A headache grew from his temples as he hunched over the little plastic egg in his hand. He was sitting on the chair at the batcomputer, his body still aching from the shock of resurrection. His kids were all hovering around him, herding him to different familiar locations like sheepdogs with one single unruly ram.
“Explain it to me again,” he said through a heavy sigh.
“ well”, Dick began. “you were dead and Tim said there was a way to bring you back to life. And I’ve found that most things in my life go better if I just believe Tim. So we decided to get you back.”
“We hiked a mountain!” Steph cut in.
“And fought a ghost,” Jason said helpfully.
“And had high tea with the Queen of England,” added Cass.
“And all that led us to a captured genie who would grant us one wish if we freed her from imprisonment.”
The headache between Bruce’s temples grew.
“Alright,” he said slowly. “ but why am I holding an… egg?”
“ Resurrection is very delicate business,” said Tim with a nod. “ she couldn’t just bring you back without any caveats, but she could bring you back if your life force was tied to a physical object. Which is what you’re holding in your hand.”
Bruce looking down. The plastic egg was a translucent blue egg that had a small screen in the center of it. Inside the screen a small pixelated bat jumped up and down in apparent joy.
“Why is it a…” Bruce struggled to read the brand name. “Tam-mag-oti?”
“A tamagotchi,” Damian corrected. “It’s a virtual pet system.”
“But why this thing?”
Dick’s eyes slid to Tim and Tim looked off in the distance as his cheeks reddened.
“It’s what we had on us at the time. Damian had it in his pocket.”
Bruce didn’t even know how to compute the fact that his life span was now apparently tied to a fake bat that lived in a piece of plastic that looked like it came from the dollar store.
“Just focus on the bright side!” Dick chirped, practically bouncing in place. “Bruce is back to life and all we need to do to keep him alive is to make sure that Tim keeps the tamagotchi alive.”
Bruce’s blood ran cold. No, not Tim. Tim, who could never remember his antibiotics. Tim, who could never remember to go to bed each night. Tim, who couldn’t keep a betta fish alive for one month when Damian had to go to Asia for a mission.
“why Tim?” Bruce demanded.
Tim’s cheeks got redder.
“The genie thought Tim was really cute.”
