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There are very few things that scare Batman. In fact, there are not enough things out there that could be compiled onto a list of the things that evoke true terror in the man.
Though, the number is not yet zero. Bruce is still human, at the end of the day, and with that mortality comes a certain rational that keeps us alive all built from fear. Fear is good. Bruce's entire life was built on the basis of fear, or more importantly, what he can build from fear.
Some might even say fear is a necessity.
But this — this type of fear is different.
It fills your body with acid, replacing every working cell with something that will slowly kill you. Bruce feels it burst under his skin when the computer fills the room with flashes of red, emergency signals filling what was once a case file on the screen. Bruce's chest is tight, ribs moving closer and closer, when the information comes through, along with a horrific, blaring alarm.
Alfred is almost crashing down the stairs, looking a complete disarray, at the deafening sound of the alarm. It's not one they've heard often over the years, but when they have, everyone knows exactly what it means.
"Sir —" Alfred starts, sounding horrified.
Bruce is frozen. He stares at the screen in front of him.
Duke Thomas vitals offline.
Signal suit offline.
Initiating Rescue Protocol.
A long list of numbers filters in almost immediately, the last known coordination of Duke's suit before it went offline. Before his vitals disappeared off the patrol tracker. Before he —
Alfred reaches out to tug at Bruce's shoulders, heaving him up off his chair. Bruce finds that his body is moving aimlessly, following wherever he's being dragged around too. He's too busy staring at the red screen, memorising the coordinates of the last place Duke might have been alive.
"Go," Alfred demands, sounding almost desperate when he shakes Bruce's slack shoulders, "Just go!"
It's like an elastic band snaps inside of his chest, and the next thing Bruce can comprehend is that he's racing through Gotham in the batmobile in broad daylight, the GPS already taking him to Duke's location. He takes the shortcuts to avoid the afternoon traffic, slips past construction and closed roads because if he's even a minute late then —
"Oracle to Batman, oracle to Batman," a voice speaks into his comms, and Bruce can barely register that it's his own hoarse voice that grunts out a 'receiving'.
"I have eyes on Signal, updating coordinates. Be advised, the perpetrator may still be on scene. Calling reinforcements."
"Hold on Duke," Bruce whispers, pressing down on the gas when the GPS updates to a different street, "Just hold on."
When Duke was seven, he'd fallen off the fire escape.
There's no tragic backstory to it, and it certainly didn't teach him any valuable lesson since it wasn't the last time it had happened — but he does remember the first time.
Or he remembers waking up in the hospital after the first time, more exactly.
His mum had told him, time and time again, that it was dangerous to play out there. The metal was old, and there was nothing to stop someone from slipping through the bars that held it together. But Duke was never good at following instructions that stopped him from playing around, and the fire escape was the best place in the whole house to start a game of make believe. Battling dragons and monsters at the top of a castle, walking across the rickety bridge between mountains.
They only lived on the second floor, and the ground below was mostly grass — but Duke remembers waking up to a white ceiling and bright lights. His mum hunched over uncomfortably in a chair beside him, asleep with a frown on her face and dark circles bruised under her eyes.
Duke remembers staring at her for a long while, dazed from the painkillers he was on, confused but conscious enough to know not to wake her.
It's only when his dad walked in with lunch from the hospital canteen did his startled shout at the sight of his bright-eyed son wake his mum. Duke had immediately burst into tears after that, entirely overwhelmed by the sight of his father's relieved sobbing and mother's hysterical lecturing. The nurses were undoubtedly concerned.
Duke had broken his arm that time. It's all rather unnecessarily dramatic now, since the following summer, he fractured his wrist doing the same thing. A couple summers after that, it was a twisted ankle.
Though, he hadn't lived in that apartment, on the second floor, with the fire escape, in a very long time. Duke doubts he ever will.
But he remembers it.
Even now, blinking awake to the blinding white lights that can only be associated with medicine, and the smell of antiseptics and blood, Duke remembers his mother's face when he woke up in the hospital bed.
This time however, it's not his mum he sees.
"The kid…" Duke struggles, remembering back to how all of this had started in the first place. A kidnapping. A mysterious figure who he somehow didn't see coming. A bomb. Falling. Pain.
Alfred pulls him back to the present, leaning over him with a stern look to his face. The old man is usually the pinnacle of calm and collected, but Duke is stunned to see a harsh furrow to his brows, mouth a straight line. There's a dark shadow over his features as he works meticulously at something on Duke's body. Duke can't feel a thing.
"Master Duke," Alfred prompts him gently, the clattering sound of metal and glass somewhere behind him, "Save your strength. I have given you something to help you sleep."
Duke's lip trembles, the all too familiar bitterness of despair grappling at his throat, and though a lot of him is numb, he feels the sting of his eyes. A lone tear escapes and trickles down the side of his face.
"Did the kid… make it. There was a — a bomb and I —" Duke pushes the words out of his mouth, feeling a darkness closing around his vision.
Suddenly, there's a large presence beside him, and Duke feels the faint sensation of someone wiping the side of his face. The hand rests against his cheek for a moment, barely touching skin, before it pulls away to grab onto his hand instead.
"I'm sorry Duke, he's gone," Duke hears him say, his heartbeat loud in his ears, "Steady, son. You are safe now."
Duke blinks away the blurriness in his eyes, gazing up at Bruce helplessly. There are undoubtedly waves of tears leaving his eyes now, but Duke finds he can't stop himself, especially when Bruce squeezes his hand. There's a pin prickling sensation across his body, bubbling his blood beneath skin, but Bruce's hand is warm.
"I'm sorry," Duke whispers, devastated.
Bruce squeezes his hand, face pinched with worry and fading terror, "You're going to be alright."
Bruce knows Jason comes back empty handed from the way he walks into the Cave, boots loud and heavy against the smooth stone flooring. He's usually loud about his presence, unafraid to voice about what it means for him to be here — but today, he is quiet.
The only other sound is Duke's heart monitor, steady and calm.
"There was nothing there," Jason grumbles, sitting across from Bruce with a dramatic huff, on the other side of Duke's sleeping form, "Not even a damn footprint. Whoever did this, came and went like a ghost."
Bruce had expected such, so he grunts in acknowledgment. There's not much else they can do.
It was a good call, regardless, to let Jason take charge and lead the investigation. In technical terms, Duke's attack had taken place in areas Jason was more confident in patrolling, where he would have more luck poking around for witnesses compared to Batman. Bruce has no doubt that although he's come back with nothing now, the man is not yet done with trying to find out what had caused this all.
Jason sighs again, melting into his seat after a moment, reaching out absently to lay a gloved hand over Duke's calf. It's the only place on him that isn't covered in bandages.
"You've been sitting here since yesterday?" Jason starts, tone unreadable.
Bruce grunts.
"Has he woken up yet?" Jason asks quietly.
The man inhales sharply at that, "No."
"What are you going to do now?" Jason continues, feeling oddly talkative, apparently.
Bruce hates himself a little for having to put a stop to his son's rare show of amiability, since he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't offer anything else. Jason stares at him for a moment, his hand still resting against Duke, before he clicks his teeth in exasperation.
"Yeah, I had a feeling you already had a plan," Jason grumbles, removing his hand and standing up, towering over his father, "You gonna tell me what it is? Let me help?"
Bruce doesn't answer. Jason scoffs.
"Yeah, I fucking thought so."
Jason rolls his shoulders like he's gearing for a fight, or a push away, and turns on his heel. He's barely taken a step away from the bed when Bruce stands to his feet as well, stopping him immediately.
Jason turns to Bruce, watching the man's face carefully. Bruce is frowning, as he always is these days, but there's something a little more expressive in the way he looks down at Duke's sleeping form, half of the boy's face covered in a bandage that wraps around his head. Jason watches, quietly, as Bruce reaches out to softly caress the boy's head.
"The first thing he asked about when I brought him here was if the kid had survived the blast," Bruce states heavily, a thumb running across a stitched cut above Duke's eyebrow, "And I had to tell him that they didn't make it."
Jason breathes in deeply, feeling wrong-footed all of a sudden. He's still standing, one foot awkwardly placed in front of the other, and the telltale hurriedness to get away from here grows with every passing second.
But then he watches as Bruce sniffs, staring unblinkingly down at Duke, and finds himself being pulled down to the ground. His feet move on instinct back to the bed.
"He said sorry," Bruce whispers, looking up at Jason, eyes intimidating in their sharpness.
Jason stares back, mirroring blue with green, "Duke's a good kid. He didn't deserve this."
Bruce nods stiffly, pulling his hand away and letting it fall to his said, "No. He didn't."
Jason blinks. Something about Bruce's glassy eyes and withering tone sets him on edge again. He wonders if they're still talking about the same thing, or if Bruce's pulled himself back into a darker part of his mind. Jason wonders if Bruce realises he's even done it at all.
"Sit down, old man," Jason sighs, "I'll go get us some of Alfred's tea."
Duke wakes up crying.
He's not sure what it was he was seeing in the darkness of his unconsciousness, but he immediately registers the wetness trickling down his face, the salty water collecting in the corner of his lip, as one of the first things. Whatever meds he's on did a good job of keeping him asleep, since Duke feels no sadness for a dream he can't remember.
But the grief that follows waking up remains. Duke takes a shuddering breath in, an ache running across his torso with the heavy breath, but feels just a little lighter because of it.
With much difficulty, Duke turns his head to the side.
He's unsurprised, while entirely shocked, to see Bruce sitting next to his bed. He's pulled over the Cave's computer chair and placed it beside Duke's bed in the medbay, a laptop hanging precariously off his lap. He's dressed in the sort of clothes he wears around the manor, the familiar casualness like when Duke leaves for school and Bruce is just heading to bed; a simple black shirt and a pair of sweats.
Duke blinks away more tears. Bruce is asleep.
He's thrown his head back in an angle that definitely can't be comfortable, but he's most definitely asleep. There's a gentle rise and fall off his chest, arms hanging off the side of the chair.
"Bruce," Duke whispers, though he's not sure why. Something tells him he should probably let the man sleep, no matter how cramped his neck might be the following morning — but the name tumbles out of his mouth.
It's all a little too much. The lights of the medbay. The beeping sound of his own heart monitor. The chilling cold that settles against his skin, but the burning of every muscle and limb hidden behind mountains of bandages.
Duke takes another shaky inhale, eyes stinging, "Bruce…"
Bruce blinks awake all at once, which would be a little creepy if Duke hadn't seen Damian do the same countless mornings before school. Bruce is a little less proficient at it, since he startles a little, nearly knocking the laptop off his lap as he straightens himself on the seat. He fumbles a moment, eyes searching all over Duke's injured body before finally landing on his face.
His eyes are wide, unforgivingly blue, "Duke. How are you feeling?"
Duke doesn't answer, instead, a tightness grows in his chest, lip trembling as he tries to raise his hand, reaching out, "Bruce…"
Bruce immediately catches his hand before it can fall back onto the bed, large and calloused hands covering his entire palm, "You're okay, Duke. You're okay."
Duke watches as Bruce's shoulders deflate a little as he says those words, the hand around his own tightening just a little. The hold feels familiar. The boy wonders how long Bruce has been waiting to say those words out loud, for both himself and Duke.
"I'm okay," Duke confirms, closing his eyes in relief. Bruce's hand holds his steadily.
We're okay.