Chapter Text
Earth-3 is barren, an arid desert where not even tumbleweeds roll about. It reminds Duke of his home world, which suffered a similar fate. The Earth where heroes were villains and villains were heroes ended in the exact same way as its polar opposite. If seeing the destruction of the multiverse didn’t make him want to crumple, Duke might find it funny.
He rolls his shoulders, stretches out his arms, and goes on his way. He sensed something here, he thinks he sensed life, and whether it be a monster or survivor, he needs to find it. (He’s pretty sure it’s a monster, but Tempus has been even more cryptic than usual, so he doesn’t mind the chance to beat something up.)
Usually, multiversal portals pull him towards signs of life. Duke sticks his hand in the air, lowers his power-dampening glasses for just a moment, feels around. It took a while to hone the skill, but now he can just tell. The source wall on this Earth is thin and flimsy. If Duke had to wager a guess, he’d guess that this Earth’s connection to Earth-0, the eye of the storm, wore the source wall down.
Well, if the monster isn’t right here, then Duke can walk. It’s no problem, really. It fills the time. And Duke Thomas, hero of the multiverse and survivor of its destruction, has time in spades.
“Hello?” he calls with cupped hands. “If there are any monsters around here, you can show your ugly faces! I won’t promise to not kick your ass, but you’re free to come out!”
A grin tugs at his lips. He doubts the monsters would be coming out, so he’s free to keep on talking. Quip practice is always fun. “Hey, I’ll come out to y’all, just to set an example. My name is Duke, formerly a Robin sans the Batman, formerly Signal, currently Batman sans the Robin, he/him pronouns. I’m bi as hell. And hey, I’m the first trans Batman! Gotta say, Bat-Binders are the comfiest binders I’ve ever worn.” He presses his lips together to suppress his laughter.
“So, trust me, no judgment here—”
A force slams Duke backwards, knocking him to the ground. Aw, man, he was on a roll and he just had to get interrupted.
“Okay, scratch that, I am judging, what was that for?” Duke launches himself in the direction of the force, axe at the ready. “I’m here to help you open up, not push people away!”
The monster reveals itself soon enough. They all revel in their reign of terror, and in their hubris, Duke strikes them down. This one’s no different.
It’s a Green Lantern. Power Ring in this universe, Duke remembers vaguely from a case file he read during the year of the Cursed Wheel. The hosts live in a state of near-constant fear, and the spirit of the ring possesses the host.
Except this Power Ring is deformed, snarling with fanged teeth, wrinkled skin, dead eyes. Emerald and black veins run side by side through his face. Tainted green light constructs guide the rest of his body, though when Duke squints, he can’t tell where the light construct ends and the creepy crawly face begins.
“Oh, okay,” says Duke. “I see why you don’t open up now.”
He charges forward and swings his axe at what used to be Power Ring, managing to nick a light construct. It repairs itself instantly.
Duke groans. Why can’t he have an easy-to-kill monster that actually helps him blow off steam? But no, he’s fighting an alternate dark Leaguer. Almost reminds him of the final battle on Earth-0, though Green Lantern wasn’t the hardest to take down by a longshot. That honor went to—
He swallows hard.
“Come on, Duke, think,” he murmurs. “How do you defeat someone powered by will itself?”
Duke yelps as a giant spike whizzes past him, barely able to sidestep it.
He hates having to think in battles; there’s no time for it. But, okay, he’s thinking. He wielded a Green Lantern ring once, this shouldn’t be much different.
Except—he ducks behind a rock—this isn’t a Green Lantern, it’s Power Ring, who isn’t so much powered by will as he is by fear. “So what I have to do,” says Duke to himself, “is to get him to stop being afraid.” (Not exactly the best tactic in the middle of a fight. Whoops.)
He jumps out from behind the rock, cups his hands. “Dude! You know Barbatos is gone, right? He doesn’t control you anymore. You’re free.” The black veins flash, with a visible pulse. “I’m not here to fight you.” Not anymore, at least. If there’s a chance that Hal Jordan of Earth-3 is still inside whatever he is, if there’s another survivor of their ruined, doomed multiverse—Duke has to try.
“We can figure this out,” he says, taking off his helmet. He opens his eyes, tries giving one of those stares that dig into your soul. “We can rebuild the multiverse together if you’re in there, Hal.”
The construct creature—Power Ring—Hal steps forward.
And creates a drill pointed towards Duke’s chest.
He slams down on the multiversal teleporter on his belt instinctively—it’s the fastest route to not getting skewered. Even Batman’s armor has limits.
Squeezing his eyes shut as the whir of the drill becomes uncomfortably loud, he lets his molecules dissipate and reform. His teleporter should have been set for the empty space in between Earths where Tempus resides; he scowls. Tempus is the only person he could talk to, and he wants to talk to someone, anyone, to not feel so alone. But every time he looks at Tempus, he sees the being that watched his multiverse crumble, and he can’t do it.
But something’s different when he reappears. He can feel it. Gravity has shifted, the air is cool if still dry, a noise echoes.
Duke opens his eyes, staring right into a cave full of—no.
No.
What’s going on?
This can’t be real, it can’t.
Because he’s looking at a cave full of Bats, and every single one of them have died. He watched several of them die. He killed—his gaze finds Bruce, wearing the Batman cowl, eyes narrowed in a shadowy corner.
He sucks in a breath. Something went wrong. Because there is no Earth that survived Barbatos’ onslaught—no world where all of them could be here.
He accidentally—he accidentally teleported. To Earth-0? And his powers, they’re—they’re just forcing him to see the past. He’s been through this before.
His eyes dart around the Cave. See, there’s the Bat-Chair by the Bat-Computer, without the R-shaped scratch that had been there as long as he could remember. And definitely not destroyed. He’s just seeing the past. That’s all.
But then… there’s a Batgirl with a full-face mask who holds herself like Cass. Barbara in a wheelchair, looking more mature than he remembers her. And that’s when his fingers start shaking, the metal of his armor rattling as he keeps noticing things that are wrong.
The sharp glow of the Bat-Computer seems too bright, the shuffle of boots and gloves and batarangs pulled out of utility belts too loud, everything too much. Even his glasses, a familiar weight, feel too heavy against his cheekbones, too large, and what’s the point in these if they don’t stop him from seeing all of this anyway? Fuck, he—he missed them, he wants to collapse into them, but this is, this is just an illusion crafted by his powers, yeah? He can’t, no matter how much he wants to.
Something white-hot bubbles in his chest and rises up his throat. He forces himself to breathe. It ends up sounding more like coughs.
With trembling hands, he pulls the glasses off his face, but instead of relieving the extra weight, it—
Duke’s world explodes with double visions. His knees feel like jelly; he stumbles back, leaning against the—solid, present—Batcave wall.
Damian, in what he thinks is present or past vision or alternate Earth (but that’s not possible) or whatever, holds out a sword. “Who are you?” he asks, voice needle-thin and dripping threat.
And at the same time, he watches Dick Grayson, who wears the Batman cowl, tell Tim that Damian needs Robin and Tim has outgrown it.
He watches Cass pull on her full-face Batgirl cowl, almost reverently.
He watches a young boy in a Robin suit, the one with the scaley underwear and pixie boots, look at Bruce with an earnest grin. “I’m Robin, and being Robin gives me magic!” he declares.
And Duke sees all of it, zooming by so quickly he can hardly hold onto it all. Flashes of a past, except this, this is years and years and years worth of history, and just one Duke. His hands clutch the floor as best they can, stone-cold shocking him out of it, for a moment, to notice he’s inhaling so quickly he’s choking, to notice his head buzzing around so much that fuzz clouds his mind.
“Answer me,” Damian demands, and Duke flinches against the harsh tone. The younger brother he never knew he wanted, is the thought that makes it through the nails-on-chalkboard state of his mind, almost like it’s mocking him.
“I’m—” he starts to say, just to appease his brain, before being thrown back into seeing a Robin—Steph?—laying on a gurney, beaten to hell, and then Harper, training her taser on a target, and god , if there’s one constant throughout all of these visions, why does it have to be the fucking computer, and Duke doesn’t realize how long his breath has been trapped in his throat until black spots dot his vision.
He knows what comes next, powers or not, and relief sinks into his bones as he embraces what comes next.