, often enough that he can probably distinguish them by the tiling. He doesn't really care where he's headed. He doesn't care why.

He gets out of the car when Jim opens his door, and trails him into the building. He's been here before, but for the most part he's only been up on the roof. The cells are familiar enough, though; he had, after all, spent time in one of them when he'd been accused of Vesper's murder, before he was transferred to Blackgate. It is, perhaps, ironic that both times he's ended up here have been because of the death of somebody he loves. He sits down on the bed and does nothing. The cell door closes and he hears footsteps moving away. Jim is violating procedure by not fingerprinting him.

After a time, a tray of food is shoved through the door, and he eats it as mechanically as he'd eaten the food in his refrigerator. It tastes the same to him, although he remembers that the last time he'd been in here only the cast-iron stomach he'd needed during No Man's Land had allowed him to eat this food. Prisons are not known for their gourmet food. He sets the tray back on the ground when he's done. After a time a guard opens the door (another covers him from the door with a taser) and, grumbling about "creaking crazies", removes the tray. He doesn't move.

The lights shut off, presumably at the usual time, and he must have fallen asleep because a guard is beating on the bars of the door and telling him to wake up and stop yelling. He hasn't remembered any of his dreams since Alfred's death, but he knows it's just more of the same nightmares he's had since he was eight. After that, he doesn't sleep. He's never slept much, anyway.

It's daytime when Gordon stops outside of the cell with Clark. At first he can't think of any reason Clark would be there. Hovering outside, keeping an eye and an ear on him, yes. Here, with Gordon, no. Then he remembers the papers he'd insisted Clark sign, just in case. He wishes he hadn't, now. Putting Clark in charge of him only makes it more likely that he'll get better. He doesn't want to get better. Being "better" only means he hurts all the time. Right now he doesn't feel a thing, as if he's surrounded by layers of soft cotton, cushioned from the impact the world has always made on him.

Clark comes in later, and speaks to him softly as he very carefully doesn't touch him and slides a needle into his arm and depresses the plunger. He feels himself go limp as the blackness he's spent so much time in slides over his vision like a blanket, like his cape, like the night falling over Gotham.

***

He wakes up in a different room and doesn't wonder where he is. He's watched feeds of Arkham's cells enough that they're burned in his mind, not to mention his visits for other reasons: escapes, the occasional interrogation, chess with Harvey. He'd been teased, before, that eventually he'd end up in Arkham. He doesn't find any humor in the prediction coming true. It's just another fact, like everything else in his life now.

Clark comes and talks at him for a while and then leaves. He doesn't think he has a very good grasp of time right now, but it seems like he stays for a long time. It fits perfectly with Clark's personality, so he probably did. After Clark leaves, he gets fed. Later, orderlies come in and try to make him go somewhere by grabbing him. Eventually they manage to sedate him, but not before he breaks at least one arm.

This establishes a pattern. He can't be certain (nor does he care) that it follows a daily cycle, but it seems logical. Clark comes and talks at him, he ignores Clark, the orderlies try to take him somewhere and end up sedating him. Eventually they stop trying to take him places. Sometimes people come into the room and try to get him to talk (or just talk at him; he doesn't pay attention). Sometimes he's given pills to swallow, so he does. He could figure out which ones they are by their appearance, but he doesn't bother.

He stares into space and doesn't think much. He doesn't feel at all.

Coffee

There's a knock on her door and she looks up from the ever-present paperwork. Nobody who works here bothers to knock. "Hey."

"Hey…" she says, trying to get him to say something. She has no clue who he is.

"I don't know if you remember me, but we met at the hospital."

She remembers him now. "Dick's friend." The one with the suspicious list she'd jotted the (useless) license plate number down on the back of.

"Jason." He fidgets a little. "Um, can I buy you a cup of coffee? Or something?" It's obvious he's asking to get them out of here.

"I can give you fifteen minutes." She stands up and they head out. She takes a moment to tell somebody she's going for coffee, just in case she's needed.

He waits until they're out of the precinct and on the sidewalk before he speaks again. "I just- how's Dick?"

"You haven't been speaking?" she asks. It seems odd, since they'd seemed pretty close at the hospital.

"Dick learned how to wall himself off from a master," Jason says. They stop talking until they get their coffee. "He even destroyed all the tracers."

She almost spills her coffee on herself. "You planted tracers on him?" Who plants tracers on their friends? For that matter, since when do civilians have access to tracers? Wait, no, scratch that. She knows what Dick used to do at night.

"Tracers have always been a way of showing we care in our fam-" he cuts himself off. "Uh. Circle of friends."

"You were going to say family," she accuses. He looks embarrassed.

"It's certainly dysfunctional enough to be one," he mutters into his coffee. "We aren't related."

"But you plant tracers on him and come to check up on him when he finds them?" She raises her eyebrows.

"Oh please," he says. "Some of those tracers were there for years. You think he didn't notice them in all that time? And…we're worried about him. He's cut himself off from everybody: us, Roy, Barbara…his mobility's always meant a lot to him."

"You think he might…" she doesn't complete the thought.

"No." His denial is swift. "This is hardly the first setback he's run into. If he was going to…he would have before now. We aren't worried about that."

"What are you worried about, then?" she asks, dreading the answer because she doesn't worry about it, so it will just be one more thing to add to the list.

"We're worried about him…not being Dick anymore," he says slowly, as if feeling the words. He stares into his coffee. "Dick's always been so physical and, and, friendly. And now he can't be so physical and he's cut himself off from his friends, and we don't know if it's just temporary or if this has changed him." He looks like he wants to bolt from so much discussion of feelings but is holding himself in place through sheer willpower.

She takes pity on him. "I don't think I've known him as long as you have," he nods in confirmation, "but in my opinion it's just temporary for the most part."

"For the most part?" He has a sick look on his face like he knows what she's going to say but wants the confirmation.

"So much of what makes Dick Dick is his inability to sit still. I'd be surprised if he stayed the same after this."

He nods. "That's what we figured, but we're all way too close to him to be objective about him."

"I'm his friend too," she rebukes.

"There are friends…and then there's family," he says. "Chosen or not, related or not." They walk in silence and it seems the subject is closed.

"So, why did you need night vision goggles and rope?" Amy asks, partly curious about what false answer he'll give and partly amused. If he wasn't friends with Dick…as it is, she feels secure in her guess that he isn't doing anything that hurts people, no matter how illegal it is. She wonders if he's a superhero.

"Nighttime mountain climbing," he says, deadpan. "You don't run into as many people that way."

He's definitely a superhero.

Watching

They watch him from a distance.

They've never, even when they were kids, been close to him. They'd worked closely to him, when they still wore capes and played rooftop tag, but nobody could ever call that close. Not on more than a surface level. Batman and Robin were partners, but Bruce and Dick, or Jason, or Tim or Stephanie…Bruce didn't exist, hadn't existed since he was eight and knelt in his parents' blood. Nobody was close to Bruce but Alfred, no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much they deluded themselves into believing they were friends.

At first they kept track of him through Alfred, his dry comments about Master Bruce not eating enough comforting in their familiarity. But Alfred has been old for as long as they've known him, and one day they have to find a new source of news about him. They haven't cut off contact with their old friends in the community; they've allowed themselves the luxury of having friends instead of merely allies, friends who know who they are when they aren't wearing the red and green. So for a time they're reassured by the usual complaints of Batman's allies (and Clark's non-complaints), until one day, after rescuing a kidnap victim, he disappears completely.

He still appears as Bruce Wayne, but increasingly rarely as he doesn't need to throw people off his scent, as there's no longer any reason to pretend to be an idiot billionaire playboy.

They wonder about him, sometimes, wonder if they should pick up the phone and call him at Christmas, if they should show up at the graveyard when they know he'll be there…but if they did, they wouldn't have anything to say to the legend, to their legend who is no longer anything more than an old man.

House Crossover

Dick steps out of the coffee shop into the bright sunlight, balancing the tray of coffee in one hand as he pulls his sunglasses out of his pocket and almost gets run over by a teenager violating the no skateboarding on the sidewalks law. Dick smiles. On days like these he's glad he doesn't have to chase after any lawbreakers he sees anymore.

Afterward, it never feels like time had gone quickly, or slowly. Perhaps because he'd been in similar situations before. He saw the car coming, just a bit too fast for this road, which isn't unusual, and he doesn't think anything of it until the window rolls down and he sees the gun. By then it's too late to do anything but drop the coffee before bullets are flying. He memorizes the license plate number, although the family car detritus in the windows lets him know the car is stolen and it's probably futile. Then he's falling, and why is he falling? He lands on his knees and blacks out from the pain.

***

He comes to in a bed, the antiseptic smell of a hospital in his nose. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling for a while. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling and seeing patterns in the dots on the ceiling tiles (and finding them way more interesting than he should), Dick realizes that he must be on painkillers. Morphine, probably. He wonders why. He must be pretty injured to need this much; Bruce has always been careful about drugs. More so after Roy. Dick giggles at the pun of Speedy on drugs. Then he remembers that he doesn't work with Bruce any more, hasn't even spoken to him in years. He's a BPD detective, why is he in the hospital drugged up to his eyeballs?

He drags his gaze down from the ceiling. It seems to take an eternity to drop it low enough to see that he's alone in the room (one wall, the one with the door, is glass, he notes), and that it's his leg which was injured. Somehow. He can't seem to concentrate for long enough to remember how.

He can't even concentrate long enough to stay awake.

***

He wakes up and a nurse is there. Maybe a doctor. Pretty, anyway. He tries to speak, but his throat is too dry and it comes out as a rasp, which is possibly a good thing because he doesn't know what he was going to say. "You're awake!" she says, and brings him a cup of water with a straw. "How do you feel?"

He sips, and the cool water is soothing on his throat. "Like you've got the morphine drip too high."

She checks the settings on the infusion pump and adjusts them. "It was just on the normal amount, but I've lowered it so if you need more just push the call button." She makes a note on his chart.

"Thanks," he mumbles and retreats into sleep again.

***

Dick opens his eyes. He's clearheaded for the first time since the drive-by shooting (he actually remembers the shooting), and he isn't in pain, although he knows that he will be once he gets off the morphine. Both Jason and Amy are in the room and he groans mentally at the thought of them interacting. He wonders how long they've been there.

"Dick!" Amy exclaims, getting up. "You're awake."

"So it would seem," Dick says. "Did you get them?"

"Unfortunately, no," Amy replies. "Nobody even noted the license plate number." She makes a noise of disgust.

"NDB 31V," Dick tells her and she checks her pockets for paper and pencil. "But it was stolen so I don't think you'll have any luck."

Jason hands her a piece of paper and a pen from his jacket pocket. "Ignore the list." She doesn't, of course, and her brows raise at Jason's shopping list for his latest heist. Dick hopes there isn't anything too incriminating on it (he knows there probably isn't; if it was, Jason would have put it in code). She doesn't say anything, though, just turns it over and writes down the license plate number.

"Where are Tim and Steph?" Dick asks Jason.

"They have regular jobs," Jason replies. "Have to arrange time off, you know."

"What, Bludhaven isn't close enough to Gotham that they can just come visit?"

Jason clears his throat and shuffles his feet. "You're in Princeton."

Dick is confused for a moment before he figures it out. "Bruce?" Jason nods in confirmation. "I thought he'd stopped doing that sort of thing, at least to me."

"Apparently you becoming a cripple is enough motivation to bring him out of retirement." Jason's eyes glint with amusement in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that he knows exactly what it's like to deal with Bruce when he's like that.

Dick draws in a breath. "It's bad?"

"According to Babs," Jason says. Dick closes his eyes momentarily. That means it is bad.

***

Objectively, he hasn't been in the hospital for long, but subjectively it's been an eternity. So when he wakes up to the sight of hospital food instead of Alfred's food, and crutches within reach (okay, so they would have been out of reach for anybody other than him) he takes it as an opportunity to escape from the bed where he's been confined as effectively as if he was tied up by Two-Face (more so; Two-Face had never been very good at tying him tight enough). He stops the IV drip and gingerly removes the needle from the catheter in his arm, knowing that he won't have a lot of time before he begins to really feel the pain. Still, it should be long enough to find out who stole his food, he rationalizes.

Dick's had to use crutches before, so it only takes him a few seconds before he gets the hang of things again, before he sets up an easy gait which jars his knee the least. Then he begins wandering (can you really call it wandering when it's more like purposeful covering of as much ground as possible?) throughout the hospital, looking and sniffing for his food. He decides to avoid the stairs, although he's climbed them before with crutches, because his knee's bad enough already. He doesn't want to make it worse. He realizes the irony of that statement when he's hobbling about on crutches before they've even been officially been given to him. He's pretty certain that the hospital staff would rather he stayed in bed, or in a wheelchair if he must move, but he's never been any good at staying still.

He spots his doctor at the end of the hallway he's currently in, so he heads into the closest room. "Sorry," he starts to say to the occupants (a man in a coma or asleep and another in the chair), but then his nose catches up to his brain. "You stole my food!" he accuses the man in the chair.

"Quiet," the man replies. "Can't you see Coma Guy is sleeping?" He hoists a forkful of pie.

"Don't you dare," Dick warns.

The man puts the pie into his mouth and chews with very obvious satisfaction. "Still warm."

"Of course it's still warm, that's why the container's heated," Dick snaps. He probably shouldn't be so irritated over something so small (Alfred sends food out with everybody as well as when he visits himself) but his leg is starting to ache. He closes his eyes, does some breathing exercises, and tries to think about it rationally. It's just food. He's only in here because he didn't want to get caught by Dr. Cameron. His knee hurts. He sits down in the other chair and puts his leg up. "You can't just steal people's food."

"Really? Wilson lets me do it all the time."

"I'm not Wilson," Dick says. "Whoever he is."

The man starts beeping…oh, apparently that's a beeper. "Gotta go," the man says, standing and walking out with the help of a cane. "Have fun carrying those containers with the crutches."

***

Dick doesn't have too much trouble getting back to his room with the containers, all things considered. He has a lot of experience in carrying things, and in using crutches, and somebody in the elevator is willing to hold them for him until they get to his floor.

Unfortunately, it seems that his escape has drawn some attention. A cluster of four people, three doctors and the man who'd stolen his food, is outside his room. He tries to sneak around them without getting noticed, but one of the containers falls to the floor with a clatter and they all look at him.

He clears his throat. "Uh, can you get that for me?" Dr. Cameron bends over and picks it up.

"You idiot!" the man who'd stolen his food exclaims. "You got shot in the knee two days ago and you're traipsing around the hospital to find your food? Do you know how much pain you're going to be in? That morphine takes a while to work, you know."

"I know," Dick says mildly and goes into the room to lie down on the bed. The man doesn't follow.

Dr. Cameron reattaches the IV. "Sorry about Dr. House."

"He reminds me of someone I know," Dick says. "Sort of."

"Don't get up again," she tells him, and moves the crutches over to the other side of the room.

"Hey," Dick says as she's leaving the room. "Tell Dr. House that if he wants more of my food he'll have to come get it."

"Dr. House doesn't see patients," she says automatically.

"His loss."

The next meal Alfred sends has enough for Dr. House too, and it doesn't go to waste. Dick finds it kind of comforting to know that Bruce isn't the only person who's difficult to deal with, and being around Dr. House reassures him on that score.