Thea surveyed the room. Every face was turned toward her.
"Before we talk about Bruce—we need to talk about Gotham."
"The rest of the country's problems combined don't come close to this one city right now. Crime rates have been surging for a month straight. Civilian casualties from unnatural causes have already crossed two hundred. Gotham needs order restored immediately. If you can't do it, the Justice League steps in—no debate."
She brought her palm down on the table.
"The National Guard has mobilized fifteen hundred troops and they're on their way to Gotham. I've bought you three days. After that, there will be no more large-scale firefights on Gotham's streets. That's not a request."
They nodded. She waited until she was satisfied, then eased up.
Gotham's criminal population right now was a fraction of its peak. Characters like Penguin and Two-Face still walking free were partly Batman's doing—he'd consistently blocked Deathstroke's attempts to quietly ship them to remote mining operations on alien worlds. There's a limit to how blatant that kind of operation can be before the Bat notices. So here they were: with those lieutenants still intact and their organizations still breathing, chaos had come back fast.
"Batman is a member of the Justice League," Thea continued, turning to Dick. "You'll attend meetings."
Dick nodded. Inheriting the cowl meant inheriting everything attached to it. He'd known that going in.
"The Watchtower's operating costs," Thea said, thinking. "Bruce and I used to split them. Now—"
The color drained from Dick's face. His hands went up. "I'm broke. I have no money."
Thea was not impressed. The new Batman had inherited the title but apparently not the budget. She looked at Damian.
Damian was the kind of person who'd never thought about money in his life. He had Bruce's credit card and that was the sum total of his financial philosophy. He returned Thea's look with cheerful blankness.
"Miss Thea, if I might have a word—" Alfred smoothly steered her to the side and proceeded to walk her through inheritance law, estate tax, Gotham's cost of living, and the downstream consequences of alien technology on Earth's economy.
"Bruce is technically still alive," Alfred concluded, helpless sorrow on his face. "Legally, we can't touch the estate."
Thea put a hand to her forehead. She'd forgotten about that. Alfred was right—she'd helped fabricate Bruce's medical records herself a few days ago. Couldn't very well be filing death certificates.
Alfred kept going, painting a picture of a household one step from the breadline, summarizing his case with the practiced misery of a seasoned operator.
Thea stared at the old man. Your crying-poor skills already surpass mine. Fine.
The truth was she wasn't hurting for money right now. One large financial hole, six months of covering it solo—manageable.
"All right, you win. We'll table the Watchtower issue for now. Let's talk about Bruce."
"You all know the basic situation?"
Nods around the room.
"His memory is suppressed. He's adrift in the temporal current—a dangerous position, any way you look at it."
"But here's what I actually need you to understand. Your father, your mentor—right now he's functioning as an extraordinarily powerful weapon. If he manages to fight his way back to this specific point in our timeline on his own, the resulting paradox would be catastrophic. The entire universe could be torn apart." She paused. "I trust you're all following me."
The ones Bruce had chosen were smart. They understood exactly what she wasn't saying.
Dick and Damian had already arrived at the same place. They said nothing.
Alfred's composure cracked. He pressed a hand to his mouth.
"Really?" Tim's voice came out smaller. "Not even one option?"
"I want to say yes. I don't have one yet. Bruce is my friend. We didn't always see eye to eye, but he's a great man, and this world still needs him. I don't want to reach that final decision any more than you do." She meant it.
She continued, building the case: "My archaeological team uncovered a fossil approximately six thousand years old. It had a bat symbol on it—one your memories would recognize. My projection is following the thread through the timeline."
"You may have already sensed it, even without knowing what you were sensing." She looked at Tim. "Even without his memories, Bruce's instincts are still functioning. But he's like a stone dropped into a still lake—no matter how small or carefully placed, every ripple changes the water. The distortions run across the entire timeline. Some are minor. Some aren't. The strongest concentrations will be closest to home."
Her hand made a slow circle, indicating the manor around them.
What's different here? Dick and Damian exchanged a glance. They genuinely couldn't see it.
"Timeline overlap typically overwrites the elderly first. Some of what you remember has shifted—small differences, but they're there."
Skeptical looks from the younger ones. She suggested they try a few questions with Alfred.
It took less than a minute. His answers didn't quite line up with theirs. He looked faintly confused himself. He suggested they see for themselves—and led them toward the manor's east wing gallery.
Thea had nothing pressing, so she followed along.
Wayne Manor was immense. It couldn't match Chatsworth House for historical prestige, but in sheer acreage it was another matter—nearly twenty-one hundred acres total. Among private estates in the United States, it ranked at the very top: twice the footprint of Queen Manor.
Without household staff—Batman's paranoia didn't allow for them—upkeep fell entirely on Alfred. Asking an elderly man to maintain a property this size alone was its own form of cruelty. The family mostly kept to the western wing; the eastern galleries and grand rooms had been largely ignored.
Bruce had never been comfortable with the wealth his family had accumulated. The painted faces of his ancestors had been relocated somewhere he wouldn't have to look at them. The gallery they were heading to now sat at the far end of the east wing.
A long corridor connected them to it. The dust in here was thick. Alfred's impeccable training showed as he kept up an easy commentary, redirecting their attention before Thea—a woman of some standing—could form opinions about the housekeeping situation.