Chapter Text
Remember the part when he said he didn't want the Bats and the Birds to know—only because they would complicate things and this was his business. He was entitled to privacy thank you very much.
Yeah that was going well, until it wasn't. Keeping his work in Gotham separate from the work he 'discovers' through his private channels and connections was easy.
Key word: was.
His little compromise does in fact get found out but at the very least the Bats take it with stride and the fallout isn't some overdramatized spectacle that left the hero community gossiping for weeks and Bruce with a permanent pulse on his forehead...Right?
And even if it was all of that, he did reveal it on his own terms—kinda. It was more of a his case getting mixed up with some absolute bullshit and other people butting in and then he lowkey forgot they were there and he was pressed for time and just did the first thing that he'd knew would work type of thing but whatever.
It's still a mess.
Ra's really does make his life so difficult.
Tim groaned into his pillow, irritation gnawing at him at having his sleep interrupted the second time this night—or was it morning yet? He really hoped it wasn't. He wanted to go back bed. Fumbling for his phone, the perpetrator for waking him up. He doesn't even bother looking at the screen as he answers the call.
A muffled hello is all he manages out before the person on the other end basically yells in his ears.
"Sorry not sorry to wake you up but what's your password to the Anderson case file?" Dick asks.
He mutters a curse, cursing the fact Dick is making him use his brain so early in the morning or late at night—or whatever time is was.
"Uhh—it's 02D01W."
He can hear typing over the call and a second passes before his other brain cell flickers to life, "Wait, why are you asking?"
"Your case somehow crashed and landed right in the middle of that missing cursed jewelry thing I'm working with Zatanna on."
"Oh."
"Real nasty stuff. I'll tell you about it when you actually wake up. Night Tim." Dick all but rushed out then hung up.
He brings his phone down from his ear and squints at his screen, "…right."
He did go back sleep and woke up at a respectable hour, noon.
He actually does forget all about Dick bothering him until that night when he overhears Dick talking on his communicator with someone about it and is finally brought up to speed. Turns out his case on the rising power in the drug related underworld, the Anderson siblings, were smuggling more than just drugs and instead some recently missing magical items.
Madame Xanadu and Zatanna had been tracking the items and tracked one hidden in a shipping container with copious amounts of spiral (a new hallucinogen that the Anderson siblings had been distributing). The container had been intercepted at sea, but it had been on course for Gotham habour so Zatanna had contacted Dick if he had any intel on any spiral distributors in Gotham and hence why Dick was asking for access to his case file earlier.
And since it was Tim's case first Dick would have to pry it from his cold dead fingers if he wanted to swipe it so now Tim was working with them all. Funny, how it everything all works out in the end—is what he would say if things actually did work out.
While searching for the second magical item, Madame Xanadu gave him the run down on the items. They had originated from some ancient cult about some ancient all-powerful deity which actually turned out to not be a deity but a 'body hijacking immortal parasite'—her words not his, apparently its name was incomprehensible to human ears, so parasite was good enough. It was from another plane of existence, simply dubbed the beyond and it would better for everyone if it stayed there. Which said items would mess up.
Those items were used so that the parasite could travel from the beyond and inhabit and control a body. They worked as some kind of doorway, whomever worn all four items, the necklace, ring, and the two matching earrings would become a gateway for the parasite to enter this world.
It would be able to possess the 'original' host and then jump to other prey. And it would only be able to be banished back to the beyond if it was possessing the original host and this elaborate incantation was placed on them. Not impossible but not something that anyone wanted to do.
Also, one other key detail, all the people it had possessed would die once it was banished. The last time it was banished, about 4 millennia ago the causality count was millions. So, making sure all the items were not being taken to wherever they were supposed to be transported to was imperative.
Now one might ask, where are these pieces being transported to and that's a good question and it didn't take a lot of digging to find out. It turns out one of the main buyers of spiral on the eastern seaboard, this new cult, Emergent, funded by Lionel Mitchell, some rich guy with way too much time and money on his hands wanted the items for the 'vessel of god' (which of course was himself) to wear and decided to employ the guys that brings in his drugs.
Zatanna wasn't all too sure if the guy knew the true purpose of the items or someone in the cult was egging him on to get said items for their own visions of chaos. Tim was of the belief it was someone else egging him because Lionel didn't seem too smart, but it was whatever, as long as they got that jewelry it would be fine.
Finding and acquiring the second piece, one of the earrings, had a lot more explosions that he would have liked but he didn't even like that cape that much anyway and they crushed one of the major labs making spiral, so it was an overall success.
All they had to do now was find the other earring.
But since the world is so cruel to him it isn't that simple.
.
.
.
.
Dick and Tim had been in the cave recuperating after the mission, trying to trace routes in which the last item might have gone down while the sorceresses would try to narrow down the area using magic. Zatanna had just hung up after telling them the other earring was somewhere near North Carolina when Damian exited the showers having been using the gym.
Dick was mumbling something about a supply company, searching it up on the Bat computer while Tim leaned back, his eyes locked onto the illustration of the ring (there were no pictures of it) in the corner of the Bat computer screen.
The ring was not one of the recently missing items out of the set as it had been missing for the last century. Zatanna had theorized the cult found it so keeping any more out of their hands was imperative or as Madame Xanadu said they might be looking for the ring as well.
But it was bugging him, something about it was…familiar.
It takes a moment for the question to register in his brain before he turns to Damian.
"What?"
With both Dick and his attention on him Damian pauses, his water bottle halfway to his mouth.
"That ring," he points out, "is my grandfather's. I was only wondering why Drake was staring at it like an idiot."
"Shut u—"
"Are you sure it's his?" Dick cuts in.
Damian rolls his eyes, "Yes I'm sure. He's been wearing it since I can remember."
Oh.
Well isn't that just perfect?
Damian stalks off, simply done with the two while Dick calls Zatanna. Internally he sighs.
Would now be a good time to mention he had gotten the Anderson case from one of Ra's networks?
No? Oh ok.