Chapter Text
“Get through the portal, son.”
“B-but dad! What about you and everyone else?”
“Go! The barrier won't hold Superman back for long.”
A young man was pulled into a tight hug, the first one in so long. “Dad...! dad please, let me stay and fight!” The boy cried, gripping onto Batman tightly, tears streaming thick and hot down his face. “I'm sorry, Austin. I'm so sorry but you need to leave. I don't want you to die, I already lost your mother and most everyone else. I...I can't lose you too. At least this way I know you're safe and sound.” Batman – Bruce Wayne – says softly, sounding choked up behind his cowl as he squeezes his son tighter one last time. Both their hearts ached and broke at the hasty goodbye.
However, it was needed. They couldn't spend much longer saying their final farewell. The Regime was about to break through and with the fall of the barrier, it was surely going to become a bloody final stand. “Dad-!” Austin's scream was cut off as he was pushed away just as the sound of the barrier breaking sounded like an explosion right in their ears. With a panicked look, Batman gave a final quick kiss to the younger mans' forehead and before Austin could say anything he was bodily thrown into the portal.
“I'm sorry son, I love you so much...
Please, live for me my son. Be strong...”
Those were the last words Austin had heard of his father as Austin Wayne landed onto his side on the other side of the portal. “Dad...” The blue eyed man shakes his head and pushes himself up a a bit, a little dazed from the throw as he looks towards the portal that was already closing. Panic gripped the young Wayne so suddenly he tripped trying to get up as he reaches out, a vain useless hope of reaching out towards his father. “Dad!”
They locked eyes, Batman's expression showed remorse and suddenly...in a second, the portal was closed. Leaving the young Wayne laying there in shocked silence. Slowly his hand lowered and unblinkingly the tears started to fall anew, thick and hot and he didn't even register the feeling. Numb. He couldn't even feel the injuries and bruises he had sustained earlier while fighting The Regime with Batman and the Insurgency.
As he slowly pulled himself into a kneeling position, blood and dirt caking his skin and clothes, the numbness started to drain and with it a piercing pain in his chest – realization setting in as Austin's expression twisted and he lets out a scream into the heavens, hair having fallen out of the ponytail he normally keeps it in as the desert wind blew through his hair. The scream broken up by loud choking sobs.
Austin, a 24 year old man, would spend a few months wandering this new reality. Finding any Rogue he comes across, he would mercilessly slaughter them with such a dead look in his eyes it was like a husk of a man with no purpose walking amongst the living – a dead man walking. This world used to have a Joker but Austin had taken care of him first, the first deliberate kill he had made. On month 10 in this new world, he would kill Lex Luthor and then turn himself in to the Justice League and by month 12, almost a whole year, a few more days and he'd have spent a year, he managed to convince them to build him a portal to get the hell out of that dimension.
Wandering aimlessly through another new Earth at age 27 years old, Austin was still the broken shell of a man as he went out of his way to kill all of Batman's rogues, wanting so desperately to save his family – even if he himself never existed in any of these worlds besides the one he came from. His broken dead heart still loved his family so, so terribly much. Seeing them even from the shadows was something he craved like a drug.
His Vigilante name and appearance took on a new meaning to him, an honor to his lost family. Black Bird, for Austin, has become a symbol of criminal justice. A kind of 'divine' judgment, killing like Jason used to as Red Hood early on. Black Bird became his only connection to his past.
Seeing Gotham without the rogues, especially without Joker, starting to slowly heal, seeing Jason and Tim avenged, Lois Lane and Jon in some abstract way also avenged, didn't make him feel any better. Strangely enough.
Going through a few more Earths, Austin Wayne was on his 12th Earth, watching from a distance as Black Bird as this version of his family converged after a hard battle against Riddler and Joker both. For the first time in a long, long time, Austin feels a pang in his chest. Maybe it was worry, maybe it was jealousy or just an old painful pang from days long past. Behind his domino mask, Black Bird's eyes shed a few tears as he watched from a distant rooftop. Seeing Batman – Bruce – clap a hand onto Red Robin's shoulder made him ache. Standing up, Black Bird turns his back to the painful scene.
Not noticing he had been spotted and reported to the family by Oracle.
Even if he did notice eyes following him, he'd not have cared as he was already planning the death of Joker. He needed to kill him, before another Injustice Earth happened – before Batman Who Laughs happens, before...before so many bad things happen...