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“Do you remember Dick Grayson?”
“Dick.. Grayson?” Bruce pronounces the name like it’s a foreign language. “No.”
***
When Damian returns a week later, Bruce is in a better mood. He must find some scientific interest in the dust motes, because he scrutinizes the ceiling until Damian finally snaps his fingers, rude and exasperated.
“Father,” Damian says.
“Father?” Bruce tilts his head. “I’m a father now?”
Damian breathes in deeply through his nose and channels the patience his read at various self-help books. “Yes. You’re my father. I’m your son.”
“Oh.”
Damian hates that blank look in his father’s face. The Bruce Wayne he remembers in the smartest man in the world. Brilliant in the field and tactics. Leader of the Justice League. He was Batman. He was a hero. The Bruce Wayne that sits in front of him is a husk of the man Damian once knew. He despises his own frustration, and on the worst days, he wants to shake his father down and demand that the right one—the true version of him come out.
They have made so many medical advancements in this world, but they still haven’t found a cure for dementia. How cruel it must to be Bruce Wayne at this moment, trapped in a body that refuses to function to the best of its ability. Except this Bruce Wayne tilts his head again and reaches for the jell-o and smiles blandly.
***
Damian returns on a Tuesday afternoon with flowers. He feels stupid because what the hell were flowers gonna do for his father’s memory? It’s the thought Damian can imagine Richard saying.
Back straight, head up high, Damian treks through the hall, ignoring the sound of wailing for room 17 and the sobbing coming from right next door. He passes a few more rooms. The long-term residents are dozing with the television on.
Nurse Evelyn rounds around the corner and flags down Damian with smile. “He’s having a good day.” She nods towards the door. “Go on.”
Damian gently knocks, pauses, then twists the door knob. “Damian,” his father says in awe. “Evie told me all about what you’ve been up to.” Bruce points at the picture of the family on the bed side table.
“I got you flowers.” Damian grabs the glass vase and throws the decaying sunflowers Jason last brought to the compost bin. He fills up the case with water, then drops his own carnations in. He putters around the room, observing the amenities, making sure that his father isn’t ever wanting despite the fact that this facility is the best that money can buy.
“Come sit.”
Damian immediately follows the command, because even if he wears the cowl now, he’s still conditioned to follow the original’s Batman’s directions. He sits across from his father, like he does every week.
His father is softer like this, so unburdened by the violence and tragedy of the life he has lived. But Damian will argue until the night ends that Bruce Wayne lived a good life. An honorable one.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” Damian says. “And you?”
Bruce shrugs, and they stay quiet for a long, long time.
An hour passes when Bruce finally says, “do you think it’s still worth living like this? Such a half-life. Most days, I don’t remember you, your brothers, or…” he trails off, voice utterly devastated. “Dick.”
“Father—
Bruce shakes his head. “Wouldn’t it be better if I just rest now?”
“By rest, you can’t possibly mean…” Damian cannot say the words. He is so tired of his family leaving him.
“I’m old. It’s bound to happen at some point.”
“Yes,” Damian says curtly. He balls his fist and scoffs. “You will. But not now. Not so soon. You’re a survivor. Bruce Wayne is a survivor.”
“I just never imagined that I’d outlive him.”
“Well, you did,” Damian whispers. “We will go on living anyway.”
“Maybe it’s for the best that I don’t remember, always. That I only remember sometimes…”
His father gets a far away look. His gaze drops, then, he’s gone.
***
Damian places a jammer on the table. “We can speak freely.”
Bruce picks up the bat-shamed tech jammer. “So you’re the new Batman.”
Damian nods. “I have held the mantle the last five years.”
“Who had it before?”
“Jason.”
“Jason? I thought he…”
“He came back. It’s a long story. I’d be happy to share if you’re interested. The short end of it is that he returned. Then,” Damian swallows, fighting the urge to fulfill his own promise to always say the truth. “He became Batman after you retired. He was the best. Better than you. I can only hope to live up to the legacy.”
“I’m happy to hear about Jay,” he says, and he sounds like it too. His eyes are bright, and shining, and it reminds Damian of when they were both younger. When Bruce could still walk and hadn’t had a stroke and how he’d run after Titus across the property. “I knew Dick never wanted it.”
“You remember Dick Grayson?”
“Robin,” Bruce whispers. “My Robin.”
“He still is.” Damian taps his own chest, and watches as Bruce glances down to hold a locket between his fingers.
Damian looks away when his father opens it. “Hm. He aged well.”
“So did you.” Damian points to the mirror hanging on the north wall.
“Is he—“
“You know he isn’t.” Damian hates how petulant he sounds. He has one living parent left, and he acts like he lost them both.
He might as well have.
“I was hoping you’d say otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t lie, so stop testing me.”
Bruce grins, and his yellowing teeth are still straight and sharp. Damian could imagine Richard cooing over him. Both of them wanted to spend the rest of their lives in the family home. Damian, damn him, he tried to keep father in the manor, but he wandered into the cave too many times. Bruce’s body remembered how to turn the clock that led down to the cave.
Bruce, despite his failing memory, avoided all the pitfalls in the staircase down the cave. He was on the comms, for fucks sake, and that was it. That was it. It was done.
Damian couldn’t full time care taker without revealing their identities, and he was too tired to vet out an employee, not when he was Batman and he was at Wayne Enterprises, taking over Tim’s job, because Tim is dead, and his brother is gone, and so is Richard, and his father might as well be dead.
Damian exhales when a hand grabs his own and squeezes. A handkerchief is place right under his eyes. “Hush baby, shush. It’s all right,” Bruce murmurs, and it’s only this meager kindness in the midst of all his frustration that makes Damian cry harder.
***
Jason’s hair is gray, but his eyes are still bright. Still, he’s fragile. His muscles are loose, and he slumps over his favorite chair in the manor.
“How’s the old man?” Jason croaks out.
“The nurse said he was lucid yesterday.” Damian grimaces, recalling how his father didn’t recognize him, now, in the flesh, as a grown man. “He remembered us though, from then. He showed me a picture of Richard, back when Richard first came to the Manor. He was so proud. He kept talking about Richard’s skill as an acrobat.”
“Hm.”
Damian’s used to talking more these days.
Jason can barely talk at all.
“How was your appointment?” Damian asks, even though he knows the answer. He can read it by the way Jason struggles for another breath.
When he was at his prime, Jason could run ten miles around Gotham every night and wake up in the afternoon for sparring session. Now, he can’t get up from his chair without assistance.
In lieu of an answer, Jason points to the sofa across from him. He blinks, eyes watery, though the last time he shed a tear was when Cass died.
Sometimes, Damian still had nightmares of Cass stabbing herself in the chest with a rusty blade. She was given a choice, Damian or her life. She chose his, and until this day, he asks why. Life isn’t worth living anymore. There’s barely any love left.
“One day, you’ll be alone, Damian,” Jason says, words coming out in short stutters.
Damian doesn’t take any offense.
It’s the truth. The only thing certain in life is death, and each morning he wakes up closer to it. Once, his brother was so strong. His tenure as Batman paved a new era for Gotham. Now, Jason spends his days in coughing in the library when he doesn’t have chemo.
“I know,” Damian finally says, because there’s not much to say anymore. He’s cried himself hoarse. Death was part of life, and yet it’s so hard to accept.
“Will you be alright?” Jason’s eyes are solemn.
Once, in a moment of weakness, Damian had asked him whether he would be interested in taking a dip in the pit.
Jason didn’t speak to him for a week.
It was selfish, Damian knows, but the family has is only a party of two, and one day, it will just be him in this manor, with nowhere to go.
Now, his brother looks at him with a frown gracing his gaunt face.
Damian scowls. Jason’s terminally ill, and yet he’s worrying about Damian.
“Worry about yourself,” he says to keep pace with their usual banter, as if his heart hasn’t shattered.
He doesn’t want to be alone.
Jason smiles. “God, what I’d do for a cigarette right now.”
Damian rolls his eyes. “Maybe when it’s your last day.”
“Hm. Well, what do you say, baby bat? Will you light it for me?”
***
Three months later, Jason dies with a smile on his face.
Damian takes Jason’s old lighter and smokes a pack of American Spirit, watching his brother’s unmoving body.
He should be used to this.
As a child, he’s slain a number of people. He isn’t uncomfortable around a corpse. But this body is Jasons, and just last night, Jason was pestering him about wanting enchiladas for dinner.
Maybe Damian should have known then, that it was a last supper.
Jason never asked for anything.
He finishes the pack, then makes preparations for the funeral. He calls the old Outlaws.
Well, Koriander, since she’s the only one left.
Then, he phones Carrie, then, the retired Robins. He listens to them sob on the phone. He offers platitudes like he’s moving underwater. He can’t hear himself talk. He doesn’t remember what he says, but they thank him anyway.
Then, Damian goes around the motions again. His body is aware of the usual routine, even if his mind is blank.
Damian suits up, locks the belt around his waist, and calls himself Batman.
***
The Wayne family lawyer comes before Damian could plan out the funeral processions. There’a letter from the deceased.
I’ve worn a thousand faces in this life time. I’ve been an orphan, a father—not a very good one. I’ve loved, and I’ve lost. I’ve been a lover to those who deserved better.
I’ve been Batman. I’ve been Bruce Wayne. I’m not sure what either means anymore. Sometimes you boys make me think I’m a hero when I’m the furthest thing from one. I’ve been to a seven galaxies and a fifth four planets in this lifetime.
Sometimes I think that I’ve seen it all, and there shouldn’t be any surprises.
When I think about dying, I don’t falter. I’ve grazed death a thousand times. I had always thought it would be quick and efficient. Maybe I’d bleed out while out with the League or I’d suffer from a severe heart attack and never make it out.
I never thought it would be like: a slow death.
The slow decline of my body. My neurons refusing to fire away and connect to my brain. The slow decay of my brain’s information processing and its necessary communication with my organs. Forgetting tasks. Being unable to care for myself.
We all know I’ve never been good at that.
I admit it: I’m scared of the future, of who I will become.
I’m scared of forgetting Batman. Forgetting you.
We have so many memories here in the Manor. At home. I hate that one day I will eventually forget where I am. Where I might stare at the family portrait that hangs in the library and not recognize any of you. That. That is what hurts the most. Please don't think I ever took you for granted.
You kids are my life.
I thought it would help if I intellectualized this disease and list out the symptoms so I’d have a plan when I eventually get there. But boys, there is no plan.
There’s no secret passage way or some alien tech or magic.
The truth of the matter is that I’m old. I’m older than I ever expected to live. I spent years of my life watching you boys grow into the best of men. You’re all better than I could ever dream to be.
Thank you for the laughter, the joy, the tears. I have had many mistakes when it came to raising you boys. Please forgive me. There are so many ways I could have done better. I can only thank you for not giving up on us. For giving this family of ours another chance, again and again, even with all my faults. I am proud to be your father.
You are the best part of me. I’m… I’m satisfied. It’s okay. I’ll be okay. It’s all going to be alright, boys.
Please show me kindness when I can no longer remember you, but know that I will always love you, even when I forget.
With love, your dad,
Bruce
***
He tells himself that it’s because Jason’s death is fresh in his mind. He’d argue tooth and nail with Richard. He isn’t sentimental, no matter how much Richard tells him otherwise.
Damian swings through Old Gotham and jumps through roof tops until he reaches what was once an old rundown theater. Someone else lives there now, and he wonders if its occupants ever having any fleeting thoughts about who used to live there. Maybe they’d never believe that the man that occupied the converted condo was a hero.
He drops to the building across the street, smokes a cigarette, and goes over his life choices again. Maybe if he and Tim patched up their relationship earlier, they’d have more time as brothers.
Once the cigarette is reduced down to its tipping paper, Damian flicks it then tosses it to the trash. He’s wasted enough time sulking.
Crime doesn’t end even if he misses his brothers.
His father.
There’s work to do.