Chapter Text
The new vigilante had all of L’manberg on edge.
He called himself Nightmare, and he was something of a wild card. Some speculated that he might be the newest member of the L’manberg Rogues, more commonly known as the Dream Team, due to the frowning porcelain mask he donned on the streets. He’d also dipped his hand into the local drug cartels and was making a name for himself as a crime lord. On the other hand, however, he was extremely protective of the poor, needy, and oppressed, and he had never actually been seen allying himself with the infamous green hooded criminal that terrorized the city streets. To some, he was a tyrant; to others, he was a hero.
Out of the entire population, though, no one was quite as perplexed as Philza Craft.
The blond man massaged his temples as he skimmed over the computer files once more. He had yet to run into Nightmare in person during his nightly patrols, but he'd heard plenty of stories. The newcomer was chaotic, and fond of guns and explosives. He didn't seem to have any qualms about killing lowlife criminals, but he never harmed any civilians. As Batman, Phil had a responsibility to L'manberg to protect the streets from violent threats and, from what he could tell, Nightmare was a loose cannon. If things progressed any further he would have to step in and intervene.
There was a gentle knock at his door. The exhausted billionaire’s head snapped to attention- it was Ranboo, looking just as nervous as he usually did.
“Uh, sorry to bother you, Mr. Craft,” he said, fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt. Phil smiled gently.
“No, not at all. And you can call me Phil. What do you need?”
“Well, um, I thought you'd like to know that Techno is here.”
“Wh- Techno?” His brow furrowed. “Did he say anything about why?” Not that his son needed a reason to visit. Ranboo rubbed the back of his neck.
“No. He didn't really say much of anything at all, actually. He's just eating some potato chips really angrily in the kitchen.”
Phil heaved a sigh. That was very in character for his second eldest. “Thanks for letting me know, Ranboo, I'll go see what he needs.” The teenager nodded, his heterochromic eyes darting over the room, and shuffled awkwardly down the hall. Phil watched him leave with a fond smile. Nearly a year had passed since Ranboo had joined the Craft household, but he still acted like a timid, polite guest.
Time to check on Techno.
The man was right where Ranboo described him to be. He was easy to recognize from his broad, muscled form and long pink hair. Techno noticed his father’s presence immediately; he acknowledged him with a glance and aggressively shoved another handful of chips into his mouth.
“Hey, mate, it's good to see you,” Phil said, leaning against the island counter. “What's up?”
“You need to get your problem out of my territory.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
Techno grunted. “That new guy. Nightmare.” Speak of the devil, Phil thought. “He's been showing up in my city like he owns the place.”
“I'm sorry to hear that, Tech, but he doesn't answer to me. I can't exactly just tell him to stop.” His son huffed, and gave him a look that said ‘duh’. “What exactly has he been doing?”
“Getting involved in gang wars. Busting drug deals. Terrorizing the locals,” Techno listed, counting Nightmare’s offenses on his fingers. “And I know for a fact he's somehow been stealing from my safehouses.”
That was concerning. “How do you know it's him?”
“Security cameras. He flips ‘em off whenever he breaks in.”
Phil let out a startled laugh. “Why haven't you tried to catch him in the act? Hold a stakeout?”
“You think I haven't thought of that? Phil, I have eight safehouses scattered about the city. I can't be everywhere at once.” He pulled out one of his throwing knives and began fiddling with it (a nervous habit he'd picked up while being raised by the League of the Blood God). “He's been swiping everything from first aid supplies to microwave dinners. And I know it's just to piss me off.”
Phil worried his lip. “Well… I was planning on checking him out anyway. Would you like to join Ranboo and I tonight for patrol? We’ll seek him out and you can have a little tête-à-tête."
A slow grin spread across Techno’s face. “Philza, that sounds like an excellent idea.”
o7o7o7o7o
Patrol was Phil’s favorite part of the day. He savored the thrill of leaping from one rooftop to the next, dancing in the shadows cast by streetlights, swinging from his grappling hook as if he could fly. He also loved that it gave him time to spend with his boys. He could still remember the first night each of them had put on the suit. Wilbur had grinned the whole time, enjoying the freedom and expression that was granted to him. Techno had been serious and focused, determined to impress his father. Most recently, Ranboo had followed Phil like a duckling, soaking in his every movement and doing his best to mimic them. (Later that evening, Phil had caught a glimpse of the kid writing down everything he'd learned in earnest.) And Tommy… Tommy had been bursting at the seams with energy, laughing and shouting and beaming like the sun.
...Phil doesn't like to think about Tommy.
“According to the intelligence I gathered,” Ranboo said over the comms, “Nightmare is supposed to be meeting with local gang leaders at the east docks tonight.”
“Good work, Robin,” Phil praised. “Blade, I know you want to charge in, but let's approach this carefully, yeah?” Techno grumbled his agreement. “Excellent. Here's the plan. As soon as Nightmare makes his appearance, Blade and I will scare off all the other gang members. Robin, I want you up top keeping an eye on Nightmare’s location. Let us know if he tries to slip away amidst the chaos.” They both nodded. “Most importantly, stay safe. I’d rather lose our target than have either of you get hurt.”
The trio kept watch over the gathering criminals from the top of a nearby warehouse, but they didn't have to wait for long. There he was: Nightmare strolled to the end of the dock, lazily twirling a handgun around his pointer finger. Phil signaled to Techno that it was time to move in.
“Gentlemen!” Nightmare crowed. “Let’s get this thing started!”
Phil- no, Batman- dropped down behind the crowd and growled, “Yes. Let’s.”
The reaction was immediate. The gang leaders and their thugs started yelling, drawing their weapons and firing at the two new threats that had appeared out of nowhere. Phil and Techno dodged them with ease. Techno kicked one of the men into a stack of wooden shipping crates, then grabbed another by the scruff of the neck and tossed him into the frigid waters of the L'manberg Bay. Phil wrenched one of the thug’s pistol from his hands and used it to knock him unconscious. They made quick work of the criminals; the mob was dispersing faster than teenagers fleeing from the cops that had been called to bust a rowdy party.
“Batman, Blade, Nightmare isn't even trying to escape,” Ranboo reported, his voice riddled with confusion. “He's not moving at all, actually.”
A quick glance at the end of the dock revealed his words to be true. The man of the hour was standing still as a statue, arms folded over his chest, observing the fighting from the sidelines. His expression was unreadable behind his eerie white mask. He was wearing a trench coat, Phil noticed, as well as a dark red turtleneck and a sturdy pair of combat boots.
Soon, the dock was still, all the gang members either escaped or unconscious. Phil and Techno sheathed their weapons and turned to face Nightmare, though their postures were still tense and ready for action. Nightmare tilted his head to the side.
“I s’pose I should have been expecting this,” he drawled. “You lot never mind your own business.”
“You stealing my resources is my business,” Techno challenged, taking a step forward. Phil held up a hand to tell his son to stand down. Nightmare snorted.
“It's not like you can't afford to replace it. You know Daddy will fork out more cash than he needs to for his favorite son,” he sneered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Phil asked in as level a tone as he could manage.
“Don't play dumb, Philza. We all know it's true.”
Shock jolted through Phil, Techno, and Ranboo like an electric current. Phil thought he might have stopped breathing. How could he possibly know? Luckily, Techno recovered his wits almost immediately and attempted to salvage the situation.
“Philza, like the brainless billionaire? That's the most absurd theory about Batman’s identity I've ever heard. That trust-fund-man-child can't figure out how to work a stapler.”
Okay, ouch. You staple your sleeve to a desk one time and your family will never let you forget it.
Techno’s logic didn't seem to appease Nightmare, though. The masked man clenched his hands into fists. “Cut the act, Techno. No one else is around, ‘cept for the latest Robin model over on that roof.” He gestured wildly in Ranboo’s direction, who shrank back at the attention. At the sound of his name, Techno’s hand flew to his knives. Phil felt nauseous.
“Who on earth is Techno?” he tried, but that only angered Nightmare further.
“Shut up!” he roared. “You can ignore me all you want, but I'm not gonna let you pretend you don't know me!”
Phil ran through a list in his mind of people who might know his secret identity; no one jumped out as a possibility. “I don't-”
“I KNOW HE TOLD YOU!” Nightmare screamed. A particularly powerful gust of wind tore across the dock, making the stranger’s trench coat flare up behind him dramatically. The movement drew Phil’s eye, and… that coat looked familiar…
The rant continued. “Just because you don't like me doesn't mean you forgot my whole existence! He was right about one thing; you're a bunch of wrong’uns.”
All the color drained from Phil's face when he placed where he recognized the coat from. He hadn't seen that coat since he had buried his baby boy.
Techno hadn't made the same realization as his father. “Take off the mask, idiot, and we'll see who the wrong’un is,” he bit out. Phil’s gaze was frozen on the unknown figure in front of him. His thoughts were slow, too slow to come up with an explanation for what he was seeing. Nightmare scoffed.
“Whatever, big man. It was getting stuffy under here, anyway.” And he left them no time to prepare themselves as he reached up with both hands and
lifted
off
the
mask-
Two grey eyes that should have been blue glared at them with nothing but contempt.
A strangled, inhuman sound tore out of Phil’s throat. How could a face be so entirely different and yet remain wholly unchanged? He knew that nose, that chin, those ears. He'd never seen this face before but he knew it by heart. His voice broke as he croaked,
“Tommy?”
A sharp inhale could be heard over the comms. “I'm coming down there,” Ranboo said. Phil couldn't form the words to tell him no. The roar of his pulse threatened to choke him.
Tommytommytommytommytommytommytommy
Rage rolled off of Techno in waves. “How dare you,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “How dare you disrespect my little brother.” Nightmare (Tommy?) rolled his eyes.
“Oh, so now we're brothers?” His words were bitter, cruel. “If I'd known me dying was all it would take for you to give me a second thought, I'd’ve offed myself way before Dream ever got the chance.” Techno snarled, hackles raised. He made as if to move forward and attack, but was stopped by a hand on his bicep- Ranboo. The mild mannered sidekick eyed the freshly unmasked vigilante warily. They were sailing through uncharted waters, so to speak, and it would do them no good for Techno to lose control.
Phil felt dizzy. “Tommy?” he repeated weakly. His eyes burned. “Are you- is this real?” Maybe-Tommy scowled.
“What are you playing at, old man?”
“You died.” It came out more like a question than the statement it was meant to be.
“Yeah, and it sucked. Thanks for reminding me.” Tommy’s eyes narrowed; his voice was scathing.
Phil could feel the phantom weight of a broken body in his arms. Nonexistent smoke burned his nostrils, and he heard the echoes of rubble crumbling around him. The memory of cradling the still-warm corpse of his precious son had been etched into his very being by the acid of grief. At this moment, all the father wanted to do was gather the boy in front of him in his arms and smell the shampoo he always insisted on using in his blond curly hair and kiss his forehead, anything to erase the scars of that day that had never truly healed-
“Stay back!” a shrill voice demanded. “Come any closer and I'll shoot!”
He froze in his tracks. It would have been beyond strange, to an onlooker, to see the Batman rendered immobile by a panicking teenager. Phil felt as helpless as a newborn lamb.
“You're alive,” he breathed, and he treasured each syllable. “You're alive, Tommy, you're alive.”
“What, are you disappointed? Surprised that Dream didn't put me in the ground for the second time?” Despite the vitriol with which he lashed out, there was the slightest waver of uncertainty in his words. He clearly hadn’t been expecting this kind of reaction from the other.
“Prime, no, of course not.” Phil looked the other over from head to toe. “Look at you, Tommy… you've gotten so tall.”
It was true. Last he'd seen the boy before he died he still towered over him by a good foot and a half; now the young man looked down on him, instead- it looked like he was taller than Techno, even.
Phil was cursed to be shorter than all of his sons, it seemed.
“Wha- Why are you acting so weird?! Are you drunk?” Tommy demanded. Phil laughed; it sounded more like a sob.
Meanwhile, Techno was just as suspicious as ever. “Batman, this is obviously a trap. I don't know how this scum knows about Tommy, but he can't be trusted.” At some level, Phil knew that his son was making a logical argument, but he couldn't bring himself to ignore the evidence in front of him. Nightmare looked like Tommy, talked like Tommy. He wanted so very badly for this to be real.
Tommy now had guns trained on both Batman and the Blade. It was strange to see how drastically his attitude had changed over the course of the encounter. Gone was the bitter confidence he greeted them with. Now he looked more like a cornered animal than anything else.
“Stop trying to trick me!” he shouted. “Lying and acting like you care won't get me to come crawling back to you like a trained dog!”
Seeing the barrel of the handgun pointed in his direction made Techno bristle. According to his body language, he was going to snap at any moment. Phil was equally off kilter, only having eyes for the son he'd thought lost forever. If it came to blows, the man would likely be of little use. Ranboo fretted internally. It would appear that deescalation would be left to him.
“Tommy,” the current Robin began cautiously, flinching as said person’s attention snapped to him, “if it really is you, then please listen. We had no idea that you were Nightmare. We came here tonight to try and figure out his, er, your identity.” Tommy’s eyes narrowed and Ranboo threw up his hands in a placating gesture. “Please, uh, please don't shoot anyone.”
“That… doesn't make sense. You knew, he told me you knew.”
“I don't know who ‘he’ is, mate, but he was wrong. If I’d known you were alive I would have fought all of heaven and hell to get to you,” Phil said near desperately. “My boy. Toms.”
Tommy’s hands were shaking, and he pressed them against the sides of his head- concerning, considering the fact that he still had his guns in his grasp. He screwed his eyes shut as if he were in pain (maybe he was).
“That can't be true. My head’s gettin’ all spinny… He- he said he told you, he told you and you wouldn't come. You didn't come, stop lying to me!”
Taking advantage of his distress, Techno darted forward and pinned Tommy’s arms to his sides in a parody of a hug. The younger’s eyes flew open in a sudden bout of fury.
“LET ME GO!” he shrieked. “SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP AND LET ME GO, LET ME GO-”
“Robin, grab his guns,” Techno instructed while containing the thrashing Nightmare. Ranboo ducked his head and gently collected the firearms. Phil also stepped forward. Now that his son was restrained, he wanted to get closer to his boy. He reached out with a gloved hand and cupped the side of his face, quickly retracting it when a frenzied Tommy snapped at his fingers with bared teeth.
“Toms…” he murmured sadly.
“We should take him back to the cave,” stated Techno. “Administer a sedative and then we can figure out exactly who we're dealing with.” Phil nodded mutely. It broke his heart to see his youngest in such a state of unbridled panic. He remembered, before the tragedy had struck, the many occasions when Tommy would wake up scared in the middle of the night and seek comfort from his family. Phil would hold him in a warm embrace, and Wilbur would strum soothing melodies on his guitar to chase away the bad memories…
Phil blanched. “We've got to tell Wil.”