Bruce Wayne

[ continued from here ]


Were Damian older, he might be able to see the logic in his father's words, but youth blinds him to everything but the rebuke. He barely registers the question that follows, too focused on containing the sudden rush of blinding anger to give any more eloquent a response than: "Tt."


"I'll take that as a yes," I remark, not unaware of the fury that has suddenly taken him over, a rush of hot and cold anger alike that leaves everything a storm in his wake. And while I have no particular desire to incite that in Damian, he also needs to learn how to control his temper, otherwise this partnership won't work. I need a Robin I can trust on patrol.

And I have the feeling that none of them fit that description right now.

"There are tailors in the city. It wouldn't take long to have your clothes altered."

From the moment the bathysphere surfaces, I wonder if I've made a mistake. The type of oversight that would have, in Gotham, possibly gotten me killed. On some level, I can recognize that the two situations are not the same. Gotham is a city that I've lived in all my life, no street unwalked and no corner unturned. I know it as well as the back of my own hand, or even better, for to know Gotham is to know the collective minds that inhabit it, the peculiarities and fear alike, practically palpable in the air. In Gotham, the face guarding the sole entrance to a building, let alone an entire civilization past, would not be unfamiliar to me. Questions would not be asked. Fear would lace itself into the pale blue of the woman's eyes, and her shock of red hair would rightfully send a jolt to the pit of my stomach— but the pieces don't fit well, and so I continue to wonder if I've made a mistake, etching each question into the back of my mind for safe-keeping, for when I know I'll return to the spot, requesting access to Jason.

But if there is one thing that all people should learn about mistakes, it's that retracing is rarely a fix. Apologies are thin, at best, a gesture more than a solution. No way to keep a bridge standing. So for all that a part of me wonders if I should have stayed in the depths below, I find myself pushing forward with the original plan, quickly covering territory and scouting the terrain. Wherever I sense people in the distance, I veer in the opposite direction, knowing that Damian isn't likely to remain there for long, or that Tim would also have a hideout somewhere hidden from the general populace. I press forward and towards higher altitudes, feeling the wind unseasonably warm against my skin. There's a light rustling in the distance, almost silent, but lumbering with all the ease of a beast unconcerned by my presence; in the distance, I spot a pylon clear above the canopy, then decide to walk its perimeter.

I can't speak for Tim, but if this fence is safe to cross, something tells me Damian might be on the other side.

And if it isn't, I'd be willing to double those odds.