starsandsea | Fic: The Echo of Bats Wings (5/6)

Title: The Echo of Bats Wings (5/6)
Rating: PGish
Characters/Pairing: Bruce/Kal, Tim, Leslie, Dick, BatClan
Word Count: 1313
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Author's Note: Previous parts can be found here. Lots of thanks to the wonderful

mithen for all her help and encouragement and for the beta! *hugs*

Bruce walked back to his room, feeling strangely calm. Unemotional. He wasn't aware of how the people who saw him stared, then exchanged furious whispers once he had moved on. No, he was almost in a trace like state, until he finally came to the door of his room and opened it.

Ace woofed at him, happy and muddy and wet after his walk with Kal. Bruce petted him and the woofs turning into questioning whines. Bruce moved to his bed and fell upon it, the reality of what he had just done washing over him.

He was no longer Gotham's soon to be King. He wasn't even her Prince anymore, he had forsaken it all when he had... given up. Ace was pressing against him, nosing him, whining, and Bruce clung to him, headless of the mud, like he was the only thing left to him. Gotham, his beloved Gotham... tears stung his eyes. He would have to leave her now, leave her forever, he wouldn't be able to bear seeing Dick ruling her, knowing that she should have been his. He didn't even have Kal now, he was nothing, no one, little better than a bastard child of his father's, Kal couldn't marry him now, he wasn't even noble anymore... At best he was a soldier. A skilled soldier, but a soldier nonetheless. And he could hardly even claim that, since all of his actions these past years had been those of a coward.

He had lost everything.

His hands clenched, and Bruce became aware of pain in them for the first time, stronger than the normal pain, for a brief moment stronger than the emotional pain. He looked down at them to see blood covering them. He groaned to himself. Ace barked sharply, but he shushed him with a movement of his hand. His hands had become dry, the damaged skin had cracked open, spilling blood. It had happened before, it would happen again; a reminder of his failure.

He stood up from the bed, absently noting that his hands were shaking, and moved to the tiny table where a jug of water and a small basin stood. He poured the water over his hands as best as he could, the red tinged water falling into the basin. His eyes stung, but his emotional pain was greater than the physical again. He checked the open cuts carefully, making sure there was nothing obvious in them, none of Ace's hairs, before taking some precious material and bandaging them as well as he could.

Ace was pressing against his legs, trying to comfort him, Bruce knew. He stroked his head once, with the back of his right hand, then looked about the room. There was nothing here that truly belonged to him, everything belonged to the Crown Prince, not him. There were some of Kal's belongings, but he didn't touch them. No. There was nothing here that could claim to belong to Bruce. Save for the dog, standing loyally by his side.

Bruce blinked, his vision gone blurry for a second, before leaving the room behind him. He kept to the shadows, using the passages that were hardly ever used, not wanting anyone to see him.

He paused, finding himself near Leslie's healing rooms, and glanced down at his hands. The material he had wrapped about them was stained red, blood seeping through. "Bruce?" He looked up, startled, to see Leslie standing before him. She looked down at his hands, then held them gently as Ace woofed a greeting.

"What happened? Never mind, come with me." She took his arm and gently lead him into one of the small rooms, thankfully empty. She sat him down in a chair, Ace sitting next to him, and carefully unwrapped his makeshift bandages. "Oh, Bruce..."

She cleaned them out properly, making him flinch. "How did this happen, Bruce?"

He shrugged. She looked at him. "It does, sometimes. If they get dry, or if I use them too much."

"Did this happen in Metropolis too?"

He nodded. "Kal rubs a cream into them, to try and stop it, but..."

"You've been too busy for him to do so recently?" She raised an eyebrow and sighed when he nodded. "We'll have to keep an eye on them. I don't think they need stitches, but..." She carefully rubbed a herb filled cream on them, then bandaged them up properly. "If you can, try not to use them, if it's possible."

He nodded, swallowing, getting used to the new bandages. There was heavy silence, until Tim nearly silently entered the room. Bruce looked at him, at the black wing, before looking down at his own hands. Tim touched his his arm; Bruce looked up.

Tim was frowning. "Dick wants to talk with you - they all do, if you are willing." Bruce closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at Tim. "It's alright. Kal's... talked to them." Bruce raised an eyebrow and Tim smiled for a brief second, short and sharp. He could see the hope, the plea in his eyes. So he nodded and stood up carefully, whispered a quiet thank you to Leslie, and followed his little brother down the halls.

*****

Bruce walked into the great hall a second time that day, his hands aching, but his back straight. He was greeted by Kal, whose brow furrowed when he saw his hands, eyes flashing up to his face in concern. Before Bruce could reply to him any way, he was pulled into a hug by Dick. Surprise kept him from acting for a moment, before he slowly returned the hug, careful of his hands.

Dick was crying against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he kept repeating, over and over.

"It's alright, Dick. It's alright." He looked over his shoulder, saw his brothers' and sisters' sorrowful faces, then looked at Kal.

Dick pulled away from him. "I didn't know, Bruce. We don't know what you'd been through for us. I'm sorry." His brother looked down at his hands, at the bandages. "What happened?"

"They bleed. It happens." Dick frowned at him, but then he was being hugged by Barbara, more apologies whispered, Bruce reassuring her that it was alright, before receiving a quick hug from Jason and Cassandra, then another big one from Stephanie. Tim had remained at his side throughout the emotional hugs, Kal watching them with a relieved smile upon his face.

He came over then, and very carefully caught his hands, brought them to his lips. Bruce raised an eyebrow at him, just as it suddenly started to rain, an abrupt downpour, causing him to glance to through the window. He frowned, this wouldn't be good for the harvest, not at all...

"I simply told them some truths they should have known," Kal murmured in response to his unspoken question, drawing Bruce back from his thoughts of rain and harvests.

"Bruce," Dick was at his side again. "Gotham's not mine. It's yours. It always has been." Bruce opened his mouth to disagree, to bring up his valid concerns again, but Dick didn't let him. "No, Bruce. Gotham needs you. Not me, or anyone else. No one else has the same kind of connection that you have to Gotham. If she had anyone else as her King now... She'd never forgive me."

Behind Dick, everyone else was nodding. Bruce looked at Kal for a second, before nodding. "Alright." The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and there were smiles on everyone's faces.

"What can we do to help?" Dick's face was eager.

Bruce blinked, before smiling slowly himself, and telling them what they could do.