Disclaimer: DC Comics owns both the Batfamily and their long, hard mission.

Worth It

By Sophia the Scribe

The Batcave was dark and silent except for the med-bay, where Alfred was working diligently under fluorescent lights to stitch up the gash in Bruce's arm and bind his broken rib where the Kevlar suit had stopped only most of a bullet's force. As he finished the last of the wrappings he gently laid a hand on his unconscious patient's shoulder and closed his eyes.

"It isn't worth it, Master Bruce," he whispered. "This crusade—it's destroying you. It won't fix what's broken. It isn't worth it."

He sighed and turned slowly, packing away the medical supplies and turning off the lights. But as he stepped out of the room, he heard a voice, slightly slurred from medication and exhaustion but firm and coherent nevertheless, issue from the apparently-less-than-somnolent man in the bed.

"'Course it's not worth it, Alfred. It was never supposed to help me. It's supposed to help everyone else."

Alfred paused, opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, and then simply murmured, "Good night, Master Bruce," and stepped into the hallway. And if the corner of his eye was slightly misty, it was of no consequence—the house was silent and empty but for one man, sleeping in the pain and toil of a mission to save others at his own expense.

"No, Dick," Bruce said again, sternly, glaring as much as he could bring himself to at his ward. "Arresting Zucco was a one-time thing to give you closure and your parents justice. I will not let you become my partner."

"But I want to help!" the boy pled, throwing his arms around Bruce's waist and burying his face in the symbol of Gotham's protector on the broad chest.

"No!" Bruce persisted, leaning back and tilting Dick's head up enough to look down into his earnest eyes. "It is not worth it, Dick. Don't follow my path."

The boy's brow scrunched incredulously. "Worth it?" he repeated, "Why does that matter, Bruce? I want to help you! I want to help everyone!"

Bruce caught his breath. Gently extracting himself from the boy's grasp he turned away. But after a deep breath the boy kept talking, tone serious and passionate.

"I know this isn't…isn't a game, Bruce. I know I'll most likely end up d…dead for it, even as…as you…" Dick gulped, "as you probably will. I mean, being a vigilante can't possibly be good for your health, right?" He gave a half-hearted chuckle. "But you're not in it for yourself, that'd be stupid. You don't expect your life to be bettered by your being Batman. You expect other people's lives to be bettered by it. And that's," he raised his chin and spoke firmly, "that's what I want. I will train. I will work. I will live a double life as your ward and as Batman's partner, and I will not complain when it gets tough and I never have time for friends and I have to lie about injuries and in general when life is harder and worse for me than it would be otherwise. I will do it all because it will save others, Bruce. That's what's important."

Still looking away from the boy, Bruce closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Then he turned back, gripped both of Dick's shoulders in his large, gauntleted hands, and hardened his features. Dick straightened under his grasp.

"Very well. If this is your choice, Richard Grayson—a life of danger and turmoil in service to your fellow man and the world—I will aid you on the path. It will never be worth it for you. But for them? It will be everything."

Inside the Batcave, Bruce worked feverishly.

"It wasn't worth it," he whispered to himself over and over, "Oh, Jason, it wasn't worth it. Why did I think a life as Robin would be better for you than a street life? It wasn't. Son, it wasn't worth it."

"I know, Bruce!" Little Jay's voice had echoed through the cave, exasperated and defiant. "I am careful! But he was gonna shoot her, B! Of course I took the bullet! It's what we do!"

And Bruce had smiled slightly, gripping the still-too-thin shoulders and kneeling to stare straight into Jason's face. "And I'm proud of you for that, Jay. But what if something happens to you that can't be fixed?"

The boy had blinked at him, then shrugged. "Oh, of course one day we'll go splat on the side of a building, or be eaten in some crack-pot villain's shark tank. This is a war, isn't it? Fighting in it can't possibly be good for us, but we do it anyway. I'll just help you save as many as I can, and hope to go out like a good soldier, yeah?"

Little by little Bruce's frantic movements slowed, and he began fashioning carefully, precisely.

"He knew it wasn't worth it," he told himself emphatically, as regret threatened to overwhelm him. "He knew, and he did it anyway."

And under his hands words began to form:

Jason Todd
A Good Soldier

Bruce was working steadily at the Batcomputer, finishing up the night's reports while Tim showered and changed after patrol, when he felt the boy's presence behind him. He stopped typing and cocked his head to one side, waiting for Tim to speak. When a minute passed and the boy simply stood there, he swiveled his chair around and looked at him.

"What is it, Tim?"

The boy gulped and looked at his shoes.

"It's just…about my dad. Again, I mean. You…you were right, you know. When you told me to give up, go away, that it's not worth it. It's just…he's dead. And…and…I didn't, don't care," Tim's voice began to grow more frantic, more pleading, "what happens to me. I was, am, prepared to give myself up, because, I mean, that's the point, isn't it? But it killed Dad, and I…I just…"

The boy trailed off, and Bruce stood, walked over, and grasped his bird in his arms, enveloping him in his cape, even as he had on that far-too-recent night when Jack Drake had been found dead. He held him there until Tim's sobs slowed, then he spoke, lowly but firmly.

"I have never thanked you properly, Tim, for everything you've given up for my sake, and for the sake of the people of Gotham. They will never be able to tell you rightly, but I can, and I will. I would never ask nor wish you to follow this life, Tim. But you chose it despite me, and for all the sacrifices you've made and all the pain you've endured you have my deepest gratitude, and my deepest admiration."

And perhaps the boy only wept harder into his chest, but Bruce thought he could make out between the sobs the voice of a soldier knowingly heading back to a war.

"I did choose this, and I do still."

"It is my birthright!" Damian snarled, advancing on the man who leaned against the cave wall, arms folded. "Besides, Grayson," he snapped, "you gave Robin to me yourself. You have no right to take it away because of any perceived mistakes on my part."

"I have every right to take away Robin, Damian, for several reasons," Dick replied smoothly, "not the least of which being that I am Batman, and Robin is my subordinate whom I can declare unfit for duty. But I am not benching Robin, not as of yet, as you would have known had you listened to all I was going to say. But," he straightened to his full height and stepped forward, gazing down at the boy sternly, "I do want you to think about something, and think about it hard."

Damian sneered, but his eyes yet held reluctant respect, and he waited for his brother to continue.

"Robin is not something you can have a right to, because it isn't worth it. It is not a privilege. It is a responsibility."

Damian opened his mouth to interrupt, but Dick continued before he had a chance.

"You're going to say you already know. But, Damian, you do not understand. Do you know why your father is dead, Robin? Do you know why one of your brothers has died and come back to life a blood-thirsty maniac, and the other has lost everything and gone on a quest to regain the one thing he feels he still can? It was not because they were brave in battle, although they were, nor because their prowess made them many enemies, although it did. It is because they chose a life of service. Bruce had no illusions about how he would eventually die. He chose to give himself up to save the world, even as he pledged his whole life to save even the lowliest people in this city. Do you understand that, Damian? Are you ready to make the same pledge yourself? Because that is what Robin means. It is not an entitlement. It is a long and hard duty. Think on that."

With this last injunction, Dick turned away, cape swooping. Damian scoffed for his mentor's benefit, but as he walked up the stairs toward his bed his eyes were thoughtful. If his father died for this "life of service," maybe it was worth considering.

From the pages of the Black Casebook:

It is strange, what people will say to one supposedly returning from the dead. They go on and on about how glad they are that I am back, and how glad they think I should be that I am back. And I am, in some sense, glad. I am glad to be there for my sons—to take an unwanted responsibility from the eldest, hope to one day see the return of the next, simply be there for the third who fought so hard to save me, and have the chance to raise the youngest from childhood to manhood. I am glad.

And yet, despite this, it was duty that called me back, not love; duty to a life I chose so many years ago. It is not a happy life. It is not, in many ways, a good life. My family is a family bound by the choice of a shared duty, a shared duty that will ever be placed above the family itself. My children are soldiers and my friends are allies; the psychologists would despair of our mental health, and I could not blame them.

Yet this was our choice.

We serve. We save. We hold our own happiness, our own health, our own lives as cheap compared to those we fight to protect. We acknowledge that our lives would be better had we never donned cape and mask, had we never stood up to pursue justice in a world of evil. But I will yet fight; I will yet run this race I have started and not completed; and one day, perhaps, I will finally truly rest, and not even sworn duty will be able to call me back. But for now, I will live as I died, for toil and service.

So the war continues, and for us who fight? It will never be worth it.

And still we go on.

A/N: It always strikes me wrong, when people write about the Batfamily as though they are in it for themselves. Because for the vigilante, nothing good could ever come from being a vigilante. I do not deny that there are aspects they enjoy-the thrill of the chase, the friends and family, the saving itself-and I'm sure they do get addicted, and would probably be unable, now, to leave. But yet it was an undeniably tough life that they chose. So while I definitely read and enjoy stories where authors rag on Bruce (usually through his Robins) for putting the mission above his sons, I cannot get wholly behind them-because that was the whole point. That was what their family was built on, and each of them chose it when they donned the cape. And while I love Fatherly!Bruce and Brotherly!Robins and Happy!Batfamily as much as anyone and more than some, their family is broken because it was made that way, and it is their-all of their-choice to continue on a path that will ultimately kill them, and probably destroy their family in the process. That is just my take on it, anyway. Feel free to disagree, and please do leave your thoughts in a review!

Blessings,

Sophia the Scribe