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In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne closed the link with Ted Kord, pulling the microphone off of his head, sitting back, lost in thought. Later that would be the one thought that he would use to justify not hearing the intruder earlier.
"Bats and Robins and Beetles, oh my," said a voice behind him. The chair spun around in an instant, the batarang singing through the air towards the sound of the voice. A hand, moving just as quick, plucked the projectile from the air, then held it up to look at it. "Ah, ah," Roland, the Ageless Stranger, said, shaking his head. "You could really hurt someone with one of these."
"I thought you were Mr. Immortal?" Batman said.
"No, he's an unruly blond man who hangs out with a fat woman, a flat man, a living doorway and a pterodactyl," Roland said, smiling mischievously.
"What do you want, Roland?" Bruce Wayne said, his face a mask. He had met this gentleman once, in his youth, and had not forgotten the encounter. He also did not look too endearingly upon it either.
Roland did not answer right away, walking around the Batcave carefully, inspecting things. His gray clothing seemed to disappear in the shadows, along with most of his face. His eyes, however, burned through all the blackness, and they never seemed to stray far from Bruce Wayne. The owner of the cave, in contrast, never took his dark eyes off his visitor once.
"Do you resent Dick, I wonder?" Roland said, walking around the memorial to the deceased Robin, Jason Todd. "Do you resent him because you loved him more? Because you were overprotective to him and less so to Jason? Do you resent him because he lived to be a man? Or because he figured it out?"
If the Batcave had exploded at that moment, Bruce Wayne would not have been scorched, so cold was the look he gave Roland, who did not stop.
"Or is it more prideful? Do you resent him because he left, grew up? Maybe because he decided to make his own decisions and not live by your decree? Is that why you chose Steph over Tim? Cassandra over Barbara's better judgment? Really, you old-school heroes treat children badly; it's a wonder you've not been thrown in jail. However, in your defense, you're better than the Flash. I know he's 'the fastest man alive' and all, but it's getting a bit damned ridiculous. What're there, 27 of them now?"
"But seriously," Roland continued, walking over to circle Bruce, who hadn't moved. "What you're doing to the boy, Timothy, is cruel. A lot of what you put Richard through in the past and now is also. Do you realize the love they hold for you? Tim is more loyal than Dick ever was, but Dick holds such love for you, and I personally think that's what scares you the most, what separates you from him. The only people you ever loved died in that alley, and in that alley died you ability to return such love."
He had come full circle now, standing in Bruce's face. "I mean, look at the facts: in your moment of greatest need, did you turn to the child who has dedicated his life, his very soul, to you? No, you chose the psycho with a head full of violent programming. Now that the time has come to stand by Timothy and help him, you shun him, and for what? To make a man of him? To teach him something? To make him more like you, perhaps? While, in your favor, you didn't kill his connections to the world, you just pulled it from under his feet. What if it doesn't work? What if it backfires? Do you think about that?"
His eyes daggers, Bruce turned, reaching for his cape and cowl on the chair behind him. His movement was cut off by the batarang he'd thrown at Roland, which pierced the bulletproof material, pinning it tightly to the chair. Bruce turned, to see Roland hadn't moved.
"Oh no, let's not hide behind the Bat. Besides, we both know the Bat doesn't hide, doesn't go away. Secret identities are all the rage with you and your friends, but we all know who is real and who's the facade." Roland moved in close to Bruce, inches from his face. "You haven't been Bruce Wayne in years."
"That. Is. Enough." There was no emotion in Bruce's words, yet the emotion nearly overwhelmed Roland.
"Is it? I wonder," Roland said.
"What. Do. You. Want?"
"I don't want anything, surprisingly," Roland said, drawing away and glancing around the cave again. "Considering where I am, I imagine I could ask for just about anything and it'd be here. However, what I came to do was not inquire as to your childrearing abilities, lacking as they are." He stopped walking at the base of the stairs to the mansion, looking up.
"Do you know what day it is, Bruce?"
Without hesitation Bruce rattled off the date and time, his mind always counting in the back of his head. "Why?"
"If I tell you, then you won't learn," Roland said.
"Learn what?"
"To care." Swinging around, Roland lowered himself to the stairs. "You've been doing this, what, over a decade now? Through all that time, while so fleeting for one such as I, you have accumulated an extremely impressive resume of experiences, trials, tribulations and scars. You have seen horrors in your time I had barely begun to imagine at your age, and you have triumphed over evils that other men, any other man, would have withered before. In nearly all respects, the Batman is perhaps the greatest hero of all."
"Yet, yet in the other respects, you are the greatest failure of all."
"Interesting hypothesis," Bruce said sarcastically, removing the batarang from his costume and walking it across the cave toward the locker room. "More of your 'I know more than you' talk? Spare me."
"You are this failure because you lost the balance, if you ever had it to begin with. While no one would ever doubt the tragedy that shaped you, over the years it has become less of a motivator to you and simply an excuse to fail. Your parents death left you with a legacy, but your forsook it in favor of a vendetta."
"Are you telling me I should be running my business, putting competitors out of business and doing my part to make America great? I'm not needed for that." Bruce dumped the costume in the bin he put his damaged costumes in; Alfred would see to it.
"It is not the business I speak of, but the name. You have taken your father's name and made it a joke. Does anyone really believe in the name Wayne for anything other than a gigolo playboy? Certainly not a business equal or even an intellectual fear that keeps them up at night. No, you have hidden your natural strengths, subjugated who you are to the world to pursue your psychosis as a vigilante. As I said before, the Bat is what is real, more so than the man."
"Sacrifices must always be made," Bruce said, stepping directly up to Roland, not backing down from this challenge. "The world didn't need another Wayne billionaire businessman handing out money and ruling the world. As great as my father was, that was his way, not mine. I can do all of the good as Bruce Wayne philanthropist, and use that and my flighty persona to support and empower the bat."
"And it worked, quite well in fact, for years," Roland said. "Strange as your life became, you held it together, made it all work. But when was the last time Bruce Wayne did anything overly visible? The fun loving Bruce Wayne, while little more than an act, did ground you before, allow the horrors you've seen to wash away some. But over time you've let that slide, focused more on the bat, joining this team or that, training this child and that, and losing the balance that allowed you to keep everything in line."
"That's absurd," Bruce said.
"Really? Your business today is not what it was five years ago, even if you still have more money than 99% of the world. You have not been on a date in over a month. As a matter of fact, you quite possibly could have taken care of a celebrity stalker three weeks ago had you not canceled a trip to Los Angeles in favor of some poker game on the moon. The supermodel's ear may heal back after her four surgeries."
Smoke seemed to pour from Bruce's ears as he let one more weight fall upon his shoulders.
"You still don't believe me completely, and I don't think anything I could say would change you. But I came here tonight to inform you of this and of one thing that just proves my point."
Pulling his hat low and adjusting his jacket, Roland said, "For all the years your parents have been gone, the whole time you toured the world training and preparing and practicing, someone was there for you, in every fashion you needed or could have imagined. He's covered for you, helped you, patched you up and taken beatings for you. He was your voice of reason, as much of a father, brother and mentor to you than anyone you have ever or ever will meet. And yet today you would forget him? It is nothing major for sure, and he probably doesn't even notice, considering you have forgotten for the last three years."
"But before you swing off into a dark alley to punch a lizard-man in the snout, don't forget that beneath the rubber and Kevlar is a living, breathing man who has people who care about him and watch over him, as capable as he is. And while they certainly don't seek or wish for any recognition, neither would they shun it."
With that, Roland was gone, as silent and mysteriously as the man staring off into space was known for being. He thought about the Stranger's words, finding grains of truth placed within many of them. Never one to shy away from the truth, Bruce walked over to his computer, looking at the screens showing police reports, updates from both Oracle and the JLA, and the dozens of other information sources he usually devoured like candy. Tonight it tasted sour.
He made his way up the stairs, stepping from the cave into the study, watching as the grandfather clock sliding back into place. He walked through the mansion, wondering when the last time he had done so, feeling the stinging in his gut he always felt when a weakness presented itself to him. Sacrifices, he repeated to himself.
He found Alfred in the kitchen, cleaning out the refrigerator, humming a catchy song. He didn't hear Bruce enter, of course, but some instinct honed in his own past training and his years as servant to the Batman, made Alfred turn and smile. "Master Bruce, you surprised me. Shouldn't you be speeding down a dark alley punching a lizard-man in the snout?"
After a moment of surprise, Bruce smiled, chuckling at the irony of that statement and swearing to devote more time to discovering more about Roland in the future. He saw Alfred's expressing turn to shock at his laugh and that only made him chuckle harder. Crossing his arms, Bruce leaned back against the door and said, "Normally, yes. However, I have plans for dinner I must attend to first."
"Really," Alfred said, settling the last container into the fridge and shutting the door. "Would that be Ms. Anderson, Miss Nichole Smith or Ms. Bleath?"
"Actually it's Mr. Pennyworth, my late and completely regretful gift for his birthday." The look of surprise on Alfred's face, followed by the smile of happiness quickly hidden, meant more to Bruce than any lizard-man in an alley. "Let's go out and talk, old friend."
The End...
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