You inched yourself across the Great Divide, while we drove aimlessly along the Twin State line.
When Superman dropped the news and left out the window of your hollowed room, there was a deafening silence among Bruce and his sons.
Not only that, but you left two weeks ago.
You packed your car and drove across the United States without telling them.
Why would you do that? What didn’t you tell them?
You didn’t even tell Alfred, and he was the one who saw you the most out of all them. But Alfred tended to them more.
Alfred must have been too preoccupied with them to realize you were missing. But no one in the manor bothered to look for you either.
They completely forgot about you.
Clark said you got injured. You’d try to call them. None of them answered.
They either didn’t see the call, or figured you’d try to call one of the others.
Surely, someone else will answer, they all thought. They were busy with something else.
Too busy to pick up the phone.
Too busy to see the notifications.
Too busy to notice your absence.
You were a living ghost among these halls to them.
You’ve always been the least problematic sibling. You weren’t a vigilante, you went to your classes, came home, ate dinner, and went to your room while they were down in the cave working. Rinse and repeat.
But now that they’ve learned about the truth. You left and they hadn’t noticed, hadn’t answered your calls.
You could have died and it would’ve taken them who-knows-how long to finally figure it out.
For a family of detectives, how could they’ve missed something so blatantly in their faces?
They messed up, big time.
And now you were suffering the consequences of their inactions and incompetences.
Bruce looked you up in the Metropolis urgent care database—a huge breach to the Epic systems and to HIPAA laws, and one he should never do again, but he needed to know the extent of your injuries.
Broken wrist and ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a deep wound—from an unfortunate landing on a rock, and a twisted ankle.
And many, many scrapes and bruises.
You sounded like you went through hell. It probably felt like it too.
When Alfred learned about your whereabouts and the circumstances in which brought you there, he considered retirement right then and there.
He was the butler. He was the one who was supposed to take care of every tenant in the manor. And he forgot one.
He was an old man these days. Perhaps too old to be continuing his line of work.
But if he left, then who will take care of Master Bruce and the other young Masters?
Who will take care of the Bats?
They needed someone to run the bat computer while they were away. They needed someone to stitch up their wounds. They needed someone to remind them to come up for air when they were drowning in case files.
Damian didn’t know how to feel. He never does. That was thanks to his mother and the League.
He had to be useful. Strong. And show no mercy.
He’s been a resident at the manor for a little over a year now. You’ve been here much longer. But you didn’t wear a mask. You weren’t associated with the Bat. You chose to be normal.
When he first arrived, he resented you for being useless. If you weren’t contributing to the mission, then you were in the way.
It didn’t matter that you were in college studying something as simple and pathetic as art and will eventually leave. You couldn’t be gone sooner in his opinion.
He verbally stabbed you any chance he got, complained about you to the others, and wished you’d leave or die already.
But somewhere between the shifting schedules and lack of social interactions, you become less of an inconvenience and eventually disappeared completely from Damian’s mind.
You didn’t cross his path and he never crossed yours. He was as much a stranger to you as you were to him. You leaving didn’t change that.
Damian didn’t know how to feel.
So why did he feel partly to blame?
When Tim gets faced with a challenge, he turns it into a case file.
That’s how he got through AP Calculous, World History, and Physics in high school. If he could apply his detective skills to a presented problem, then he can solve it.
It’s just what he’s always done and still does.
It’s what he’s done for the case of you.
Tim sat on his bedroom floor with a manilla folder laid open in front of him, your headshot paperclipped to the corner.
The file held a description of your height, weight, and physical appearance. There were notes of your academic records from your time in public school and the past semesters at GCU – You were placed on the deans list multiple times for academically outstanding performances – as well as photos of you from the groups and organizations you were a part of.
He had all the facts, they were right in front of him, so why was he stumped?
Why couldn’t he figure you out?
Tim removed the headshot from beneath the paperclip and looked at it closer as he drew his knees to his chest, resting his head on top of them and released a sigh.
How was it possible to know so much, yet nothing at all, about a single person?
He knew your face, he knew your name, but he didn’t know you.
Jason has a nasty habit of running away from the things he doesn’t like, especially the things that make him angry.
That habit got him killed in Ethiopia.
And with his second chance at life, he’s tried to leave it in the past.
But old habits are easy to fall back into.
Except, he couldn’t run away this time. Because the person he was angry with was himself.
Jason knew what it was like to grow up in a family that forgot about you. His birth mother left him. His father was a criminal who was never around. And his stepmom didn’t care about him enough to stop her drug overdosage.
And then he had Bruce, Dick, and Alfred. They became his new family and taught him to be Robin.
Then you came along. You chose not to be a hero like the rest of them, and they were fine with it. You were free to choose what you will.
When Jason came back and saw that Tim took his place instead of you, he was glad you stayed true to who you were. But after a while, he stopped seeing you around. One, because he chose to continue his hero work and two, because he moved out the manor and into his own place closer to Crime Alley.
He thought it was okay that he didn’t see you much. He figured that the others would spend the time he didn’t with you.
He didn’t know just how wrong he was.
Nowadays, he felt no better than his deadbeat parents. And that made him angry.
If he felt cheated and abandoned then, he could imagine how alone you must’ve felt now.
Jason’s knee bounced with the itch to run. But you can’t run away from yourself, can you?
With a clenched jaw and bitter guilt, a hole was made in the drywall of his safehouse.
In the hours that Dick should be sleeping, he instead scrolls his phone while laying beneath his sheets. He hasn’t been able to tear himself away from looking at all the posts you made while driving through thirteen states.
You really knew how to curate your profile to perfectly capture the essence of you, at least, the person he was seeing on his screen who he thought was you.
There were short videos of the views you saw, along with artistically composed photos from throughout the days. The morning mist, mountains, empty roads that run through the wilderness, campfires, coffee in a travel mug, your sketches–they were beautiful.
They made it look like you were having so much fun, it certainly looked that way to the people in the comments.
But you were alone in every picture that featured your form.
Dick exited Instagram and opened his photos app.
There, he scrolled through endless photos of himself with the people he loved most.
Alfred, Bruce, his brothers, Babs, the Titans, and even various members from the Justice League.
You weren’t in any of them.
How was that possible? Dick saw and included everyone, he was a social butterfly like that. How could he have missed you?
And to make things worse, he was your eldest brother. He should’ve been roping you into his shenanigans and bonding with you like he did with Jason, Tim, and Damian.
Dick shut his phone off and tossed it away from him on the bed. In wrapping himself in the comforting blankets as he laid on his side, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was truly a good person if he forgot to love you.
Lately, when Bruce found he had extra time, even if it was just for a minute, he would spend it in your bedroom– what used to be your bedroom.
It felt more like a tomb.
A testament to you and what once was.
Bruce has done this once before, when Jason died. He spent hours grieving his lost son in the room that was left behind. But it feels different grieving someone who’s still alive.
The paraphernalia of you was left behind. And the more he looked around your altar, the more he realized how little he knew of his middle child.
Art supplies neatly organized on your desk– that’s right, you were majoring in art. Not aerospace engineering. A photograph on your corkboard with you at a track meet, smiling with your teammates as you won first for the 5000 meters event for GCHS. And another from a year ago with members of the Gotham City Run Club. You had the medals you’ve earned from all your races hanging on a hook display– 5Ks, 10Ks, Half Marathons. And there was a vision board made from magazine catalogs, pictures of mountains and camping imagery, with a single sentence in the center in yellow block letters.
One day, I will see the world.
Bruce had no idea you liked to run. He had no idea you had a passion for art. And he had no idea you wanted to travel. You spent all these years under his roof, yet he didn’t know you at all.
A piece of paper pinned on your corkboard caught his attention. Carefully, he took it down for a closer look.
It was your college acceptance letter from GCU into their visual arts program. Why doesn’t he remember this? You would’ve shown this to him the day you got it, right?
Bruce was down in the cave decrypting data from the flash drive he had Robin (Tim) extract from a lab that they believed to be running off the record experiments. They’ve been working on this case for weeks, believing metahumans were being trafficked from Gotham to Metropolis under Lex Luthor’s command. He hasn’t talked to Superman yet about it. He needed to know for sure what was happening and why.
With his attention glued to the screen, he didn’t hear you come down through the elevator. He didn't even register your presence until you were right next to him. A crinkle of paper in your hands.
“Dad! Guess what?!” You were clearly excited about something.
“Not now, I’m busy,” he didn’t even look at you. “You shouldn’t be down here.”
“It can wait until later. Tell me at dinner.”
There was a pause. You stood there awkwardly, looking between your dad and the letter in your hands.
“Okay,” it was small. “Dinner then.”
When dinner time came around, you looked up from the broccoli you were poking around with your fork and down at the opposite end of the table.
It always was. Why would tonight be any different?
Dick was in Blüdheaven, Jason was dead, Tim still lived down the road, dad was a busy man, and Alfred already fulfilled his duty by giving you a plate of food.
You tried calling your big brother and Tim, none of them answered. When you texted the news instead, all you got was a thumbs up from Tim hours later.
Alfred gave you a single “congratulations” while he busied himself with dusting the portrait of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Would they have congratulated you with just as little enthusiasm?
You didn’t bother trying to tell Bruce again.
Bruce pinned the letter back onto the corkboard as regret filled his heart.
He didn’t realize just how much he pushed you away. He didn’t mean to do it on purpose, there just always seemed to be something important to do.
But you were important too. And he failed to see that.
Clark was right. He was obsessed with the Bat. He messed up big time. They all did.
You were able to leave without anyone noticing. You vanished like a phantom in the night.
Leaving them behind in your quiet wreckage.
How were they going to recover from this destruction?
How were they going to make this right?
As the summer went on, the more the Bats felt ashamed, embarrassed, and guilty for all the ways they’ve wronged you. They had no idea how to fix the mess they made. They didn’t even know if you’d want to hear what they had to say now, anyways.
So they did what they did best.
They put the issue on the backburner.
You’d be home soon and that’s when they’ll revisit how they’re going to repair the tear in their relationships with you.
Besides, you were recovering over at Clark’s place in Metropolis. You were well taken care of with the big blue boyscout. You didn’t need them right now. You were fine.
That’s what they’ve convinced themselves, anyway.
The Bats did what they did best.
During the last week of July, Bruce Wayne had to make an appearance at a charity gala that was raising funds for the schools in GCISD, brought to you by, you guessed it, Wayne Foundations. Bruce already signed some checks to a few of the schools in the district, specifically to their fine arts programs in your honor.
And now came the grueling part, putting on a smile for the cameras. This was his true mask.
As flashes blinded Bruce while he posed with the individual principals and the superintendent, a few reporters were shouting out their questions.
“Mr. Wayne, what do you intend for the donations to accomplish for the fine arts program?”
“Mr. Wayne, will you consider donations to other departments in the future?”
“Mr. Wayne, are there any plans on how the Wayne Foundations can improve school transportation and accessibility?”
You know, the type of questions one would expect to arise related to the situation.
“Mr. Wayne, do you have a comment about the whereabouts of your child, who you’ve dedicated the donations in honor of?”
Who the hell— Bruce snapped his attention to the reporter, who had a slight smirk tugged on his lips.
“Clark Kent, Daily Planet in Metropolis,” he introduced himself—like he even needed too. “Do you have a statement?”
What are you up to, Clark?
“Is there any context for this question?”
“Well, they’ve posted for two weeks straight on their Instagram—you know, where they have 2.3 million followers—about how they were solo traveling the US. But they stopped posting over a month and a half ago, with their last known location being in Yosemite National Park. That’s on the other side of the country, Mr. Wayne. Over 3,000 miles away from Gotham. Do you know where they are now? Are they home?”
“No, they’re not home. They’re staying at a friend's house for the rest of the summer.”
“And why wouldn’t they want to come home, Mr. Wayne? What prompted them to leave in the first place?”
Some of the other reporters around Clark were giving each other and the reporter in question odd glances. What was going on? Was this man accusing Bruce Wayne of something?
Bruce’s jaw tightened, “They have an adventurer’s spirit. They’ve always wanted to go on a trip like this. If you recall, the Waynes have a habit of going on escapades.”
Clark nodded along, “Yes, of course. I also recall that the Waynes tend to sustain a lot of injuries when they come back. Do you have any comments on whether or not you know your child has any injuries?”
“Interesting. So, are you not in contact with your kid?”
The two fathers had a stare down. The room was silent and the cameras stopped flashing for a moment.
“Are you accusing me of being a bad father, Mr. Kent?” Bruce’s voice was low and verging on dangerous. He had to keep his composure, cameras were present.
Clark raised a brow, the ghost of a smirk he had at the beginning now growing to show off one of his dimples.
“I didn’t say that. You came to that conclusion all on your own, Mr. Wayne.” It was smug, condescending, and downright petty of Clark to be publicly hinting at Bruce’s dirty laundry like this in front of other reporters and active cameras, but he’s been watching you watching your cracked phone, waiting for them to call you all summer. Seeing you get heartbroken day after day from the lack of communication was breaking his own heart. So, perhaps Bruce needed a kick to the knees in the right direction.
Bruce didn’t see it like that. To him, this was an attack on his character.
If he clenched his jaw any tighter, he was gonna break a tooth.
“I won’t be taking any further questions, thank you,” he announced to the room before walking out. An uproar of camera flashes and reporters shouting their own questions on the subject of his absent child filled the hall.
Bruce wasn’t a bad father. He’ll prove it when you come home in a few weeks.
When the end of August began to approach, the Bats were prepared for your eventual arrival. They planned on welcoming you home, with gifts of your favorite snacks (they had to look at your digital receipts from all the gas stations you’ve stopped at), a new set of drawing pens and sketchbook, and a new pair of compression socks and road running shoes.
But when the start of the new semester started and you didn’t walk through their front doors, they began to panic.
You should’ve been back by now. Classes started today. Where were you? Did something happen to you on your drive back to Gotham? Metropolis was only a two and a half hour drive away. What was taking you so long?
At around 3PM, they got their answer.
Dick saw your notification on Instagram pop up, the first time in months, immediately opened it.
“Guys! (Name) just posted!” And just like that, his three brothers, Bruce, and Alfred were crowded around his phone.
You posted a single photo. A selfie of you and two other people they’ve never seen before posing in front of a sleek, modern building.
Cheers to new beginnings, read the caption.
The pinned location was Los Angeles, California. Their jaws dropped.
You were, once again, 3,000 miles away from home.
And this time, they weren’t sure if you were ever going to come back.
a/n: Ya'll I have no idea how I'm balancing finals, marathon training, and fanfiction writing all at once, but apparently I'm capable of more things than I give myself credit for.
I'm a little nervous with this chapter because I was having trouble with individual characterizations of the Bats (especially Damian) and balancing their relationship with you with their own experiences. I don't want to paint them as "villains", that's not the goal. They're literally a group of heroes and they have good intentions, but they are still humans with flaws and are bound to make mistakes. I really hope I'm doing that justice.
Anyways, LMK your thoughts and thank you for reading!
