Chapter Text
For the entire time that Batman had been working alongside the Justice League, he had been human.
Supposedly.
At least, that’s what he’d claimed on his first physical. And had explained during his first ‘extreme measures’ meeting. The one every League member went through to ensure proper care should something go awry. Potential allergies, weaknesses, abnormal physiology… Batman had said his treatment should be the same as any other person. The same as any other human.
Maybe the wording had been a little too vague because the creature, snarling and writhing under the effects of fear toxin, couldn’t possibly be anything further from ‘human’.
Earlier that day a few key members of the Justice League headed out together, each with something to prove.
A small collection of ‘wanna be big shots’ had seemingly bitten off more than they could chew, and pissed off a few too many people in the process. Turns out, lifting dangerous contraband from the major villains of multiple crime notorious cities was the fast track to a target on your back.
Their imported gear was lifted right out of the trucks before the JL could track them down. It would have been impressive had they not been so sloppy about the execution. A few boxes hefted into the eyeline of a surveillance camera and it was all over.
Except it wasn’t, because what happened when a bunch of high level villains attempted to jump a collection of small-time thieves; all armed with some of the most disruptive weapons ever designed?...
The answer was a lot of property damage.
With how widespread the damage types were, it would have been irresponsible to expect just one or two Justice League members to take care of the eventual chaos, so they’d opted to take the battle as a team. Even bringing in a few local heroes to handle the panicking public. All of them briefing one another, as much as they could, on the types of dangers to be on the lookout for.
Honestly, the whole thing was near to ending completely by the time the fear toxin came into play.
One of the small-time crook’s had grabbed the glass container in a last ditch attempt to avoid jail time. The shriek of terror he’d made the second it had smashed on the asphalt told Bruce all he’d needed to know about the man’s intentions. He hadn’t had a clue what he was doing or what he’d just unleashed.
“Rebreathers!” Bruce called through the coms, pulling his own from where it had been tucked into his belt. With any luck, this last cloud of smog would be the last of it and they could all go home. But life just couldn’t be so simple.
As quickly as he was able to bring the mouth piece to his lips, he was sacrificing the device (plus the extra he’d been carrying just in case) to a mother and daughter who’d been caught up amongst the chaos. A decision he’d made in a heartbeat, and would make again without hesitation if he’d had the choice.
The problem was, Bruce had a history with fear toxins and not a nice one. Every time he immunised himself to the compound a new one was springing up out of nowhere, ready to knock him on his ass all over again.
‘What’s it going to be this time?’ he thought languidly, crushing his hesitation in favour of running back into the fray.
Ethiopia? His Parents? Once he’d heard Alfred call to him, as if over the coms, begging him to save him from a home invasion. None of it was real of course. Just pure and simple paranoia.
It wasn’t even the fear that got to him any more, Bruce had learned over and over and over that to embrace fear is to conquer it. But Bruce wasn’t the problem. Unfortunately, if it was as simple as just understanding himself a little better, understanding that his flaws and neurosis were simply just ‘that’, then dealing with a new strain of fear toxin would be as manageable as everything else he faced. But it wasn’t.
Bruce could handle fear. Could file it away in his brain and overcome it. Through reasoning, through preparation, through confirmation of facts.
Batman could not.
Batman was a being of pure emotion. Some strange feral part in Bruce’s brain that snarled with instinct. The part that pushed for adrenaline and panic in every fight.
It was like having a circus lion in the back of his brain at all times. Chained down, just waiting for the day the keepers forgot the key. One slip up and they’d all be lunch.
It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment Bruce realised he was sharing his brain space with another being. At first he’d thought it was just anger issues, maybe even anxiety or a late developing personality disorder. Perhaps brought on by neglecting to process his parents death. But after months speaking to therapist after therapist he’d begun to notice the feeling in the back of his mind becoming stronger. More insistent. Before he knew it he was tracking down criminals while wearing an armoured fursuit AND thinking it was a good idea while doing it.
Batman had been a constant feral fixture in Bruce’s life for years. One he fought with every day and night.
Some fights he won and some fights he lost. And when he did lose, boy did Batman take his winnings seriously.
It wasn’t like he lost control completely. Batman never forced Bruce out of his mind; he supposed it was more like trading places for a while. Whenever something became too much for Bruce to handle Batman took over.
The sensation felt floaty. Like the moment just before falling asleep. Bruce could still hear and feel and see exactly as he could before, but his awareness was dulled. Batman called the shots and their shared body followed suit.
When he’d first started his ‘hobby’, Batman had been a secret weapon. He still was. Taking over when Bruce became overwhelmed. A built in cheat code for pushing through bullet wounds and broken arms. But after that first year his trump card became an overprotective inconvenience the second Dick became involved.
No one would have thought it, but Batman adored children. Especially when he considered them his own. On more than one occasion, after Dick had come to stay, Bruce had snapped out of a trance to find himself baby proofing his study. Or rearranging the living room to resemble something more like a ‘nest’ than a couch. Nevermind that Dick had been 12 at the time and was too old for baby locks and blanket forts.
The decision to promote Dick from Son to Robin had been Bruce’s alone for once and Batman despised him for it. It had taken nearly a full year for Batman to stop clawing himself to the forefront of their shared mind every time Robin so much as scraped his knees. But over the years they’d gotten better.
Both Bruce and Batman had gotten used to the idea of being fathers and even expanded the family outwards.
The more the Robin’s trained the less Batman was willing to slam dunk Bruce’s mind into unconsciousness every five minutes over a splinter. Nowadays said ‘dunking’ only happened under extreme circumstances.
‘Extreme circumstances’ in this case meaning, ‘Hallucinating your coworkers murdering your eldest son while inhaling an almost lethal dose of fear toxin’.
It ended up being Superman who took the brunt of it.
Poor Clark had just been trying to do the honorable thing in helping Nightwing up off the floor.
The last blast of fear toxin had scared off the remaining uncaught crooks so, with the smoke evaporating in the evening air, all that was left to do was to lick wounds and regroup. Of course, someone high out of their mind would perceive the camaraderie as a threat. A move to tear Nightwing limb from limb rather than to help him recover.
Batman went crashing straight into the two of them, snarling and hissing with all his might.
Superman, in all his grace, wheezed out the most bewildered shriek. Desperately fighting the reflex to swat at the ferocious creature like one might an enraged cat. One wrong move and he’d be backhanding his colleague through the closest brick wall, and no one wanted that.
It took the exhausted Justice League over 15 minutes to entrap their hallucinating teammate. Bruce might have fought with honor, taking time to analyse and plan, but Batman fought to win. He went for the eyes, the neck, the stomach. Scratched up dust from the road to throw it into faces. He hissed, he spat, he bit, he clawed. Anything for victory.
In the end, it took a combination of distraction and luck to force Bats off his guard long enough to let Hal trap him inside a fortified green box.
“If anyone has any ideas for an antidote or a psych eval or…. Hell, an exorcism, now might be the time!” Green Lantern whined, straining with every blow Batman dealt to the box walls. This was not going to hold him for long.
“It’s the fear gas,” Nightwing called out, finally on his feet after the scuffle to get his point across, “You’re freaking him out by crowding him. You gotta back off!”
The Justice League looked at him like he was crazy.
“Look, you just gotta trust me on this one. Back away a bit, give him some room to calm down and think.” Nightwing waved his hands placatingly. He took a few steps forward.
“Can he hear us in there?” Nightwing asked Hal.
“I didn’t imagine it as soundproof.” The strain in his voice was getting worse with every snarl.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” Nightwing continued, he hurried up to the box and knelt beside it.
Batman continued to pound on the walls, bearing his teeth at the sight of the other Justice League Members, no matter how much space they gave him. Dick could only imagine the plans he had for Hal once he freed himself. That glare could kill.
Okay, time to end this before things got any worse. Mission ‘bring Bruce back’ was officially in progress.
Nightwing cleared his throat into the back of his hand, and tried to get a feel for the sound he’d need for this. A choked, rough crackle bubbled from behind his tongue. And as pathetically rusty as it was, it did its job. Batman’s attention immediately snapped to him, like a magnet to steel.
“Oh yeah, I know you know what that means.” Dick smirked, forcing the sound once more. It had been years since he’d last tried to speak like this, but the muscle memory was still there.
It was a chirp, the kind Batman himself used when human English escaped him (which was most of the time since Bruce could be fluent for the both of them). The pronunciation was a little rough but when you studied something enough as a child it tended to come back to you when you really needed it.
And this was a situation that needed it.
Sure, it was a little embarrassing in his mid twenties to squeak out a phrase that basically translated to, ‘hello, I’m a baby. Look at me’. But if that’s what it took to get Batman to calm down while the toxin wore off then it was worth the mortification.
Even through the paranoia all Batman cared about was his kids. Of course.
“You can drop the walls now,” Nightwing called out behind him, not taking his eyes off Bats, “I’m gonna keep his attention so someone tell A to bring a car around.”
He could tell there was hesitation with the way the green light flickered first before dissipating entirely. Batman went to lunge head first back into an attack but snapped back to Dick the second he chirped out a protest.
I’m a baby. Stay. Look at me.
God this felt weird. But the important thing was that it was working.
Bats was spending all his time looking over Nightwing for injuries instead of trying to fight and make things worse for everyone. Only once did he pause his fussing to growl threateningly at Clark when the hero floated a little too close. But otherwise he was on his best behaviour.
By the time Alfred arrived in the Batmobile, Batman was looking a little floaty, and half a blink later Bruce was back, looking ever so slightly green in the face.
With Dick on one side and Alfred on the other they hefted Bruce up by his shoulders and walked him slowly towards the rumbling vehicle. Only pausing for a moment to mumble something about “talking about it Monday” before the door closed behind them.