Chapter Text
Everything had been going as well as it could be going, which actually, that should have been a signal to Bruce that something is up. But everything really has been going quite well.
Dick and Cass are both in town, Dick coming over from Bludhaven for the week, Cass taking time off from Hong Kong for the month. Both of them are taking the opportunity to spend plenty of time with the rest of the family, both in costume and out of costume.
Steph has settled into her part-time college coursework and, despite complaining frequently and at length about how hard it is, seems to be truly enjoying the nursing program. She’s even convinced Jason to take some classes, not toward a degree, at least not yet, but Jason is thriving in his literary courses. Also, Jason’s doing well with his vigilante work, slowly but steadily really meshing with the other Bats, and Crime Alley still isn’t the best, but it’s better than Bruce has ever seen it before.
Damian is newly a teenager and apparently has gotten even snarkier because of it. Barbara has her hands full with the Birds of Prey and several Justice League missions, but that’s exactly how she likes it, and she still makes time for Bat operations in her busy schedule. Alfred seems to have a spring in his step lately.
As for-
That’s when Bruce has to cut himself off.
It’s been almost two years.
(Exactly twenty-two months, one week, and three days, if anybody’s counting, and he has in fact been counting, even though he knows it’s not the healthiest coping mechanism.)
Almost two years have passed. It’s been almost two full years since Tim died, and Bruce still sometimes automatically counts him among the living. Bruce isn’t sure what feels more like a betrayal to Tim, when Bruce momentarily forgets that Tim’s gone or when Bruce thinks everything is going well. This time, it’s both, and, the thoughts spear right through Bruce’s heart.
From where he’s seated, Bruce stops in his work. He closes his eyes. He rests his hands on his thighs. He breathes deeply through the emotional ache.
It still hurts sharply at times, even if it hurts less often than it used to hurt. It might always hurt. And so Bruce stops for a moment.
Then he opens his eyes, settles his hands on the keyboard once more, and gets back to what he was doing.
He’d been reminiscing about how everything seemed to be going well, Bruce recalls, and the irony of that makes him grunt. Of course when everything seemed to be going as well as possible, that’s when someone would hack the Batcomputer.
He’s already checked with Babs, and together they’ve discovered that the virtual intruder seems to have effectively limited the hacking to the Cave. For simplicity and speed, they have decided to convene in the Cave. She’s on her way already, and Bruce has tentatively alerted the rest of the family to be on stand-by from their various positions: Dick, Cass, and Damian on the early part of their patrol; Steph and Jason at a late-night study session; and Alfred from resting, although if Bruce can avoid pulling Alfred away from a well-deserved nap, he’ll do it.
Honestly, Bruce would be hopeful that he wouldn’t need to pull in anyone else at all, except for the fact that the hacker seems to know the Batcomputer’s systems so well. It’s unsettling, to say the least.
Finally, though, Bruce weaves his way through what he believes is the last bit of the hacker’s coding, all of it appearing to surround a single file.
Bruce examines that file’s details. It’s new, apparently created within the past twenty-four hours and not appearing to have been modified much during that time. It’s not a particularly large file, barely a few megabytes in size. In general, it’s an innocent-seeming video file, and as Bruce examines it further, it really is just a video file. It doesn’t have any commands to run on the Batcomputer, no viruses, no phishing, nothing of the sort.
To be honest, Bruce is half-tempted to conclude the hacking is one of his kids playing some kind of a practical joke on him.
“If this is a Rickroll, I’m never going to live it down,” Bruce says to himself wryly.
He presses “play” and starts to sit back in his chair.
An instant later, he’s bolting upright to call everyone in. Because it’s not a Rickroll. It’s not a practical joke. It’s not even entirely a hack.
Unless it isn’t what it appears to be.
But what if it is what it appears to be?
Because what it appears to be is a call for help.
From Tim.