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Bruce rubbed his left eye and sighed.
God, he hated paperwork, but it was unfair to leave it all to Lucius to do himself.
Once again, the man put his fountain pen back on to the paper, signing his signature on the dotted line before flipping to the next page.
The quiet of the office pressed in around him. No distant sirens. No comms crackling to life. Just the soft scratch of ink and the occasional rustle of paper.
Bruce forced himself to keep going.
Another page.
Another signature.
Another line of legal language that blurred together the longer he stared at it.
His left eye twitched faintly as he rubbed it again, more out of habit than relief. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked with slow, deliberate precision, each second stretching the silence thinner.
He flipped the page.
A contract.
Wayne Enterprises—subsidiary restructuring. Lucius had probably left the important tabs marked, but Bruce still skimmed each paragraph. He owed him that much.
Sign. Flip. Adjust the stack.
Outside the tall windows, the daylight had begun its slow descent, the golden hue of early afternoon shifting almost imperceptibly toward evening. Gotham looked deceptively calm from up here—glass, steel, and distance smoothing over everything ugly beneath.
His ringing phone broke his concentration. Bruce answered it, glad for the sudden distraction.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Wayne,” his secretary, Amy greeted him, “Mr. Nathan Harold is here to see you.”
The name drew a blank, so Bruce asked, “is he on the schedule?”
“Yes, sir,” she confirmed, sounding a bit exasperated, making Bruce wonder if he was accidently getting on her nerves.
Bruce nodded, even though she couldn’t see him.
“Thank you, Amy. Send him in.”
As expected, there was a polite knock on his office door about a minute later.
Nathan Harold, it turned out, was a heavy-set man in a pinstripe suit with slicked back blond hair. Bruce took note of the briefcase in the man’s hand as well as the tight serious expression on his face, as if he didn’t laugh often. Bruce rose from his desk as the man approached with a confident stride, giving him a warm smile.
“Mr. Harold, I am Bruce Wayne. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Like wise, Mr. Wayne.”
The pair of them shook hands and Bruce offered his guest a seat. Once settled, Harold got down to business.
“Mr. Wayne, I am sure you have heard of Amanda Waller’s passing?”
Bruce nodded.
“I have. I believe it was cancer?”
“Yes, it was,” Harold confirmed before continuing, “Director Waller named me as executor of her will and I am here to inform you that you have been named a beneficiary as well as I am here to hand over the assets you are owed.”
Brue’s eyebrows raised, his interest piqued.
“Really? I’m surprised she would think to give me anything.”
Mr. Harold placed the suitcase on the desk. It appeared to have a fingerprint scanner as he pressed his thumbs down on the top, near the corners, causing the locks to click open.
---
Bruce had remained seated at his desk for a long while after Mr. Harold left, the man promising to follow up in a few days.
Once enough time had passed, Bruce had gathered his paperwork, let Amy know he was heading home, and called it a day.
Now the man sat alone at the Batcomputer.
In his hand was a flash drive with the words Project: Batman Beyond printed on the side in black letters. The contents were a mystery. All he was told after signing a document confirming that he had received his due belongings was that Waller believed wished for him to have it upon the news of her death.
Bruce turned the flash drive over between his fingers, the small piece of plastic suddenly feeling heavier than it should have.
Amanda always did have a flair for dramatics.
He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly beneath him, and stared out into the shadows as if they would provide an answer. For a moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Just thought.
Amanda Waller didn’t leave things behind without purpose. Not secrets. Not contingencies. And certainly not something with his name on it—Batman—attached to the word “Beyond.”
A contingency plan, then.
Or worse.
Bruce exhaled slowly and turned back to the desk. The Batcomputer hummed to life as he slid the drive into the port. A brief flicker. A scan. Encryption protocols layered like armor.
Of course.
“Amanda…” he muttered under his breath, already typing, already peeling back the digital defenses she’d left behind. It wasn’t easy—nothing of hers ever was—but she’d known it wouldn’t be. Which meant one of two things: either she’d intended for him to break through… or she wanted to measure how long it would take him.
Either way, it was a test.
Minutes stretched into nearly an hour before the final lock gave way with a soft chime.
The screen went black.
Then—
A video file began to play.
---
Amanda Waller appeared on the screen, seated at a desk in an unfamiliar office. She was noticeably thin, with hollow cheeks. It was quite evident that she was at most a few months, maybe even weeks, from her inevitable death.
Despite her fragile state, her eyes were as hard and serious as ever.
“If you’re watching this,” she began, her voice as sharp as ever, “then I’m dead. Which means whatever safeguards I put in place are now your problem, Bruce Wayne.”
The corner of her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but something close enough to mock one.
“Relax,” Amanda Waller continued, folding her hands neatly on the desk. “This isn’t a confession. I don’t have any sins left to repent. This is a contingency.”
She leaned forward slightly, the movement slow, deliberate—measured, even now.
“I think we can agree that we have never been friends, you and I but you have my respect. You’ve saved the day dozens of times, with nothing but your wits body and will. It soon became crystal clear that Gotham needed you, that the world needed you.”
“Two decades ago, I started asking a question no one else had the spine to consider: what happens to Gotham City when Batman dies?”
Amanda paused with a sigh.
“You’re not immortal, Bruce Wayne. Despite your best efforts to pretend otherwise.”
Her eyes narrowed just slightly.
“At the time, you only had your ward, Dick Grayson. He would have been an obvious successor to your legacy but, it was soon clear his heart belonged outside of Gotham.”
A faint scoff escaped her before resuming.
Amanda’s image was replaced with security cam footage from Gotham of a rooftop occupied by Batman and Robin. The timestamp indicated Dick was a few years into his crimefighting career. The video didn’t have audio, but it was clear by the pair’s body language that they were arguing about something.
The woman’s voice continued over the footage.
“At the time, you and him were… strained. He had no interest in becoming you. Frankly, I couldn’t blame him. No one sane would volunteer to inherit that kind of damage.”
Amanda appears back on the screen, letting the words hang in the air.
“So I did what I always do when the world refuses to produce the solution I need.”
Another pause. This one heavier.
“I made one.”
Waller reached off-screen for a tablet, tapping it once before setting it back down.
“I used my Cadmus connections to gather the technology necessary for Project: Batman Beyond.”
The video turned into a split screen. Files appeared showing the machines needed for the task, diagrams and blueprints, as well.
“Your DNA was easy enough to obtain. You’re not actually that careful when beating up criminals,” she commented simply before sighing like the words were getting harder to get out.
“I found a young Gotham couple with psychological profiles nearly identical to your late parents.”
Two reports appeared on the right side of the screen, one for a John Warren McGinnis and the other for a Mary Ann McGinnis, nee’ Doyle. It contained physical descriptions with a driver’s license photo as well as a brief medical history for each, past employment and any criminal history, etc.
“Mr. McGinnis thought he was getting a flu shot but instead it was a nano tech solution programed to rewrite his reproductive material.”
Her gaze sharpened, watching him—even through a recording—as if she expected him to react.
“Rewrote him at the genetic level so that any child he produced would be biologically yours, Bruce Wayne.”
The sickly woman folded her hands.
“About a year later, a child was born. A boy.”
A new report appeared, this time for a Terrance Warren McGinnis. The accompanying photo showed a kid with Mary’s nose and mouth shape, but the rest was clearly a copy of an adolescent Bruce. The birth date indicated he had come into the world about eight years before.
Waller sat back for a moment before continuing.
“But, when you’re making a Batman, genetics is only part of the story.”
Her eyes glanced down, sighing.
“The rest is tragedy.”
The word hung in the air, and one couldn’t help but imagine the event that made the child that would one day become a vigilante.
“The plan was simple. When the child turned eight, I would arrange a crime. Random. Pointless. A mugging gone wrong in an alley. You know the type.”
Her eyes flickered—almost with guilt.
“The boy’s parents would die. A welcome coincidence was that they shared the first names of Dick Grayson’s parents. I had hoped it would have caught your attention when the time came. You would see yourself in him. And you would take him in.”
Another pause.
“I didn’t need to control what happened after that. Trauma would do the rest. It always does.”
She exhaled slowly, her thin frame sinking slightly into the chair.
“But then something… unexpected happened.”
Her expression tightened, just a fraction.
“Damian Wayne.”
The name lingered, heavy with implication.
“You already had an heir. One with your blood, your training, your world. The redundancy made my project… unnecessary.”
A slight tilt of her head.
“I don’t like unnecessary variables, but I chose to let it be.”
Waller’s fingers tapped once against the desk.
“I shut it down. No alley. No dead parents. No interference.”
The corner of her mouth twitched.
“Mary then had another child. Yours as well, of course.”
Another report replaced Terry’s. This one for Matthew Anthony McGinnis, just a few months old. In the picture, the infant was too little to see much of a resemblance either way.
Her gaze hardened again.
“Terry and Matt McGinnis would live their lives. Ordinary. Unremarkable. You wouldn’t have known anything was amiss.”
Another pause.
“Or at least… that was the intention.”
The woman straightened in her chair, intimidating despite her thin frame.
“As I am currently sitting here, I am dying and you won’t see this until I am dead and gone. I know you are angry with me, Bruce, except what’s done is done and we can’t change anything about it now.”
“You had no say in Terry’s existence but, I feel you have a right know about your sons.”
She continued evenly, “you can verify everything I’ve said. I’ve left the files where even you won’t have trouble finding them. Genetic markers. Medical records. Surveillance logs. I’ve never been sloppy, and I’m not starting now.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“I didn’t tell you sooner because there was no operational advantage in doing so. You were effective. Gotham was stable—by your standards, anyway. Introducing variables like this? Unnecessary risk.”
A faint, dry exhale escaped her.
“And before you start moralizing, save it. I know exactly what I did.”
For the first time, there was no deflection in her voice. No sarcasm. Just a blunt, immovable truth.
“I engineered a life. Two, technically. Without consent. Without consideration for the people involved.” A pause. “That’s the job.”
Her gaze hardened again, as if daring him to challenge her—even now.
“But understand this, Bruce: I didn’t do it out of malice. I did it because the world needs a Batman.”
The words landed with weight.
“Not you, specifically. Not the man. The symbol. The deterrent. The idea that something is waiting in the dark for people who think they can get away with anything.”
She leaned forward slightly.
“You built that. And whether you like it or not, the world adapted around it. Criminals fear it. Governments account for it. People depend on it.”
A beat.
“And one day, you won’t be there.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything she’d said before.
“So I made sure that, when that day comes, the possibility still exists.”
Waller sat back again, the effort visibly costing her.
“You have no obligation to them. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t choose it. If you walk away right now, no one would blame you.”
A slight tilt of her head.
“But I know you, Bruce Wayne.”
Not Batman.
Bruce.
“You won’t.”
For the first time, something almost human flickered across her face. Not quite regret. Not quite pride.
“Maybe you’ll watch from a distance. Maybe you’ll convince yourself it’s just another case to monitor. Maybe you’ll never tell them the truth.” A faint exhale. “Or maybe you will.”
Her eyes locked onto the camera one last time.
“That part was never mine to control.”
The screen flickered slightly, the recording beginning to degrade.
“Whatever you decide… just don’t make the mistake of thinking this is about me anymore.”
Her eyes softened a little.
“It’s about what comes after you.”
The image stuttered.
“And whether you’re willing to face it.”
One final pause.
“…and for what it is worth…I’m sorry.”
The screen went black.
---
Bruce pushed himself away from the Batcomputer.
After watching Waller’s video for the first time, he had spent the next couple of days checking the information she had given him. Indeed, Warren—who preferred going by his middle name—and Mary McGinnis were a middle-class couple living in Gotham with two sons, Terry and Matt.
Every record checked out.
Every timestamp aligned.
Every strand of DNA told the same story.
There were no gaps. No inconsistencies. No comforting possibility that Amanda Waller had exaggerated or lied.
She hadn’t.
She never did.
Now Bruce turned his attention to his three (older) children.
Dick stood there with his jaw clenched and hands curled into fists at his sides. Damian was leafing through the files that Bruce had gathered, clearly absorbed in the fact that he was no longer his father’s only biological child.
Cassandra remained the stillest of them all.
Her gaze lingered on the now-dark monitor for a moment longer before she turned it to Bruce. There was something unsettled in her expression—something quieter, deeper.
She stepped forward slightly.
“What do we do?” she asked softly.
Then, as always, her hands moved to fill the spaces words couldn’t. She cradled her arms as if holding a baby, gently rocking once… then lifted two fingers, palm turned inward.
Two children.
Bruce didn’t hesitate.
“Nothing,” he informed her, simply.
Damian’s head snapped to him.
“Nothing?”
Bruce met his gaze, unflinching.
“Yes,” he repeated, more firmly now. “We do nothing.”
Damian straightened, the file in his hand tightening under his grip.
“But, Father—” he began, voice rising with restrained urgency, “they share your blood. That makes them ours. They should be brought here—into the family. It is their right.”
Bruce sighed, the sound low and controlled. He wasn’t surprised that Damian would have issues with the situation. The al Ghuls put a huge emphasis on blood ties.
“I expected that response from you,” he said, not unkindly—but firmly.
Damian straightened slightly, chin lifting in defiance. “Then you understand why it is correct.”
“No,” Bruce replied. “I understand why you believe it is.”
That stopped him—if only for a second.
“They are not assets to be claimed,” Bruce continued, his voice even. “They are not heirs to be collected or positioned.”
“They are ours,” Damian insisted, more forcefully now. “They carry your blood—our blood. That makes them part of this family whether they know it or not.”
“But they weren’t suppose to,” his father reminded him, taking a step forward.
“If things had gone the way they were supposed to, those two boys would be Warren McGinnis’ children, not mine.”
The words landed harder than anything Bruce had said so far.
For a moment, even Damian didn’t have an immediate response.
Dick let out a sharp breath through his nose, pacing a few steps away before turning back. “Yeah,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “That’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it? They are his kids. He raised them. He’s there.”
Damian’s jaw tightened. “That is irrelevant.”
“No,” Dick shot back, more sharply now. “It’s exactly relevant.”
Cassandra’s gaze shifted between them, reading what neither of them were saying aloud. Her eyes returned to Bruce.
Steady. Searching.
Bruce didn’t look away.
“They have a life,” he continued. “A stable one. Parents who care for them. A home that isn’t defined by violence or loss.”
A brief pause.
“I’m not taking that from them.”
Damian stepped forward, his composure tightening into something sharper. “You are choosing inaction over responsibility.”
Bruce’s eyes hardened slightly. “No. I’m choosing restraint.”
“They are yours,” Damian pressed. “Would you have ignored me, had you known from the beginning?”
That question hung in the air.
Dick stilled.
Cassandra’s head tilted just slightly.
Bruce didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was quieter—but no less firm.
“You weren’t living a normal life, Damian.”
A flicker of something crossed Damian’s face—gone almost instantly.
“You were raised to be a weapon,” Bruce continued. “You were put in situations no child should ever face. Intervention wouldn’t have been a choice. It was necessary. For you and Cassandra both.”
His gaze didn’t waver.
“These boys are not in danger. They’re not being trained to kill. They’re not being manipulated into becoming something they didn’t choose.”
A beat.
“They’re just children.”
Silence settled over the cave again.
Dick exhaled, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “For once,” he said, quieter now, “I’m with Bruce on this.”
Damian scoffed lightly, though it lacked its usual edge. “Of course you are.”
Dick shot him a look. “You really think dragging them into this” he gestured around the cave, at the suits, the shadows, the weight of everything unspoken “—is doing them a favor?”
Damian didn’t answer right away.
Because for all his conviction—
He understood.
Cassandra stepped closer to Bruce again.
Her hands moved slowly this time.
She brought two flat, open hands together, starting apart and ending with the palms together.
Close.
She then formed both hands into fists and crossed her arms at the wrists, placing them in front of her chest. She moved both hands slightly forward in a firm, protective motion.
Protected.
Finally with one hand, she touched the tip of her pointer finger to the tip of her thumb. The middle, ring, and pinky fingers remained extended and slightly separated and moved them slightly forward and downward.
Choice.
Bruce watched her carefully, then gave a single, small nod.
“Yes,” he said.
Her shoulders eased—just slightly. Damian looked between them, frustration still present—but tempered now by thought.
“And if that changes?” he asked at last. “If their circumstances shift? If they become… aware?”
Bruce didn’t hesitate.
“Then we reevaluate the situation.”
A simple answer, but not a careless one.
Dick nodded once. “Ok.”
Damian exhaled slowly, tension bleeding out of his posture—not gone, but contained.
“…Very well,” he said at last.
Bruce turned slightly back toward the dark monitor.
“Until then,” he added, “they remain exactly what they are.”
His voice was steady.
“Off-limits.”
No one argued, but Dick did pause.
“Why did you tell us then?” he asked.
Bruce didn’t answer right away. For a moment, it seemed like he might not answer at all.
The cave hummed quietly around them, the weight of the revelation still settling into every corner of the room. The dark monitor reflected all four of them—distorted, fragmented shapes in the glass.
Finally, Bruce spoke.
"Because you needed to know."
The words lingered. Not heavy. Not dramatic. Just… true.
Dick’s brow furrowed slightly. “That’s it?” he asked, not challenging—just trying to understand.
Bruce didn’t turn from the monitor.
“No,” he admitted after a moment.
That got their attention. He rested his hands lightly on the console, fingers spread, as if grounding himself in something solid.
“If something happens to me,” he continued, voice even, “this doesn’t stay buried.”
The words were simple. The implication wasn’t.
Dick straightened a little. “Bruce—”
“I’m not asking you to act,” Bruce cut in, still calm. “Not now. Not unless there’s no other option.”
His gaze shifted, briefly, to each of them.
“But you deserve the full picture. All of it. Not just the parts I decide are convenient.”
Cassandra watched him closely. Damian’s expression tightened again, but this time it wasn’t frustration—it was focus.
“You are preparing contingencies,” Damian said quietly. Bruce didn’t deny it.
“I always do.”
Dick let out a soft, humorless huff. “Yeah. We noticed.”
But there was no real bite behind it. Bruce finally turned to face them fully.
“There are two boys in Gotham who—whether we like it or not—are connected to this family,” he said. “Right now, that connection is irrelevant.”
A slight pause.
“But that may not always be true.”
Cassandra’s gaze softened just slightly at that.
Dick crossed his arms, thinking. “So what—you want us to keep an eye out? Make sure they don’t accidentally wander into something they shouldn’t?”
“Not actively,” Bruce replied. “No surveillance beyond what I’ve already established. No contact.”
Damian tilted his head. “But awareness.”
“Yes.”
That, at least, Damian could accept.
Dick nodded slowly. “Okay… yeah. That’s fair.”
There was a brief silence.
Then Dick glanced toward the dark monitor, rubbing the back of his neck. “Man… Waller really just… did that,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “That’s—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t need to.
Cassandra’s hands moved again, slower this time.
She pointed lightly toward the monitor.
Then to Bruce.
Then outward—away from all of them.
A question.
Will you watch them?
Bruce held her gaze.
“…Yes,” he said.
Not as Batman.
Not as a strategist.
Just… yes.
Damian caught that. His eyes narrowed slightly—not in disapproval, but in recognition.
Dick noticed it too, though his reaction was softer. “right,” he said quietly.
They all understood what that meant.
Distance.
Restraint.
But not indifference.
Never that.
After a moment, Bruce turned back to the console, the screen flickering to life again—not with Waller this time, but with the static files.
Names.
Dates.
Facts.
Order.
Safer than what he’d seen before. Behind him, the others began to disperse. Dick lingered the longest, like he always did.
“…They’re lucky,” he said after a moment.
Bruce didn’t look back. “Why?”
Dick shrugged slightly. “They’ve got a shot at something normal.”
A beat.
“Not a lot of people in this city get that.”
Bruce’s expression didn’t change.
But his voice, when he spoke, was quieter.
“That’s why we don’t take it from them.”
Dick nodded once.
Then he was gone.
The cave fell silent again.
Bruce stood alone before the screen, staring at two names that shouldn’t have meant anything to him—
And somehow, already did.
After a long moment, he reached out.
Not to open the live feed.
Not yet.
Instead, he created a new file.
MCGINNIS, TERRY – MONITORING (PASSIVE)
MCGINNIS, MATTHEW – MONITORING (PASSIVE)
He hesitated.
Then added one more line beneath each.
Status: Protected.
The cursor blinked. Bruce watched it for a second longer—then closed the file and returned to work.
The unspoken truth lingered between them all.
Nothing had changed.
And everything had.