It absolutely killed everyone when Bruce had passed. With how many of those 'If I die by...' videos he made, the entire Belfry was kinda surprised he didn't make one for an encounter with Ra's.

Everything was different from then on. The cave was gone. The manor was gone. The more elaborate equipment was gone. Bruce was gone. And god forbid you get a break between attacks in Gotham on patrols.

Recently, the Court of Owls had begun causing chaos in the city. The group of 'Gotham's Elite' was just a pain in the ass to deal with, especially when they were so hard to track down. Hell, none of you even knew what their goals was, or why the string of murders around Gotham were connected to the group.

Oswald Cobblepot claimed that he was a changed person and gave up his crime-filled lifestyle, but everybody knew it was bullshit. So, when things got desperate, he would be used as a resource. In no way, shape, or form was he reliable, but he was really all you had.

One night, though, he really threw the Belfry for a loop. He made up some crap about being attacked by the Court to lure Dick and Jason into his office before drugging them with some hidden gas machine.

You don't really know what the boys saw, exactly, but you knew it wasn't pretty. Jason had opened up a little about hallucinating Bruce and the Lazarus Pits, but Richard tried his hardest to put on a brave face. You saw right through him, though.

He jumped a little when you placed a gentle hand on his back. He never jumped at your touch before; it was heartbreaking. It was just the two of you in the clock tower, for now; Jason, Tim, and Babs were out on patrol while Alfred met with Jacob Kane, Bruce's uncle.

"Hey... Sorry." Dick apologizes in the most broken voice you'd ever heard from him as he forces his shoulders to untense. "Don't know what got into me there."