Disclaimer: DC owns the characters. I’m just using them for my own nefarious
purposes.
A/N:
This story takes place immediately following the events in Nightwing #89.
***
After
the Fall
By
Esther-Channah
***
The sun had set an hour earlier. The police and rescue crews were long
gone. Nightwing stood on the roof of the
apartment building directly opposite the pile of rubble that he had called home
yesterday. Before
Blockbuster had targeted it. Just like he had targeted Haly’s circus the night before. Two homes. Both gone. At the back of his mind, he knew that he needed
to find a new place to stay, but, actually, the rooftop wasn’t a bad idea. From
this vantage point he would probably be able to see the next attack coming.
Especially since virtually everything he owned—except for the costume on his
back—was currently buried under the aforementioned pile of rubble. No ID, no
street clothes. He didn’t want to think
about how he was going to find another place. Not now.
He didn’t know how long he had been
standing there. Grief, rage, anguish, all had faded leaving him numb. Maybe this was a good thing.
A movement caught out the corner of his
eye made him spin, immediately shifting to a fighting stance. Batman stepped
forward, palms out at shoulder height.
“It’s me,” he said quietly.
Nightwing turned away. “Go back to
“I’m staying at the Huntsdown,”
he named a hotel near the train station.
“I’m here on business—Waynetech business—for
the next week at least.” He rested a
hand on Dick’s shoulder. “What
happened?”
Dick did not turn around. “Blockbuster. Look,
if it’s okay with you, I really don’t want to discuss this.” (Because the smoke from the blast is taking a long time to dissipate,
and you’re really going to get the wrong idea if I start crying front of you.)
Batman did not respond immediately. Not with words. The hand on his shoulder,
however, squeezed briefly. Nightwing
flinched but made no move to remove the hand. “Yoska
was in there.” When Batman did not answer, he continued. “You remember, the guy R’as hired to
pose as my grandfather. He turned up at
my door last week and told me he was staying.
He—I was talking to him minutes before it happened. He gave me a bottle
of wine and told me—he told me--“ his voice trailed
off. “He was killed instantly. The rescue crews pulled out bodies—the only
survivor I can confirm was Aaron Helzinger—Amygdala. I wouldn’t
bet on there being more—not looking at that.” He spun around suddenly,
aware that his eyes were watering, but to hell with it. “He blasted an apartment building to powder
and killed—I don’t even want to think about how many—just because I
happened to live there! The only thing
that those people did was come within fifty feet of me. Do you have any idea what that feels
like?”
Batman bowed his head. “Yes.”
Vesper. Dick
closed his eyes. And, over the years how
many people had the Joker used as bait to draw Batman out to face him? You’re
an idiot, Grayson, he thought, immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
Batman did not respond for a moment,
except to replace his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Speaking of stupidity,” he said then,
haltingly, sounding more like Bruce then usual under the cowl, “a few years
ago, someone did everything in his power to destroy me. He did it by wearing me down—demolishing Arkham and letting me drive myself
to the edge of exhaustion trying to round up the escapees.”
“Bane.”
“Bane,” he confirmed. “I could see what was happening. I knew that he was pushing me,
draining me, and I still kept jumping through his hoops because asking for help
would have been admitting that I was in over my head.”
Nightwing turned around. Batman looked away. When he spoke again his voice was barely
audible, but it was definitely Bruce. “Maybe that’s the real reason I didn’t
call you—after. I didn’t want you to
tell me the obvious, that I should have called you in much earlier. You know what they say about pride and
falls.”
He knew how shocked he had been when Bruce
had asked for help during No Man’s Land. “What are you trying to say to me,
Bruce?” He was standing at the edge of the rooftop now, looking again at the
rubble, as if he might somehow see someone moving underneath in the darkness who had not been visible in broad daylight.
“I think you know.”
“What?
That I have no job, no home, Babs dumped me, and two of the places I’ve
called home have been attacked, destroyed—“ He looked
at Bruce in horror. “They haven’t tried
anything at the manor, have they? Is Alfred—“
“No, everything’s fine at home. Alfred
sends his regards. And before you ask, nobody has managed to breach the Clocktower’s defenses either. Try again.”
“Damn it, Bruce this is NOT some stupid
training exam!” He snapped. Forcing himself to calm down, he continued softly, “either say what
you mean, or just go. Please.”
There was no answer for what seemed like
an eternity. Dick was sure that Batman
had pulled one of the patented disappearing acts that had so annoyed
Gordon. When he looked behind him
though, the cowled figure was still there. “It isn’t a training exam,” Batman
agreed. “But it may be a flaw in your
training itself. Think. Blockbuster is systematically attacking those
people and places that are close to you.
He is isolating you from every anchor you have.” He drew a deep breath before continuing, and,
to Nightwing’s amazement, he lowered his head in…shame? Embarrassment? “The reason that the pattern seems so
apparent to me,” Bruce said slowly, “has more to do with the events leading up
to Vesper’s murder, and my past experience with Bane, and less to do with any
detective work on my part. If the attack
is—direct enough, brutal enough, personal enough, an—individual
can stop analyzing a situation and start simply—reacting to it. That method of operation makes for slipshod
results.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper, and Bruce did not meet his
eyes. “It’s a weakness to which I’ve succumbed on several occasions.” He
hesitated, then drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And I trained you to follow my thinking.”
“Bruce—“
His mentor held up a hand. “Let me finish. I know what you’re feeling
right now, and you have every reason to feel that way. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. And,
believe it or not, I know how—attractive the idea of running after the person
or persons responsible for this—bloodbath is.
After Jason died, I came too close to killing the Joker—“
“Whaaaat?”
Dick exclaimed.
“It’s true. If
“You couldn’t have told me this sooner?
Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe when I STRANGLED him?”
“Maybe you should be asking yourself why I
didn’t hold you back when you attacked him.
Do you seriously believe that I congratulated myself when I
resuscitated that monster? The only reason that I didn’t leave him lying on the
ground was because of what that decision would have done to you.
“Don’t let Blockbuster trigger the same reaction,
from you that the Joker did, Dick. Not
because you think I wouldn’t approve, but because you need to live with
yourself the next day.”
Dick gestured toward the rubble. “How do I live with myself knowing that all
of that, was because of me?”
Bruce’s hand was back on his shoulder. “By reminding yourself that you didn’t
demolish the building. This was not your fault.”
Dick shook the hand off. “Tell me, do you say the same thing to
yourself every time a bystander gets hit in the crossfire? Bruce, I had friends
in there—“
“I didn’t say it wasn’t your responsibility,” Bruce
interrupted. Dick turned to face
him. “You have a duty to the people who
died here today, yes,” he continued, “to hunt down the ones responsible for
this carnage, and to bring them to justice—“
Nightwing smiled bitterly. “Justice? That seems
to be in short supply, these days.” His eyes were starting to sting again,
wasn’t that blasted smoke gone yet?
“Doesn’t that make it all the more precious?” Nightwing didn’t answer. His eyes shut tightly, and his breath came in
ragged gasps. “Whatever you decide,”
Batman continued, “I—won’t stop you.” He gripped both of Nightwing’s
shoulders. Nightwing did not pull
away. “And it won’t change how I think
of you,” he hesitated for a moment, before finishing the sentence: “son.” Dick nodded.
A low sob escaped him. Bruce pulled him forward into an embrace,
wrapping his cape around them both. Dick
wept, as Bruce murmured gently “it’s all right. I’m here. I’ve got you. Let it
come; let it come—so you can let it go.” He repeated the litany several times,
until the sobbing ceased. Then slowly, he loosened his arms.”
Nightwing pulled away, equally slowly. When he felt
he could trust his voice, he said “I think I’m okay, now. Thanks.”
“What are your immediate plans?” He asked abruptly.
“I—I hadn’t thought about it much. Patrol, I guess.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“Not really.”
One corner of Batman’s mouth quirked upwards. “Money, credit cards?”
“They were—in my other suit.”
Batman nodded.
“I’d figured as much when I booked an extra room at the Huntsdown. Come back
with me, now and I’ll set you up with a couple of changes of clothes, a few
dollars, and some temporary ID in the name of your choice. Get some sleep tonight—tomorrow, we can work
out a plan of action.”
“Alright,” he said after a moment’s thought. “So what is this Waynetech
business that brings you out here?”
“Well, it seems that one of our larger shareholders
may have lost the required identification that would allow him to liquidate his
stock—if he were to need ready cash, and since he’s not the sort who would
normally call to advise via regular channels, I came to draw up the necessary
papers.”
“You?” Dick asked with the first
genuine smile he’d made since the blast.
“The CEO of the flipping company came for that?”
“The papers are in the hotel room. We can fill them out now, or in the morning.”
Dick wasn’t going to let this one go. “That was the
best excuse you could come up with?”
“Yes, well, spur of the moment, it got me out of a
stockholder’s meeting,” he mumbled.
“Let’s go.”
An instant later, two shadowy forms leapt into the
Bludhaven night.