FIC: Road to Nowhere (1/7) - Bruce, various, REMADE TRILOGY
TITLE: Road to Nowhere (1/7)
AUTHOR: Demon Faith
SERIES: 'Remade'
CATEGORY: AU, Angst
CHARACTERS: Bruce, various
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 1,450
SUMMARY: Bruce failed to find Dick the first time. It will not happen again.
NOTES: This is the completion of my AU trilogy 'Remade' that started with Revenge is a kiss and continued in Crack of sunlight, crack in the mirror.
Thanks to coppercowries and skitty_kat for their lovely artwork, and the insufferable ladybugkay for being so persuasive.
It had been two months since he opened his eyes and saw Dick Grayson's staring back at him.
Since then, he had watched the footage again and again, watching the man who had been a boy when he'd last seen him, grown into something ugly and corrupt in such a pretty shell.
Alfred had found him about ten minutes after Dick had made his escape. He thought Bruce had gone mad at first - Bruce almost believed it himself - but they watched the video with bated breath, heard the words, saw the movement, knew that it could be no one else.
He ordered everyone he could think of to the Batcave immediately. There was no time to waste. They needed to find him whilst he was still in Gotham, while the trail was hot. He couldn't lose him again.
Barbara and Tim were first, curious but silent. Clark arrived next, also puzzled and slightly more vocal. Bruce made him wait, made them all wait, knowing he couldn't say it more than once while his mind was tying itself in knots. Dick was alive. Dick was trying to kill him, perhaps, but alive! Nothing mattered except the life pulsing through his veins.
Then Wally arrived, even more confused, and finally Roy appeared, as the night headed for dawn, unhappy with the summons, hating him and making no secret of it.
"Dick is alive," he said, simple words that almost threatened to choke him, and then there was silence. Barbara clapped her hand to her mouth, bending double with the shock, as Roy and Wally held on to each other, disbelief and anguish on their faces. Tim remained silent, only knowing the symbol not the boy - the man - and therefore unable to comprehend. Clark tried to touch Bruce's shoulder, to comfort, but the Bat shrugged him off.
"How do you know?" Roy demanded and Bruce explained the disguise, the attempted murder, the escape. Roy did not believe him. He showed him.
"It can't be him," the archer insisted, stubbornly, but Wally stopped him leaving, made him look again.
"What do you want us to do?" Clark asked and Bruce realised he didn't actually know, hadn't thought beyond telling them, driving them to some purpose he hadn't planned at all.
"We need to get out there now," Roy said. "We're running out of night."
Wally took hold of him then and they left, to search his city. Barbara followed, telling Tim to stay and "keep watch". Batman surrendered his computer, whilst Clark led him aside.
"Are you sure?" was all he said. Bruce nodded. Clark smiled faintly.
"Then I'm sure," he said, and flew away, presumably to search as well. Bruce could join them - he knew the city best, after all - but his head was light from whatever drug Dick had given him and he had no idea where to look.
"Sit down now, Master Bruce," Alfred said gently, leading him into the infirmary and fussing about him. His head hurt. His mind whirred. Dick was alive.
"He mentioned Slade," he murmured.
"So Master Dick is…" he paused, unable to say the words.
"An assassin now. He said as much." Bruce had seen it in his eyes. He had killed for money. It was a dark taint.
"His disguise was convincing." It was not a question. Bruce swallowed hard and turned away. He would not think about it - how he had been drawn in, intrigued by the barely-tamed creature before him, yearning for the touch and the chase and the conquest.
His playboy life was a chore to maintain an illusion, but that evening the attraction had been real. He'd been…eager.
Slamming his hand down on the bed, he rose and swept into the Cave, demanding answers from Nightwing. The boy stuttered a little but produced a number of leads. Bruce sent them out to the searchers.
Then, he waited.
They came back when the sun was up, all together, grim and excited and gutted all at once. They had found Dick's hideout. Yet there had been no sign of where he might be now, and from Clark and Roy, that was a terrible confession.
He went to the place, alone, with Wally standing guard until he arrived. This was something he had to do alone, out of self-recrimination and mental anguish perhaps, but Wally understood enough to leave.
There was a large pinboard with his schedules neatly printed, details of his nightly patrols for the past month, photographs of him in both guises and sketches, dozens of sketches, detailing clothes and make-up and padding. There were flyers for gallery openings and a list of powerful men who might be there, who would later socialise with Bruce.
It was thorough and it was devastating. Dick had been planning for a long time. Batman carefully removed all the evidence and bagged it until the board was just scarred cork once more.
Next, he moved on to the dressing table. It was a riot of colour, make-up and perfumes shoved together to form a collection any Gotham socialite would envy. There was nothing but the dust of eyeshadow, flakes of lipstick and pools of spilt nail polish. Nothing here but Mary.
He had pushed the thought away and moved on to the mirror. Dick's handwriting - in lipstick? - on the mirror, smudged here and there with fingerprints. He didn't care about being caught, about leaving evidence behind. Perhaps he had given up, or perhaps he was confident of escape. The smears of red told him little, but the words stabbed him through the heart.
Dick doubted them all. Every last one of them, even though they'd been…so close.
Batman gritted his teeth and pushed on. He found a notebook on the floor. Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake. The three were connected to each other - but what did they mean together? How was the police commissioner related to Nightwing? It made no sense.
Then, he found the portfolio, but he could not look at it, the negotiations of death, and he placed it in a bag. Finally, he found a sheet of paper with columns, ordered and formal, structured. This was something he knew how to deal with - a detective's work.
Jim and Barbara were his certainties - it made sense he supposed; she had been away when he disappeared, and Jim would mention Robin from time to time. Batman always flinched away.
Tim was a possible. So were Wally and Roy. That made no sense. They were close, the Titans - perhaps too close, but he had never said that. He knew it would only push Dick away. Push him away. If only he had known then - what would he have done? Taken him to his bed? Destroyed him with his selfish needs?
Bruce shook away those thoughts. He was Batman. That was all he was. That was all he had.
There had to be more evidence. The other columns were left unfilled, yet he had more names. The work was incomplete. Dick was a better detective than that. Batman turned the room upside down before he found what he was looking for.
Another piece of paper. Another list. This was different though - this cored him, these "facts" that Dick was clinging to, that made him. This was the world Bruce should've prevented from ever coming to pass.
Robin was on the warehouse roof…Robin had been attacked…Robin had been tortured…the pen had faltered here; Bruce shuddered.
Slade had rescued Robin. Slade! Bruce had let that murderer touch his Robin, be there when he had long given up, had thought his boy dead. Ignorance was no defence - he should never have wavered for a moment, should have searched until he had been certain, had brought his Robin home, had made him whole.
It was a crumpled man who held the paper, shaking in his gloved hands, knowing he had done this, that he was responsible, that somehow he had to make it right.
Dick was still alive. This time, he would not give up until he found him.
That had been two months ago. There was nothing else in the basement of note, nothing to suggest where Dick could've gone, where he might be staying, what he might be doing. He had beaten every assassin he could lay hands on and they all knew him - the Renegade, Slade's pet, Slade's…special boy - but heard he went underground, a personal piece of work that he would tell no one about.
He had not yet spoken with Slade. That day would be worth relishing, but its time had not yet come. He could be patient though. Dick was out there. He knew it, deep in his bones.
Bruce played the tape again.
AUTHOR: Demon Faith
SERIES: 'Remade'
CATEGORY: AU, Angst
CHARACTERS: Bruce, various
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 1,450
SUMMARY: Bruce failed to find Dick the first time. It will not happen again.
NOTES: This is the completion of my AU trilogy 'Remade' that started with Revenge is a kiss and continued in Crack of sunlight, crack in the mirror.
Thanks to coppercowries and skitty_kat for their lovely artwork, and the insufferable ladybugkay for being so persuasive.
It had been two months since he opened his eyes and saw Dick Grayson's staring back at him.
Since then, he had watched the footage again and again, watching the man who had been a boy when he'd last seen him, grown into something ugly and corrupt in such a pretty shell.
Alfred had found him about ten minutes after Dick had made his escape. He thought Bruce had gone mad at first - Bruce almost believed it himself - but they watched the video with bated breath, heard the words, saw the movement, knew that it could be no one else.
He ordered everyone he could think of to the Batcave immediately. There was no time to waste. They needed to find him whilst he was still in Gotham, while the trail was hot. He couldn't lose him again.
Barbara and Tim were first, curious but silent. Clark arrived next, also puzzled and slightly more vocal. Bruce made him wait, made them all wait, knowing he couldn't say it more than once while his mind was tying itself in knots. Dick was alive. Dick was trying to kill him, perhaps, but alive! Nothing mattered except the life pulsing through his veins.
Then Wally arrived, even more confused, and finally Roy appeared, as the night headed for dawn, unhappy with the summons, hating him and making no secret of it.
"Dick is alive," he said, simple words that almost threatened to choke him, and then there was silence. Barbara clapped her hand to her mouth, bending double with the shock, as Roy and Wally held on to each other, disbelief and anguish on their faces. Tim remained silent, only knowing the symbol not the boy - the man - and therefore unable to comprehend. Clark tried to touch Bruce's shoulder, to comfort, but the Bat shrugged him off.
"How do you know?" Roy demanded and Bruce explained the disguise, the attempted murder, the escape. Roy did not believe him. He showed him.
"It can't be him," the archer insisted, stubbornly, but Wally stopped him leaving, made him look again.
"What do you want us to do?" Clark asked and Bruce realised he didn't actually know, hadn't thought beyond telling them, driving them to some purpose he hadn't planned at all.
"We need to get out there now," Roy said. "We're running out of night."
Wally took hold of him then and they left, to search his city. Barbara followed, telling Tim to stay and "keep watch". Batman surrendered his computer, whilst Clark led him aside.
"Are you sure?" was all he said. Bruce nodded. Clark smiled faintly.
"Then I'm sure," he said, and flew away, presumably to search as well. Bruce could join them - he knew the city best, after all - but his head was light from whatever drug Dick had given him and he had no idea where to look.
"Sit down now, Master Bruce," Alfred said gently, leading him into the infirmary and fussing about him. His head hurt. His mind whirred. Dick was alive.
"He mentioned Slade," he murmured.
"So Master Dick is…" he paused, unable to say the words.
"An assassin now. He said as much." Bruce had seen it in his eyes. He had killed for money. It was a dark taint.
"His disguise was convincing." It was not a question. Bruce swallowed hard and turned away. He would not think about it - how he had been drawn in, intrigued by the barely-tamed creature before him, yearning for the touch and the chase and the conquest.
His playboy life was a chore to maintain an illusion, but that evening the attraction had been real. He'd been…eager.
Slamming his hand down on the bed, he rose and swept into the Cave, demanding answers from Nightwing. The boy stuttered a little but produced a number of leads. Bruce sent them out to the searchers.
Then, he waited.
They came back when the sun was up, all together, grim and excited and gutted all at once. They had found Dick's hideout. Yet there had been no sign of where he might be now, and from Clark and Roy, that was a terrible confession.
He went to the place, alone, with Wally standing guard until he arrived. This was something he had to do alone, out of self-recrimination and mental anguish perhaps, but Wally understood enough to leave.
There was a large pinboard with his schedules neatly printed, details of his nightly patrols for the past month, photographs of him in both guises and sketches, dozens of sketches, detailing clothes and make-up and padding. There were flyers for gallery openings and a list of powerful men who might be there, who would later socialise with Bruce.
It was thorough and it was devastating. Dick had been planning for a long time. Batman carefully removed all the evidence and bagged it until the board was just scarred cork once more.
Next, he moved on to the dressing table. It was a riot of colour, make-up and perfumes shoved together to form a collection any Gotham socialite would envy. There was nothing but the dust of eyeshadow, flakes of lipstick and pools of spilt nail polish. Nothing here but Mary.
He had pushed the thought away and moved on to the mirror. Dick's handwriting - in lipstick? - on the mirror, smudged here and there with fingerprints. He didn't care about being caught, about leaving evidence behind. Perhaps he had given up, or perhaps he was confident of escape. The smears of red told him little, but the words stabbed him through the heart.
Dick doubted them all. Every last one of them, even though they'd been…so close.
Batman gritted his teeth and pushed on. He found a notebook on the floor. Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake. The three were connected to each other - but what did they mean together? How was the police commissioner related to Nightwing? It made no sense.
Then, he found the portfolio, but he could not look at it, the negotiations of death, and he placed it in a bag. Finally, he found a sheet of paper with columns, ordered and formal, structured. This was something he knew how to deal with - a detective's work.
Jim and Barbara were his certainties - it made sense he supposed; she had been away when he disappeared, and Jim would mention Robin from time to time. Batman always flinched away.
Tim was a possible. So were Wally and Roy. That made no sense. They were close, the Titans - perhaps too close, but he had never said that. He knew it would only push Dick away. Push him away. If only he had known then - what would he have done? Taken him to his bed? Destroyed him with his selfish needs?
Bruce shook away those thoughts. He was Batman. That was all he was. That was all he had.
There had to be more evidence. The other columns were left unfilled, yet he had more names. The work was incomplete. Dick was a better detective than that. Batman turned the room upside down before he found what he was looking for.
Another piece of paper. Another list. This was different though - this cored him, these "facts" that Dick was clinging to, that made him. This was the world Bruce should've prevented from ever coming to pass.
Robin was on the warehouse roof…Robin had been attacked…Robin had been tortured…the pen had faltered here; Bruce shuddered.
Slade had rescued Robin. Slade! Bruce had let that murderer touch his Robin, be there when he had long given up, had thought his boy dead. Ignorance was no defence - he should never have wavered for a moment, should have searched until he had been certain, had brought his Robin home, had made him whole.
It was a crumpled man who held the paper, shaking in his gloved hands, knowing he had done this, that he was responsible, that somehow he had to make it right.
Dick was still alive. This time, he would not give up until he found him.
That had been two months ago. There was nothing else in the basement of note, nothing to suggest where Dick could've gone, where he might be staying, what he might be doing. He had beaten every assassin he could lay hands on and they all knew him - the Renegade, Slade's pet, Slade's…special boy - but heard he went underground, a personal piece of work that he would tell no one about.
He had not yet spoken with Slade. That day would be worth relishing, but its time had not yet come. He could be patient though. Dick was out there. He knew it, deep in his bones.
Bruce played the tape again.