Mom and Dad,

It's been a while since I've written to you. I saw you both yesterday; Mom was sleeping and Dad was looking at the wall. I couldn't grab your attention at all. I'm doing well. I've got only a couple of scrapes and bruises from some gang members down by the docks. I was with Red Robin trying to disrupt an arms shipment to the Falcone mob. I took out, like, fifteen gangsters! Sure, some of them were from far away with a batarang, but I took out nine of them close up. All that training is starting to pay off. I've even gotten compliments from some of the family on how well I've been doing.

Bruce hasn't really complimented me, but it's not like he hands out compliments like candy on Halloween. Bruce is…hard to get close to. He is very harsh on himself, his children, and the criminals; but I've seen him comfort a lost child and take her back to her parents. I don't think he realized I was there since I had been taking a break on patrol. Bruce is a very passionate person who, I think, feels very deeply for the world, but has been hurt too many times to truly show the world just how much he feels. I think a lot of the family learned this from him because we all wear masks around the public, other superheroes, and even each other. For a group of vigilantes obsessed with getting the truth, we are all fairly dishonest.

I feel like outside the family Alfred is not underappreciated, but maybe people don't understand how much the family relies on him for things to run smoothly. Alfred doesn't stay up as late as us, but he gets up early to prepare breakfast for everyone and to make sure everyone is awake when they need to be. This family wouldn't even exist without Alfred. Bruce, for all his training, can't really cook at all. Everything runs well because Alfred is doing all the behind-the-scenes work. Of course, we all get assigned chores to do, and we're responsible for our own space. But Alfred makes sure that everyone eats, showers, and stays relatively healthy. Bruce would have crippled himself a long time ago if Alfred wasn't here to make him rest and take time for injuries to heal.

Okay, enough sappy stuff.

Like I said before, I've been doing well with my training. I'm still not winning when I spar with the others, but at least I'm lasting longer against them. Tim approached me last week about starting a poison and toxin resistance regimen. He warned me that it would make me more resistant to pain killers and other helpful drugs also. But it may save my life if I get injured with a poisoned blade. I'll probably have a mild fever until my body becomes used to the poison, and from there, I'll hopefully build up a bit of a tolerance. I asked Tim why I wasn't immediately put on the regimen since it sounds pretty important. Tim stated that they wanted me to have the full effects of the pain killers for awhile until I built up a higher pain tolerance. I guess that's sweet; they didn't want me to be in any pain.

I've not been in too much physical pain. I've woken up sore as hell and hobbling, but that usually goes away after my muscles get used to moving again. Dick's stretching and hot baths work wonders. I now understand why girls have full on monologues about bath salts. Those things are heaven on earth. I've almost fallen asleep a couple times in the tub when I first used bath salts because of how relaxed my body was. I've since learned to set a timer on my phone to go off every ten minutes when I use them. I don't want my cause of death to be drowning in a tub filled with bath salts.

I…have been avoiding writing to you lately. Something happened recently that kind of messed me up. I was working with Batman to capture Mad Hatter, but we arrived too late to save the girl he had captured to be his Alice. She…her name was Cindy Whitcomb. She was the same age as me; I had previously gone to school with her. She was in my class in fifth grade. I…we were just a few minutes late. Her body was still warm. I thought she was just maybe unconscious before I tried to find her pulse. It was awful. I froze and had to be pushed out of the way of a bullet by Batman.

How do you I don't know how to feel. I'm frustrated with myself and sad because I wasn't able to save her, but it's not like I… previously, the Joker had already killed people before we caught him. This shouldn't be new, and Joker's death toll was so much higher than a single person. So why are my hands shaking so much?! I didn't even know Cindy that well. After seventh grade, I got kicked out of the middle school we both went to and never saw her again. Why does my heart feel like it will stutter to a stop every other beat? I You both have been taken from me. Probably forever by the Joker. So why does the death of a girl I hardly know affect me so much? Is it because there is no possibility for her to come back? Is it because she's my own age? Is it because she wasn't some statistic I read about in the reports from after the case or saw on the news? Is it some combination of these things? I don't know. I don't really want to know. All I know is that once more I failed to protect someone; I once more failed to save someone. I don't understand why people like Mad Hatter and the Joker kill people, people who have done nothing to them or someone they care about. Why are they even allowed to live after the number of lives they've taken? I don't get it.

I should talk to someone in the family about this. Dick is the most open about it. He'll probably listen while hugging me and let me cry for a bit on him. I don't want to seem weak, though. I've never thought of myself as a prideful person, but approaching someone about this just makes me feel vulnerable. You wouldn't believe how hard it was for me to talk to him about my death fears. I couldn't even really look him in the eye, and this seems almost a thousand times harder. And this time, I don't even know how to put my thoughts and feelings into words. Cass is right; words are hard.

I want to sleep for a week. I want to not feel for month. I'm just so mentally and emotionally exhausted right now. I think Bruce knows this because he's been cutting back on my patrols. My head's not really in the right place to go beat up thugs, but it does relieve a bit of stress.

I miss you and I love you,

Duke

A/N: And it is done. Thank you for reading this fic, and I hope you liked it. As I said in the first chapter, I do have this on AO3 so if you feel like you've read it before. You probably have. And after all I said yesterday of promising to get this fic out today, I almost forgot. Wow... I have no words to defend myself.

Constructive criticism and comments are welcome.