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"𝑾𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔! 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓!"
When the words rang out through the soul of every single being in the universe, dead or alive, that was somehow all it took for the brutality of the past few years to vanish. Vanish was the only possible word to use here, because that was really what it had been. One second, they'd been fighting for their lives. The next, they were surrounded by the dead flying up and out of reach, leaving the formerly overshadowed bodies behind, aborting their attacks, leaving. Just like that.
It had been surreal, really
That had been about an hour ago now. They'd decided to return to the manor should this happen before, so they'd regrouped there. Well, some of them at least. Dick, Damian and Cass, at least. And Tim, if you counted him as having regrouped. But Dick wasn't too sure it counted, seeing as how the second youngest brother had stayed behind injured.
They hadn't wanted to leave him behind. But Constantine and Raven had both warded the manor against spirits the moment the war had begun, so it was relatively safe. And they hadn't really been able to bring Tim anywhere, not with his broken leg and cracked ribs, and especially not with his left arm all but smashed. There was some suspicion he might have internal bleeding, actually, but the med equipment had broken down ages ago and they hadn't been able to make sure.
Point is, they hadn't had a choice but to leave Tim behind. Much to the resentment of the other. After all, using tech would have been a surefire way to get captured and/or beaten, what with Technus participating in most battles.
If you asked Dick, that had been the worst thing during the war. The uncertainty. He never knew where his siblings were, how they were doing, whether they needed help, when - if - they were coming back, nothing.
They still didn't know where Steph, Duke, Kate, Harper and Barbs were at. Or any of the other members of their litte crime fighting family. Nor what was left of Justice League and assorted teams. Their friends.
They didn't know how the Infinite Realms had won the war.
They didn't know where Bruce was.
They still didn't know where Bruce was.
Maybe he should be out there. Maybe he should help pick up the abandoned battle fields. Maybe, if he would still get the chance to, he would do that later. But he needed to be here now. With his brothers, or at least some of them. Waiting for the rest of his family to make it home.
Danny knew where the manor was. Danny knew all their identities, too. If he wanted to, he could come take them any time now. After all, they had lost. Dick wasn't sure what would happen to them now. He had no idea how to keep his family safe. He didn't even know who was left to keep safe in the first place.
"He wouldn't have surrendered." Tim's voice cut through the silence for the up-tenth time. "Bruce. He wouldn't have surrendered. The others maybe. But not B. He wouldn't have."
Yeah, Dick thought. "We don't know what happened," Dick said.
"Father also would not have died. He is a strong fighter. Capable. He will return." Damian didn't even sound remotely sure as he said so, hands shaking slightly as he polished his sword. Dick absentmindedly wondered whether the weapon could get dull through over-polishing.
Cass hummed from where she was perched up on the shelf. "He… could be hiding. Waiting."
"He could be," Dick agreed. Or he could be dead, but he didn't have to say that. Everyone was thinking it.
They lapsed into silence again. Like all the times before. And Dick went back to looking out of the window. It was foggy out today. Foggy days in Gotham always looked so different from the smog, a lot more ominous. You couldn't see what was in front of you. It was dangerous. Dick thought it might be appropriate whether for today.
Shaking those thoughts away, he got up from the windowsill and threw another piece of wood in the chimney before the flame could go out. It crackled as it took fire. Any other day, he might have found it soothing. Today, it felt like a reminder of what was happening to everything he held dear.
Soon enough, he wasn't able to take being alone with his thoughts so much anymore. "What do you think will happen now?" The question had been the elephant in the room, and Dick wasn't above poking at it. Someone had to, and he seemed to be the one least allergic to feelings in this family. "Now that we lost, I mean."
"How would we know, Richard? There is no telling what will happen. But" Damian looked up, something fierce and determined in his eyes, something viciously protective. "we will prevail."
"Hm… We could ask Jason." Tim spluttered at the shocked looks he got. "What? We could! We're not at war anymore. If the war's over, that means we're not fighting him anymore!" Tim nervously fiddled with his blanket, and Dick could see the defensiveness as the small, tentative hope that it was. "…Right?"
No one answered that. No one could. They all hoped that Jason would return, of course, but… Well. They had been enemies. And knowing Jason, he would not return on his own, not without them all but dragging him home. How, though, could they ever tell him they wanted him to come home, no matter what had happened between them, when Jason was with the Infinite Realms. He was all but unreachable to them.
Out of nowhere, suddenly the phone started ringing. And Dick had certainly not jumped at the sound. Looking at his siblings in confusion, he was met with similar gazes.
Communication and anything else via tech had been too dangerous and thus strictly forbidden. Even though the war had ended now, they had lost. They still weren't safe. So, then… Who would be calling?
Putting a finger to his lips, Damian answered the phone putting it on speaker. "…Hello?"
There was a sigh on the other end, a sigh and some static. "Hi… Uh, Hey, little demon?"
It took all Dick had in him not to gasp loudly or rip the phone away from Damian. Because the nervous voice on the other end of the line, that was Jason. As if he'd known what they'd been thinking about.
"Todd." Damian's voice was brisk but the relief was palpable. "You called."
"Guess so, yeah. So, uh, Damian, I was… I just wanted to ask…" Jason sighed, and Dick could all but see how he would run his hand through his hair nervously. "Who… Who made it back? You don't have to say, of course. I was just… You know. I was worried. So."
"Richard is here," Damian immediately answered, surprising all of them, "Cain, too. And Drake has been confined to the manor for a while now. We do not know the whereabouts of anyone else."
"Tim is…? What happened? Is he… He'll pull through, right?" Dick's heart clenched at the badly vailed panic in his younger brother's voice, closing his eyes to keep from making any noise.
"Naturally. A couple compromised bones, nothing more. It's not something we haven't dealt with before. The rest of us are fine as well, by the way. And yourself? Did you manage to keep from sustaining bodily harm?"
Tensing, Dick couldn't even breathe as he waited for the answer. What if it wasn't a yes? What should they do? What even could they do? Did they have what it would take to help Jason?
Or, worse, what if Jason had somehow died again during all of this? What if they had forever lost their chance to live together with him? Dick wasn't sure he could take loosing his sibling again. Especially not if it must have been to some of his comrades in arms.
"I… Yeah. I'm pretty much fine." That… Wasn't optimal, but it could have been worse. Alright. Better than a worst case scenario. "And, that's… good. That's good. Oh, uh, and Duke's with me. I, eh, I found him? He was kinda collapsed on the field yesterday. He… lost some blood. Got hit on the head pretty hard, from what I could tell. Took him over to the Realms for treatment. I'll… I could. Like, drop him off? Maybe. Once he wakes up?"
Dick didn't need to open his eyes to know Damian was giving him a searching look. He nodded, jaw still clenched tight and eyes shut. He didn't see it, but he knew that Damian would nod back at him. "Todd. If this is you asking whether you are still welcome at the manor-"
"Or not. Forget it. Really! I just… He'll be fine walking through a single portal by himself. I don't need to… Forget it."
"-then the answer is yes, of course. You are our brother, after all." Damian finished, completely ignoring Jay's panicked rambling on the other end.
There was a long pause, and for a moment Dick feared that Jason would just hang up. Run away like he was known to do. That they would loose him, this time for good, never see him again, never be able to ask him about that injury on his arm they'd heard he'd gotten, never-
"Oh." Jason's soft voice managed to cut through Dick's spiralling thoughts. Cass's hand on his shoulder helped, too.
Then, as if they would somehow not know about it, Jason hesitantly told them "…I'm the highest ranking commander of the knight corps."
Confused, the siblings exchanged glances. What? Of course they knew that. Everyone did. Why would he suddenly be mentioning that?
"Yes?"
Another pause. "I… Many of the strategies were my ideas. Or I was the one who executed them with most of the rest."
Wait. Did Jason… He didn't think… Did he?
But Damian only furrowed his brows even more in confusion. "We had guessed. They did carry your trade marks."
A sigh. "I'm saying… Damian. I'm not… I don't regret what I did. Or what side I was on. I… I think I would have chosen this even if… If'd been able to make that choice."
Dick could see the moment understanding lit up Dami's face. The second that his youngest sibling came to the same conclusion as Dick had - and the moment understanding turned into a disapproving scowl.
"Tt" Damian shook his head. "You better not be implying what I think you are. Father taught you, so I really should think you have a better analytical understanding than to think we would actually-"
"Damian!" Jason's voice was so harsh they all flinched. A growl was in his voice, even more unearthly than before the war. Dick felt guilty when he couldn't help but shiver. "I'm saying that I changed. A lot. And I'm the reason for… for what happened to Wally. And to Connor. And Kori. Oliver. I'm saying I did that, personally. And I am… I am not going to apologise for it. I'd do it again, even."
Dick sighed, not caring about letting Jason know they were listening or not anymore. He had probably known from the beginning anyways. He was a bat, after all.
He should probably take over now. This was so an emotional conversation. And he wasn't perfect, but… Well. At least he would know to comfort his brother rather than just deflecting. He wasn't really sure what to say, and he could only hope not to make everything worse, but-
"I should hope you changed. You participated in the forefront of an interdimensional war. Quite honestly, if you had stayed the same I would be very concerned for your mental capacity." Damian's deadpan voice was met with a dry chuckle from the other side. Dick couldn't help the way his heart melted at Damian's small smile. "And as for the rest… Well. This family has survived standing on opposite sides before. On more than one occasion. We shall simply do so again."
Jason sighed once more, deeply again. And Dick was pretty sure he could hear some tears in there, a sob well hidden. "Sure. Yeah, why not. 'Course, let's do that."
Dick grinned like a fool. That was a yes! Jason would come home. Jason would come home! Jason would come home. Jason would actually come home! They had lived to see Jason return again. His baby brother, his little wing, the first sibling he had ever gotten, would come back.
Oh, Dick couldn't wait to hold him in his arms again. He couldn't wait to hear his brother groan at his puns, or to watch him cook after declaring that all of the others were not to be trusted in a kitchen. He couldn't wait to see his brother again. To have him around, fiercely denying to verbally admit the absolute love and devotion he showed his family.
Dick would give anything just to have Jason elbow him in the ribs for trying to cuddle him right now.
What else mattered? How could Jason think anything would matter as much as having him back? He was their brother. Their family. His little wing. They all loved him and relied on him and- and they'd been dying on the inside with worry. They'd been torn apart by how much they'd all missed him. All of them, Dick knew.
Dick blinked away his tears just in time to see the rest of the eyes-only-conversation between Damian and Tim. Huh. Maybe he should have payed better attention. Next to him, Cass squeezed his shoulder and gave him an understanding smile. She, too, had tears in her eyes.
Dick knew better than to think they'd talk about that later.
"But, do you… What happened anyways? We only know the war has found its end, but…?"
Ah. Dick's heart sunk and sped up at the same time. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer to that one. And by the tension in the room, he could tell his siblings felt the same.
"Yeah. I, I was there. It's…" He sighed again. Not a good sign. "It's a lot, honestly. His Highness talked with the JL team. There was a lot of accusations and screaming, and I don't really want to go into detail, but… Yeah. Constantine was the one to convince them, I think. Diana was the first to surrender. B almost didn't. I was… surprised when he did. They're… Here now. In the castle. They… They will be kept here. But they're fine! And both the king and I made sure they'll stay that way, too. Promise."
That was too much to unpack all at once.
But… "Father surrendered?" Ah. Damian had caught on to the same part as him, then.
"Yeah…" It sounded like Jason was shifting from the rustling of clothes.
Suddenly, Dick wondered where Jason was. He'd said ’here at the castle‘ before, right? So, then, was he still in the Realms? Was he safe? Okay, yes, surely he was. He was with them, after all. But… Was he okay? No, wait, he'd already said that he was. But! But what had he been doing before calling them? He sounded so tired… Was he getting enough sleep over there? Was he eating properly? Was there even food in a realm of dead people?
Dick didn't know. He hadn't seen Jason since this war begun, and in between being ripped from relief to loneliness to worry the weight of that suddenly crashed into him for the first time. He'd been aware of it, at least partially. But with everything going on at the time… He hadn't seen his little brother since the war had begun.
Maybe, a part of Dick thought distantly, whatever would happen next - to them, to their friends, to the world - was worth it, if only it meant he got to see his brother again. The horrifying uncertainty was nothing compared with the crushing desire to have his entire family huddled around him.
He'd never take that for granted again, not like he'd done before the war. He'd never forget how precious those moments were, never again.
Jason's groan let him know that he'd figured out they were waiting for him to elaborate. Actually, scratch that. He'd figured out that they wouldn't stop waiting.
"He didn't, at first. No surprise there, right? Went on some shit about only speaking for himself and how he'd keep fighting. You know, the usual spiel."
And, yes, that sounded a lot more like the Bruce they all knew.
"And, you know, at that point it had basically come up how it was basically a choice of surrender or die. And… Well. I kind of panicked and stood between them. His highness and Bruce, I mean. Not… Not for long. You know how the whole crown compulsion thing works." There was a pause. Then, whispered as if speaking it too loudly would have dire consequences: "I… I think he did it cause he didn't want to do that to me. Having to watch and not being able to intervene."
And that, too, sounded an awful lot like the Bruce they all knew.
"Well. That and seeing what the war did to Phantom. Kid's well past his breaking point. Literally."
Dick and Tim exchanged confused glances. "What do you mean…?"
If Jason was surprised to hear Tim's voice, he didn't show it. "He's a protector spirit, remember? Everything about war goes against his entire being. The things he had to do, or allow to be done… It got bad. So bad it cracked his core - and he couldn't allow his ghost form to be compromised in the middle of all of this, right? I mean, it is the one with the powers. And we kinda needed those. So they did some weird hokus pokus something or the other to transfer the physical damage from that form to his human one. And, well, he showed them. Got angry about how both sides had suffered. It was an entire thing."
Dick suddenly remembered something from before the war. He remembered a scared child, just a little younger than Tim, coming to stay at the manor to work a case with them. He remembered a little boy that was confused by them being family first and vigilantes second at home. He remembered a happy child with too much responsibility pushed on them. Bright blue eyes and a smile with too many teeth. He remembered them jokingly calling him their possible-new-brother at the end of winter - and he remembered the shock, grief, guilt and downright betrayal on Danny's face when he'd suddenly had to go because of some urgent message.
Was that really the same child that had reigned the Infinite Realms during these past years? The same one Jason had made war strategies with?
"Will he… Is he alright?" Dick ignored Damian's faux-offended look at him asking about the enemy leader in concern.
"…They said it'll take time. A few centuries at best. There's a possibility he'll destabilise before his core can heal. Just melt out of existence one day. We don't… We're all not thinking about that." Jason let out a heavy breath, hesitating for just a moment.
"It wasn't pretty, you know?" There was something haunted in his voice as Jason confessed that. "Sometimes he'd just wake up screaming in agony, or he'd break down in tears out of nowhere. He can feel it, you know? Every ghost that fades, every mortal that crosses over, and he can literally taste all the pain and hate and anger and fear and- I… He lost a kidney, and his sight. Those won't return even if his soul heals. And there's scars everywhere and he just won't stop bleeding, and we… I… He's been hanging on by a threat for a while now. If we hadn't needed him as much as we did, I don't think he'd still be here, really. He can't even survive that long in his human form anymore. Got a lot stronger as a ghost, but only because… Because he's shifting to that side, you know?"
Dick didn't know. Hadn't known. Couldn't have known. But he could imagine it, now that he had heard about it.
In fact, he couldn't help but imagine it. The little boy he knew, no older than his own brother, writhing in pain because somewhere some strangers had died. Jason next to him, trying to comfort the boy king. Fighting to reach the child through the pressure of the Ghostly Wail.
A child, gritting his teeth and giving a command. Holding Jay's hand in bone crushing pressure as the consequences sliced him open. The child giving the next command, knowing full and well that he was destroying his very being, hurting himself by doing so. And his brother, at his side, suffering from knowing that he couldn't do a thing to help that child even though he was right there next to him.
Another death being just too much for the young High King, him having a mental breakdown and Jason rubbing his back muttering soothing words. Trying his best to comfort a child that was forced to be an adult at heart. Jason making empty promises of knowing it would be over soon. The two of the holding each other together as none of them was able to reach the people they loved.
"He had to kill his parents, Dick. He- I was there." Dick's heart sank at listening to those words. That was… Shit. He couldn't even imagine how terrible that particular fight must have been for both of them. "He had to do it himself, to protect the rest of us. The things they would've done otherwise… But they were still his parents! And, and he had to send everyone else away! His sister, his friends… They're all gone. Somewhere in some other dimension he had to seal so they wouldn't be in danger. He'll never see them again. I just… I keep thinking about that. At least, I knew I…"
Dick took a shaky breath. He understood the reason for the pain in Jason's voice too well. After all, he'd been in pain knowing Jason was out there fighting against them. He'd been worried sick about Jason, but also about the possibility of having to fight him again. Of standing before his own brother and having to make that decision.
But at least Dick had still had the rest of his siblings. All of his friends. Who did the two of them have, except for each other and the people who relied on them to work all of this out? And Danny, he hadn't even had the small hope that he might see his loved ones again once all of this was over.
It was just too cruel.
"It is over now. This war. It's over. He can heal and you can return." Dick couldn't remember having heard Damian's voice that thick and emotional in a long time. There was barely any sort of strong facade in place anymore.
"Yeah…" Jason sighed. "Yeah, you're right. Listen, I-"
A knock interrupted Jason. Muffled, they could hear him answer the person at the door. And then, a voice Dick had thought he wouldn't ever hear again, not this soft and friendly at least.
"𝑾𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔! 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓!" still echoed inside his head
"Hey, Jason…" Danny said, sounding tried to the bones, resigned and a little sheepish. "Didn't mean to intrude. But, uh… Bruce gave me some letters for your family? I thought maybe you should be the one to pass them."
"It's fine," they could hear Jason's voice, still quieter than before. Probably holding a hand over the speaker or holding it away from his face at the least. "How'd the meetings go?"
"About as well as you'd expect. Actually… Would you mind asking your brother about that thing?" They stiffened. What brother and what thing?
Jason sighed, sounding just the slightest bit skeptical. "You still want to make Timmy president? He's… He's barely eighteen. I know that was the plan since the beginning, but…"
"Well, I don't know anyone else I'd trust enough for that. Besides, you'll be there. Or do you know someone better than him?"
"I don't." The certainty in Jason's voice put tears in Dick's eyes, and from the way Tim whimpered quietly the same was true for him. "I'll ask. But if he doesn't want to…"
"Yeah. I won't force him." There was a beeping noise, then Danny sounded a lot more excited. "Ah! Duke's woken up. Do you want to…?"
Jason scoffed. "Of-fucking-course I do! Hold on…" The phone rustled and Jason's voice was back at full volume. "Something came up. But… See you soon?"
"Yeah. We shall."
"Take care, little Wing!"
Jason laughed, sounding freer than the entire conversation so far. "Sure, you too. And, also? Love ya."
The call ended before they could answer in kind.
When Jason's voice left them alone, they lapsed back into silence once more. This time, it somehow felt even heavier than before.