The Broken Glass Eulogy

Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein do not belong to me. They belong to DC, Warner Bros and whomever else. No profit is being made from this work of fanfiction.

Notes: Twenty-verse. Yup, it's finally here. This is the sequel to Wind and the Snow and Twenty. It is set after the three Interlude ficlets. You do not need to have read these fics to understand the story, but it helps a great deal.  For those who can't be bothered or who require a refresher, a summary is provided (I got feedback saying this is actually useful, so here it is. Who says I'm never accommodating? **Grin**) . If you want details, go and read the fics.

SUMMARY: The story thus far

(as should be blatantly obvious, this is a spoiler alert for previous fics, specifically 'Twenty', 'Wind and the Snow', and 'Interludes'.)

Twenty: After Batman betrays his identity to Spoiler, Robin is kidnapped by the sinister Doctor, who uses him as a test subject. The aims of the Doctor's experiments are to erase the existing personality, and to implant a new mind, that of an assassin.  Robin is joined by the mysterious boy Kaze, whose own reprogramming is nearly finished, and with whom he develops a strong bond. Kaze escapes to seek help, but in the interim Robin's reprogramming is completed. To test his finished subject – called Vingt - the Doctor choses a very specific target, the Batman. The first assassination attempt on Batman fails, and in the second Vingt is revealed to be Robin. The Doctor is captured by the vigilantes, and orders Vingt to self-destruct, which he does, almost taking the nearly subsumed Robin/Tim personality with him. The Doctor and Kaze die in a showdown in Gotham Police Station, leaving Robin with more questions than answers, a few hazy memories, and thoughts that may or may not be entirely his own. Robin changes his identity and starts at a new school, with Alfred's assistance.

Wind and the Snow: at his new school, Robin becomes friends with Kaze's cousin, Yuki. Through her he is introduced to Kaze and Yukis' mentors, Kaguya and the Shishou, who begin training him as they trained Kaze. Nightwing, desperate to get his 'little brother' back, takes Robin to meet up with Young Justice at Titans Tower. In the interim, Yuki is kidnapped. Robin discovers her likely location with his usual detective ability, and after some conflict he and the rest of Young Justice set off in the Supercycle to find and rescue her. All does NOT go to plan, and Yuki dies. Secret, Nightwing, and Robin himself are left to pick up the shattered pieces.

Interludes: The first of these focuses on Nightwing, the second on Batgirl, with Oracle thrown in for good measure, and the third on Young Justice with emphasis on the Supercycle. The aims of these fics are to show the repairing/improving relationships that are developing between Robin and these people as his mind starts to heal and he begins to live again.

Now that the notes are probably longer than this instalment - on with the show!

            It had been a fragile life: A wisp, a flutter of existence clutching desperately at the sky of freedom. The gale that knocked it asunder began as a gentle breeze, faint gusts of air from unrelated directions that, singly, meant nothing. Combined, they meant nothing would ever be the same again.

            The first breath began in Metropolis, the second in Gotham, a third and fourth in Japan and the Sahara. The fifth and final in the very existence that was inexorably altered by the others, the life of a boy known to some as 'Robin'.

***********************

            Dana Drake was pleased. This wasn't an uncommon state of affairs, but was nonetheless one for which she not-unreasonably had a particular fondness.

            It wasn't because she'd left behind her life in Gotham to follow her new husband, Jack, to Metropolis. They hadn't really planned to go, but after Jack's son had died moving away from the painful memories had seemed for the best, so she'd packed up and gone, leaving friends and family behind. But now an old friend was coming to visit.
            //It's not like Gotham's a particularly stable place to be, anyway,//  she mused as she deftly set the table, //what with all the plagues and earthquakes and whatnot. Not to mention Tim running away from Brentwood and ending up a gang slave.// She winced away from the thought. The wound, still fresh in her own mind despite the several months that had passed, had to be worse for her husband. //Still, it'll be great to see Joyce again.//

            A soft cry from her baby daughter in the next room diverted her attention. The dinner table could wait, there were diapers that needed changing.

            Joyce Appleby was a stolid woman, looking older than her thirty-two years. Blond-haired and chunky, her figure amply displaying the multitude of children she'd brought into the world, she and Dana Drake were about as different as could be.

            They were, nonetheless, best of friends. Dana had graduated from physiotherapy at the same time that Joyce had finished her dental studies. The two had roomed together at college, later going on to be flatmates before Joyce's eventual wedding had ended the amicable arrangement.

            "Joyce! Wonderful to see you!" Dana grinned, greeting her friend at the door with a bear hug.

            "You too, Dana! You look marvellous! Parenthood is obviously agreeing with you. Where are your two kids?"

            "Two? Only one." Dana gestured her friend inside, over to the bassinet in the corner.

            "One? But you married Jack Drake." Even though she'd been unable to attend the wedding, Joyce had still sent a present and her warmest regards. //I know the man has a boy, and Dana's not the sort to make a fuss about things like 'his kid, my kid'. I wonder what's going on?//
            "Yes, that she did," Jack wandered over to give his wife a kiss and greet Joyce.

            "Mr. Drake, nice to meet you finally. I met your son once before though. He attended the dental surgery I worked at in Gotham. Had a set of caps done over his back molars as I recall, to correct the chewing surface of the teeth."

            "Yeah, now that you mention it, he did have something done. I remember getting the bill for that." He frowned suddenly. Something was nagging at the edges of his mind, but what? "Tim's . . . Timothy's dead."
            "Oh. I'm terribly sorry to hear that, and to bring up painful memories."

            "Thank you." A slight pause followed, while Jack hauled his mind back on track with imperceptible effort. "But tell me something about yourself. Dana talks about you so much, I can't wait to hear your side of the story."

            "Dana, silly girl, what did you tell him?"

            The initial awkward moment over, the evening ended up going very well.

            But it was still the start of the first breath.

*********************

            It took Jack Drake two days to work out why Joyce's initial comment bothered him. It took him a further week to dig through the files he'd archived to find the one he could barely stand to look at: While it had taken him no little cajoling (and no small amount of money), he'd obtained a copy of the police report on his son's corpse. He'd gotten it to be able to read the paper through, be sure that the authorities were correct, that it was in fact Tim they'd found, and not someone else's kid. He'd been praying for a mistake, something in the report that wouldn't fit with his own mind. Anything at all.

            Slim though the report was, and despite the price he'd paid for it, he'd been unable to finish his perusal of it.

Now, though, he found he could. Searching with the eyes of desperation, he stumbled over the requisite point. //There! I knew it!//

The corpse had been identified by bone development staging, the X-rays matching Timothy's approximate age, and – more crucially - by dental records. Specifically, three fillings and one extraction, as recorded in Tim's dental records.

//Three fillings and one extraction which Tim never had.// Searching through his tax documents took another few hours, but it was a fruitful use of time. In one of the files, he found the receipt, itemised and signed, detailing exactly what dental work had been done.

//Tim had four caps put in. No fillings. Nothing else. I trust Joyce, and so does Janet. Besides, fillings don't get charged at a higher rate than caps. If anything, it's the reverse. So why would she get it wrong?//
            The only conclusion Jack could make, disturbing though it was, was that she hadn't.

With a combination of hope, anguish and dread, Jack lifted the phone and made the hardest call he could.

"Hello?  Bard Private Investigations? I have need of your services."

*****************

            //Normally//, Jason Bard contemplated, as he walked down a grimy Gotham street, //I'd never take a missing kid case. Too messy, too complicated, and usually all about a nasty custody battle.// But this one had been different. Oh, not the sheer, raw desperation, carefully – though not completely – hidden in his client's voice. Not even the profile, high though it could potentially be. What had piqued his interest was the fact that, as far as the GPD was concerned, the case was closed. //This kid's got nobody looking for him. An MIA written off as a KIA, even with this new evidence.//

            The police had been uninterested in the tax documents that Drake had produced. With all the other major crimes bounding around the city, one minor episode of 'fraud' (that is, one where the fraudulent activity didn't even result in any extra income being generated) seemed more likely to be a billing error. A mistake, certainly, but nothing all that criminal.

            The dental records, and the dental X-rays, Bard had been kindly but firmly told, matched perfectly for the Drake boy. //Sorry, but sorry. We didn't goof, you did. The boy's still dead, pity you got your hopes up.//

            Bard growled under his breath, //never mind that if a secretary is so incompetent that she mis-bills someone, she's perfectly capable of misfiling dental records as well.// Though, he had to grant, the odds of her mislabelling and misfiling a record that by sheer fluke happened to match one of the many bodies found in the burnt-out warehouse were substantially more remote. //But not impossible. Hell, the odds the bookies were offering on the Joker escaping the death penalty for killing that cop were longer, and he's still alive and kicking. Gotham's a funny old place like that.//

            Almost accidentally, he ended up at the base of a tall building. A clock tower. //Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.// He hesitated, resisting the urge to ring the doorbell. //Later, Babs. Later for sure.// In the meantime, he had a case to follow, a kid who needed his help. //Because when they've written you off, you need all the help you can get.//

**********

            Inside the aforementioned tower, 'Rapunzel' was having a rather busy time of it. All of the Bat-family were noted in her systems in such a way that any undue interest in their civilian identity would raise a flag. The more flags, or the higher priority the flags, the more of a concern it was.

            A priority one flag had just gone off for Tim Drake. Someone was asking at the police station, and the data that was being accessed made absolutely no sense.

            //An autopsy report? But I was talking to him just last night?!// Fighting down her panic, she scanned the document more closely. //What the--? The autopsy was several months ago? This is from just after he came back! What on earth is going on?!//

            Fingers flying over the keyboard, she placed a priority call. Not many people could access Bruce Wayne any hour of the day or night. Barbara Gordon was one of them, a privilege she used for the first time now.